Dylan Alcott and girlfriend Chantelle Otten discuss sex and disability
The Paralympic champion and his sexologist girlfriend are pulling back the curtain on their private lives to lead the conversation on sex and disability.
Stellar
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He’s a three-time Paralympic gold medallist, a trailblazer for people with disabilities, a media commentator, a motivational speaker, the winner of last year’s Logie for Most Popular New Talent and a recipient of the Order of Australia medal.
Yet as Dylan Alcott confesses, he was totally out of his comfort zone on his first date with a woman whose job title reads “sexologist”.
“I had no idea what a sexologist was but it intrigued me, for sure,” he tells Stellar, sharing the details of the first evening he spent with his girlfriend Chantelle Otten.
“I was so intimidated and nervous but I think everybody would be nervous going on a date with her. It was like playing tennis with Roger Federer.”
To calm his nerves, he reasoned that she’d be equally ill at ease. “I think she was nervous too because she’d never been out with someone in a wheelchair so, as you say in tennis, it was 15-all.”
Fortunately the pair, who’d connected via social media after Otten turned up at one of Alcott’s book readings, moved quickly on from the planned conversation about disability and sex and into other areas of their lives. Hours later they were still talking and, two years on, they haven’t stopped.
Now, a few weeks since Alcott returned from the French Open in Europe where he cemented his reputation as one of the all-time greats of wheelchair tennis with an 11th quad singles grand slam victory, the pair are excited at the prospect of their first interview and photo shoot together, and being featured on the cover of Stellar.
As Alcott says, when he was growing up there were no people in wheelchairs on the covers of magazines. He’s too modest to take credit for it but the reason that’s since changed is due, in part, to the important work he’s done to destigmatise disability.
Indeed, he and Otten, who moved in together in Melbourne within months of meeting, are prepared to go further and discuss their intimate life in the hope their experience will embolden others to have conversations about disability and sexuality.
Otten, a psychologist with a master’s degree in science in medicine (sexual and reproductive health), acknowledges that it remains a taboo subject. “A lot of people think people with a disability don’t have sex but I’m having the best sex of my life and it’s important for me to say that,” she says.
“There are people out there who might have a crush on someone with a disability but aren’t confident to ask questions about it. They need to know that these sex lives are important and erotic and achievable, and they can build a life together.”
For Alcott, 30, who became a paraplegic as a baby following surgery to remove a tumour on his spinal cord, advocating for people with disabilities has always been a greater driver than his sporting success.
And, as he tells Stellar, being candid about intimacy in the context of disability is as important as talking about employment, travel, banking and playing sport. “So many of the 4.4 million people in Australia with a disability struggle with dating and sex,” he says.
“I know that when I was a teenager I wondered, ‘Can I do it?’ and ‘How do I do it?’ I questioned whether anyone would love me because I’m in a wheelchair. I want to change the misconception that [disabled] people can’t have sex or be in relationships or fall in love. The only way to destigmatise it is to talk about it.”
The glamorous Otten, who turns 30 next week, has clearly brought great satisfaction to Alcott’s life, and her upbringing makes her well placed to help him on his mission to advance understanding about disability.
Having grown up with an elder sister who is intellectually disabled, she is attuned to the needs of the community and provides support, education and advice throughher Melbourne clinics, online sex therapy sessions, podcasts and Instagram, on which she has 82,000 followers.
Her work centres around helping people with varying issues and circumstances become empowered to lead a healthy sex life, and she is pleased that she and Alcott are helping others.
“The way sex education is taught it’s all about penetration and orgasm and that rules out a whole heap of people in the LGBTIQ+ and disability communities,” she says. “I know a lot of my patients with disability struggle with the medical system because it deals with sexuality from a functional point of view.
“Dylan and I are quite private but it’s important to get the word out. For me, working with people and having them know I’m in a relationship with someone with a disability is great.”
As they complete each other’s sentences and speak enthusiastically about the nine weeks they recently spent together while Alcott played at the US and French Opens, they reflect on their serendipitous meeting. Alcott laughs as he recalls that he almost cancelled the book reading because he hadn’t promoted it enough.
In the event, as he looked out at the 600-strong audience, he was immediately drawn to the tall, slim brunette standing at the back of the room.
