Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down While Chronically Ill and Disabled

by Jessica Slice, Caroline Cupp

Overview

A much-needed guide for disabled and chronically ill people to dating - from apps to hooking up, sex, and more - from disabled essayist and author Jessica Slice and bioethicist Caroline Cupp.

Disabled people date, have casual sex, marry, and parent. Yet our romantic lives are conspicuously absent from the media and cultural conversation. Sexual education does not typically address the specific information needed by disabled students. Mainstream dating apps fail to include disability as an aspect of one’s identity alongside race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation. The few underutilized disability-focused apps are paternalistic and unappealing. Bestselling dating books do not address disability, and the few relationship books marketed to disabled people focus on the mechanics of sex rather than the complex interactions that create the conditions for it.

In Dateable, disabled authors Jessica Slice Caroline Cupp team up to address the serious gap in the dating space. Dateable is the first book on disabled dating and relationships; it’s a dating guide made especially for disabled and chronically ill people, that also calls in nondisabled readers. Jessica and Caroline take on everything from rom-com representation and dating apps to sex and breakups with a strong narrative underpinning and down-to-earth advice. The book is as much a practical tool as it is an empowering guide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306832734
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	07/09/2024
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,034,149
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jessica Slice is a disabled author and essayist who has published essays The New York Times’s Modern Love column, in Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Hippocampus, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and HuffPost. Her upcoming book about parenting with a disability, UNFIT PARENT, will be published by Beacon Press. She has been featured on Longreads, Suleika Jaoud’s newsletter, on Judy Heumann's podcast, on iHeart Radio's Lovestruck, and is a regular participant on disability panels and podcasts. Thousands of monthly readers engage with her disability-related newsletter. She is a graduate of Davidson College and Columbia University and lives in Ontario with her husband and child.
 
Caroline Cupp is an author, bioethicist, and progressive faith leader. Born with cerebral palsy, she is one of the only disabled clergy to have led a large religious congregation in the United States. Caroline’s work has been featured in Reflections (the journal of the Yale Divinity School) and Presbyterian Outlook, and she has contributed to several podcasts on the subjects of faith and disability. A graduate of Davidson College, Yale Divinity School, and the University of Pennsylvania, Caroline focuses on the intersections of health, justice, and meaning-making. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and son.
Together, Jessica and Caroline have written three forthcoming picture books, all celebrating disability and published by Dial (Penguin Random House). 

Editorial Reviews

05/13/2024

Essayist Slice and minister Cupp (coauthors of the picture book This Is How We Play) team up for a noteworthy relationship guide for disabled people. Drawing on personal experience (Slice’s dysautonomia began at 28, and Cupp was born with cerebral palsy) and enlightening interviews with people across the ability spectrum, the authors tackle such challenges as disclosing one’s disability on dating apps, discussing caregiver duties with partners, and having sex in spite of physical limitations. The guidance takes a flexible rather than prescriptive approach—for instance, the chapter on sex advises readers to “expand what sex means” beyond penetrative intercourse and experiment with new strategies, positions, and devices. Other sections explore the intersection between disability and queerness and the higher incidence of sexual assault against disabled people. Throughout, the authors are candid about the difficulties of dating in a society that prizes “spontaneity... and effortlessness” yet is riddled with access limitations for those with disabilities. With plenty of useful tips, stories, and encouragement for readers to fashion their own approaches, this is a valuable resource. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Dateable is all at once a warm hug, a frank conversation, and an essential guide. Every word jumped off the page and directly into my heart, helping to heal old wounds and instilling a sense that none of us are truly alone in navigating the rollercoaster of dating, sex, and love as disabled people. Now, if only this book could be required reading for anyone before they get to start swiping on an app or asking people on dates!—Emily Ladau, Author, Demystifying Disability: What To Know, What To Say, and How To Be an Ally

From the Publisher

★ 07/12/2024

Coauthors Slice and Cupp have explored a range of inclusivity-focused topics in their previous books for children. This title for adults aims to share the challenges and joys of navigating online dating as a chronically ill or disabled person. In the book's introduction, each author shares their own experiences and then frames them with nuanced analyses of what it means to navigate dating in "a society that stigmatizes disabled bodies and minds." They provide statistics, call out some of the language people use that is well-intentioned yet marginalizing or restigmatizing, and provide insights from interviews with chronically ill and disabled people, all undergirded by the authors' awareness of the complex nuances of intersectionality and their particular privilege as white cis women. VERDICT With its mix of astute cultural analyses, quippy personal anecdotes, and deeper dives into sociopolitical and theoretical factors, this book does more than show disabled and chronically ill people that they belong. It also serves as a reminder that it matters how one shows up on dating apps and in relationships, in order to counteract the systems that try to render invisible the people whose bodies don't conform to social norms.

Library Journal