Back in 2010, during her bachelor party, Rachelle Friedman’s best friend playfully pushed her into a swimming pool. Friedman, a month away from her nuptials, hit her head on the bottom of the pool. She suffered a spinal cord injury that left her unable to feel anything below her collarbone.
It didn’t stop her from getting married, however, and not only did she eventually marry her intended, her and her husband had a child through a surrogate earlier this year.
Now, Rachel Friedman Chapman is intent upon changing perceptions of the disabled, determined to show positive representations of both sexuality and disability. She set out to buck stereotypes that suggest disabled people are not attractive, sexual beings, and she’s doing just that:
“I’m doing this for those who can’t see past a wheelchair,” Friedman-Chapman wrote. “I’m doing it to show that we are capable, sexual beings and we are not to be overlooked. I’m not glamorizing disability. My paralysis is an awful part of my life and I hope for a cure. But, in the meantime I need to love myself.
In furthering her #WhatMakesMeSexy hashtag, Chapman posed for these photographs, which she posted to her Instagram.
I’d say she’s doing a very good job of changing those perceptions. Her photos have been liked more than 16,000 times, and shared more than 5,000 times.