Barbara's column

Do You Think I'm Sexy?

The other day, a friend of mine asked me this question as we were discussing her relationship problems with her boyfriend. It was a typical conversation between friends, turning to each other to try to figure out what draws people to one another. As we talked, I found myself describing a situation of a secret admiration someone has for me. She told me that she felt that this person and their attraction for me was bizarre. Later on that day, I thought about her reaction to my story of a secret admirer, and I felt my blood begin to boil.

What makes a person "sexy" is talked about everyday in the media, by the office water cooler, in personal conversations with friends. When someone is talking about their particular sexual attractions to a friend, there is no adverse response if that person says "I like blondes" or "I like race car drivers". People nod in recognition and the conversation continues. If a person says "I like people in wheelchairs" or "I like blind people", the conversations stops. And if the conversation continues, it is awash with questions of "why?, what for?" Or comments of "how weird?!"

What is it about the sexual attraction to the disabled? Why is it viewed as "distasteful"?

The disabled community knows about these "admirers". They call them devotees, and are not looked upon favorably. This abhorrence to these admirers stems from the disabled's inability to accept themselves as being sexually attractive. Many disabled people feel this way because they compare themselves to AB's and what AB's find desirable. Case in point. In America, one of the biggest industries is weight loss products. The key is "If you look like that model in our commercial/ad, your life will be better--people will like you more because you look like our model". The disabled culture is whammy'd with two sets of goals that society has set for us: 1) Get fixed so you can be AB again, 2) Get fixed to look like one of the accepted "beautiful people". Both of these "goals" are completely out of reach, therefore enforcing the concept that we should not be admired in any way-- except as an "inspiration" to the AB world for simply surviving.

I find the asexual concept of the disabled nauseating. The social stigmas that the disabled live with are unjust and unfounded. We are viewed as medical marvels, as beacons to the survival of the human spirit in the face of disaster. Not as human beings that live different physical lives. Not as NORMAL people in every other aspect of what it means to be human.

Case in point. Why are there no mainstream adult magazines for the disabled? In Playboy for example, we have been rarely featured. The existence of a printed or online publication of disabled people seen in a sexual fashion is part of a secret "underground". Sexual attraction for the disabled in any form is kept quiet, like pedophilia. WHY?

I feel it is because society has labeled the disabled culture as something that should not be sexually desired due to their "imperfections". In the AB world, we are broken people, twisted and deformed. The accepted belief is that to have an attraction to "sick" people is, in itself, a sickness. That is why the disabled devotees are fearful of having their sexual attraction known. That is why they take pictures of us in secret, form underground clubs on the internet exchanging these pictures, talking about us in whispers. That is why any attempt at a business venture involving the sale of disabled photographs must be shrouded in a thick curtain of anonymity. I have been told by an admirer of mine that he has to keep his sexual attraction of disabled women a dark secret from his AB wife. I asked him why. He said that if she found out about it, that she would view him as a deviant and probably divorce him. I found that highly offense. If he was sexually attracted to another type of woman, such as a blonde, I highly doubt his wife would label him "deviant". She would probably shrug it off, or just dye her hair!

I've also been told by the disabled community that only the devotees of our culture would buy a disabled sexual magazine . I find that an insult. Did Playboy begin with lesbians in mind? NO. But you can be damn sure lesbians buy it. Should Playboy be viewed as a lesbian magazine? NO. It has sexual appeal to both the straight and lesbian cultures. That is known, and accepted by our society.

With that in mind, I pose the obvious question. Why is it that people-- disabled and non-disabled-- think that an adult magazine featuring nude crips would be disgusting? I like looking at naked people. A lot of "normal" people do. Why shouldn't we be considered beautiful, and celebrated as such, in our own culture, and in mainstream society?

These "chains of shame" surrounding the disabled admirers, and ourselves, are ridiculous, to put it mildly. We -the disabled culture- feed this shame by abusing those who admire us. I do not want someone who is attracted to me to be looked at as a mentally ill person. If they are attracted to me because of my disability--and are humiliated for it--what does that make me? I'll tell you what that makes me--a FREAK. Something unnatural, deviant, abnormal. I am not those things. I am a woman in a wheelchair. I am attractive to a group of people just as I am. What is wrong with that?