She was similarly attracted: “I had this overwhelming feeling, which I’ve never really had before. I really wanted to talk to him but he looked like a really popular guy and it wasn’t the right space or environment.”
Much to Alcott’s dismay, Otten left. Fortunately she posted the event on her Instagram stories, which enabled the athlete to make contact.
As they celebrate two years together, Alcott says travelling with Otten during the pandemic has only increased his admiration for her. Having campaigned vociferously against the discriminatory decision to leave the wheelchair tennis out of the truncated US Open tournament, he was determined to attend the event when it was reinstated.
But with his coach unable to travel with him, Otten stepped in as coach, manager and bag handler. Both say they got on brilliantly during the time away, even with Otten making 4am work calls back to Australia.
Says Alcott: “It was very different not to have my coach with me, but the way Chanty stepped into that role was unbelievable. If you’d asked her one question about tennis 18 months ago she wouldn’t have known anything. Now she knows everything and I’d have been stuffed without her. We weren’t allowed to leave our hotel in New York, Nice, Cannes and Paris unless we were going to the tennis, so we spent all our time together.”
While he says it was strange playing at a grand slam without an audience, Alcott was pleased the organisers of the US Open changed their decision and allowed the wheelchair tennis to go ahead. While he lost in the singles final to Dutch player Sam Schroder, the Aussie’s victory in the doubles title as well as the singles win at the French Open made their trip – which culminated in two weeks in NSW quarantine on their return – well worth the effort.
But far from basking in the glory, the former champion wheelchair basketballer and 2016 Australian Paralympian of the Year has returned to Australia to focus on what he regards as his real work.
“My true purpose in life is changing perceptions around people with disabilities so they can live the lives they deserve to live,” he says emphatically. “I love playing sport because it gives me a platform to do what I’m most passionate about and I’d be wasting my life if I wasn’t using that platform to change things.”
He points out, for instance, that only 53 per cent of working-age Australians with a disability are currently in the labour market and finding suitable employment, and unemployment is double that of able-bodied people.
Through the Dylan Alcott Foundation, the athlete continues to help young disabled people gain confidence through mentoring, grants and scholarships, while partnerships with brands such as Longines allow him to shine a corporate spotlight on those with disabilities.
As he tells Stellar: “Longines is all about pioneering and breaking down those barriers and that’s what I try to do every single day. I’m not going to partner with everyone who offers to sponsor me – there has to be a synergy, and Longines has a really cool ethos and commitment to changing stereotypes.”
While the postponement of international sporting events has left many athletes without a purpose, the rescheduling of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games for next August has given Alcott more time to kickstart a new business.
He recently launched Able Foods, a profit-for-purpose start-up that supplies ready-made meals and provides job opportunities for those with disability across the country.
The price of a meal is less than $3 for eligible participants on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Alcott is proud of the remoulded texture-modified meals that allow those with a high level of disability to eat a plate of food that looks normal.
“Some people can’t chew or eat properly so their meals are blended up. They really feel the loss of dignity, so we’ve reformed the blended meals to look like a normal meal you might order.” On the day they spoke to Stellar, Alcott had lunched on the chicken parmigiana, while Otten had the spaghetti bolognaise. Both declared them to be “delicious”.
While the couple avoided Melbourne’s lockdown while overseas, they’re tentatively positive about the city’s number of what they call “doughnut days” – when no new cases of COVID are reported. Many people with disabilities are immunocompromised and hadn’t left their homes since March, Alcott points out, adding that he didn’t agree with the term “social distancing”.
The better term would be “physical distancing”, he says, urging those who know someone with a disability to keep in touch. “Keep checking in and please keep wearing masks because you’re protecting the most vulnerable.
Coming home has meant Otten has been able to see her new niece, Florence, and the pair has reunited with their seven-month-old dachshund Sauce, who was helpfully returned toilet-trained following a stay with Otten’s dad and step-mum.
But more than anything, the time away cemented the strength of their feelings for each other. Alcott says he’s “stoked” by how well they got on – “we just love each other so much” – while Otten laughingly admits that she was a little concerned about being alone for so long with only each other for company.
“I used to look at people and think, how do they spend every second together? But I was thrilled by how we got along,” she says. Indeed, she believes the time together has made them stronger than ever.
“I look at Dylan and I’m so proud of who he is and what he does and how he holds himself.” She pauses. “And I think he feels exactly the same about me.”
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