A disabled man in an interable couple has joked about the proportion of his private parts while opening up about intimacy with his loving abled-bodied girlfriend.
Shane Burcaw, 27, from Pennsylvania, was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a neuromuscular disease that causes muscles to deteriorate over time. He has been in an electric wheelchair since he was two years old and can barely move his legs, arms, and hands.
Him and his fiancée Hannah Aylward, 23, answered fans’ questions about how they manage intimacy in their interabled relationship in their latest video shared on their popular ‘Squirmy and Grubs’ YouTube channel.
In the Q&A, Shane quipped his private parts were not proportionate to his small body, and made his beloved burst with laughed as he assured viewers ‘everything down there’ works ‘wonderfully.’
Shane Burcaw, 27, from Pennsylvania, who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, discussed his ‘manhood’ during a Q&A with his able-bodied girlfriend Hannah Aylward
The couple’s relationship started when Hannah reached out to the writer and public speaker after watching a documentary that ‘The Office’ actor Rainn Wilson produced about his life.
In the email, she complimented Shane on his sense of humor and his writing before admitting that she thought he was very cute. They got to know each other through FaceTime calls and text messages and eventually fell in love.
Shane and Hannah launched their YouTube channel to better educate people about interabled relationships, and to combat the taboos and stereotypes that they often come up against.
In a new series of videos, they are opening up specifically about the more intimate aspects of their romance, answering questions about their sex life in an attempt to disprove the ‘damaging stereotype’ that interabled couples don’t have sex.
When one of their followers asked whether his ‘private parts’ were normal and could function, the couple made sure to clear any doubt about Shane’s performance.
‘Yes to both of those questions,’ Hannah replied.
In their latest video in a series about intimacy in their relationship, Shane joked everything ‘works, feels and is wonderful,’ as Hannah laughed
‘A lot of people think that because you have a muscle wasting disease, that it’s different, but it is not,’ she added.
Shane was quick to joke about the subject, stating his manhood was more than adequate.
‘I don’t know how to phrase this,’ he said, ‘but my head is not proportional to the size of my body and one other part of me is not quite proportional.’
Hannah scoffed and laughed as he added: ‘I’ll let you assume what it is, it’s not my toes.’
He went on to say he made it clear to Hannah when they started dating that she had nothing to ‘worry’ about.
‘I told you: Everything down there works and looks and is wonderful,’ he quipped.
Hannah said she could confirm everything ‘worked,’ before Shane added that one particular part of his body was not proportionate to his frame
Hannah was quick to reply he had in fact not used the word ‘wonderful,’ before admitting he had used ‘fantastic’ instead.
The couple have decided to share information about their sex life to educate other on what physical love was like for interabled couples.
When launching the series of videos, they gave a swift disclaimer to their family and friends ‘not to watch’ or not to discuss its contents with them.
The couple have dedicated two videos to discussing their ‘intimacy’ to open people’s eyes to the reality of sex and disability.
Shane explained that while they have made it a point to keep their private life private, there is a lot of misinformation and stigma surrounding disability and intimacy that they wanted to dispel.
In the first part of the series, they used the word ‘intimacy’ as an umbrella term to ‘refer to any number of sexual acts’ to keep from divulging too much.
The couple met three years ago over email and are now happily engaged. They wanted to shed light on their relationship by creating their Youtube channel Squirmy and Grubs
Two become one: Hannah said she knows Shane’s body as well as she knows her own
‘When we say intimacy, we mean sex. We mean other sexual acts,’ Shane noted.
The couple has previously spoken about their desire to have children together, with Shane explaining in an old post on his blog that he is ‘perfectly capable of having sex.’
‘I get boners and my boners shoot sperm, so having kids is a real option,’ he wrote at the time.
‘A lot of people assume it doesn’t exist,’ Hannah said of the physical side of their relationship in their first intimacy-focused Q&A.
‘That’s a really damaging stereotype for all disabled people when you assume that disabled people aren’t sexually active.’
In that same video, the couple also shut down suggestions that Shane is ‘fragile’, putting an end to any suggestion that his condition makes it impossible for them to be intimate.
Hannah admitted that she was somewhat afraid of hurting Shane when they first started dating, saying she would ask to move any part of him before doing so.
Hannah, pictured in Prague with Shane, said she wanted to bust the myth that disabled people and able people could not share fulfilling sex lives
Changing minds: The couple explained that there is a lot of misinformation and stigma surrounding disability and intimacy that they want to dispel
‘I remember you being like, “I don’t want to break you,”‘ Shane recalled, joking that he would tell her: ‘Just break me, go ahead.’
Hannah noted that he is ‘a lot less fragile’ than he looks, while he added that he is also very mindful’ of his own safety. Even after years together, he still reminds Hannah to be careful when she is putting his socks on for him.
‘Shane is very cautious about his body movements — and you verbalize it,’ she said. ‘I pretty much know how every single part of your body can move and to what extent and to what direction. I know his body as well as I know mine now.’
The couple did, however, admit that years ago Hannah had him screaming in pain ‘at the end of intimacy’ after she leaned in to give him a kiss and squished his elbow.
Another fan asked if their sex life has benefitted from their need for constant verbal communication, and they both agreed that able-bodied couples should strive to be just as communicative.
‘I think our intimate life does benefit from that and saying what both of us want and figuring out how to get it,’ Hannah said. ‘Because I think a lot of the time if you’re doing cookie-cutter whatever, it might not be completely what both people are dreaming of having.’
Shane added: ‘When I’m on the giving end of intimacy, I am very prone to be like, ‘Is this good? Is this fine? How’s this? Is this alright?” Hannah is often like, “Shut up.”‘
Someone else asked if Hannah feels like she is the ‘dominant’ one in the relationship because she has to comfort Shane and initiate intimacy, but she insisted that isn’t the case.
She explained that her husband-to-be has a ‘very outgoing personality’ and is really affectionate. While he can’t get up to give her a hug, he will call her over and ask her to lean in so he can kiss her or hold her hand.
‘I like to be physically affectionate,’ he said. ‘I am always doing whatever I can to embrace Hannah.’
When the duo first met online, Hannah says Shane’s disability didn’t even factor into the conversation.
In fact Hannah, who is a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, never mentioned Shane’s disability when she first emailed him three years ago while he was living in Pennsylvania.
Affectionate: While Shane can’t get up to give Hannah a hug, he will call her over and ask her to lean in so he can kiss her or hold her hand
The couple are determined to dispel myths about intimacy in inter-abled relationships in their new YouTube series
In the email, she complimented Shane, who writes books and attends talks about his disability, on his sense of humor and his writing before admitting she thought he was very cute.
‘I knew right away that I needed to know this person,’ Shane said.
‘I’ll never forget the way my heart felt so light and beat so rapidly as I willed my atrophied fingers to type out a response as quickly as they could manage.’
The relationship blossomed to include long FaceTime calls and text messages until both realized they were very much in love with each other.
Hannah visited Shane first in Pennsylvania where they spent four days getting to know one another. Both then realized they wanted to make a long distance relationship work.
In 2018, the couple moved in together in an apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota, so Hannah could finish up her final years at her university.