More Attractive, More Heterosexual, Less Sexual? Perceptions of People with Physical Disabilities Across Observer Sex and Sexual Orientation.

Appearance-based cues are used to inform social evaluations of others' likely sexual orientation and preferences. For people with physical disabilities (PWPD), whose appearances may be perceived as disrupting dominant norms of gender and sexuality, this reliance on visual cues, when combined with pervasive stereotypes of asexuality, may contribute to sexual discrimination and disenfranchisement. Despite this, quantitative research examining perceptions of the sexuality of PWPD remains limited. Therefore, the present study investigated how physical disability influenced perceptions of sociosexuality, sexual orientation, and attractiveness across observers of varying sex and sexual orientation. A sample of 189 adults without physical disabilities, equally weighted for sex and sexual orientation, rated images depicting individuals with visible limb loss and cropped images excluding the area of limb loss. Results showed that PWPD were rated lower in unrestricted sociosexuality compared to non-disabled individuals, while men rated physically disabled men higher in restricted sociosexuality than non-disabled men. Gay and lesbian participants rated men with physical disabilities as more heterosexual than nondisabled men. Contrary to expectations, PWPD were also rated as more attractive than their non-disabled counterparts, with interactions revealing that stimulus disability neutralized the male preference for female targets and induced a female target preference among gay and lesbian perceivers. Overall, the findings indicate the persistence of desexualizing stereotypes and the presence of heteronormative assumptions toward PWPD, extending theoretical understandings of how their sexuality is perceived.