We are two queers who started a website on restaurant/bar/shop accessibility at Where’s Lulu.Com and we recently started doing podcasts where we talk about sex, relationships, and disability. Hope you'll check them out.
Check out to new Queers who are joining the Sex And Disability discussion. I haven’t checked them out yet, but I wanted to give them a nod anyways because, you know, us Sex Activists with Disabilities, or who love PWD got to stick together!
So tonight I checked out the QWO (Queer Women of Ottawa) Poly coffee group. It was smile but very enjoyable. Met two lovely woman, the instigator, a lesbian who is owner of the site, I'll call her "TheInstigator," and a young woman just about to turn 18 I'll call "BabyByke." Anyways, BabyByke says to me at one point, "you know, you sound and look awfully familiar, have I read your blog?" And I'm like, "probably not," and then she looks at me and says, "OMG!!! Do you write SexAbility?" I nodded, "OMG I love that blog, I'm addicted to it." (to paraphrase)
I have to say, aside from about five people I didn't know people actually read it. Mostly my fault because I haven't marketed it at all, etc. as quite frankly, I didn't want all the hassle of online bullying etc. But apparently, according to her a fair amount of people quote it and read it. LOL Now, HOW good did THAT make me feel? You know?
And the Goddess, she always does this to me. Just when I'm ready to give up on BDSM, she'll bring someone into my life, who makes me rethink the giving it up, or quitting it concept. Just when I'm pretty much decided to shut SexAbility down, I'm brought someone who makes me rethink that decision. Now, I suppose that could be a negative, because maybe I'm suppose to make a decision and move on, that's the lesson I'm supposed to be learning. But I generally take it as a "don't stop, don't give up," lesson instead.
Anyways, I'm NOT famous, none of us adding stuff to this stuff are, but you know, it made me feel pretty good and really validated. An almost eighteen year old is reading SexAbility, a sister with disabilities, how cool is that? *all proud* You all should feel good too. And so now...I'm pondering redoing the site, and marketing it and doing more with it. I've been thinking of that for quite some while, but had decided recently due to something that happened to stop doing the Sex and Disability stuff as it's just too painful, putting yourself out there. But more about that at a later date. :)
Needless to say, it made my night! LOL
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disability politics,
personal
I've just encountered the work of a fabulous Australian female poet, Sandy Jeffs, who lives with schizophrenia. In fact, she's done so for the last thirty three years of her life. She lives with voices in her head that constantly reprimand, loath and jeer at her, but she's resisting them. She is a highly accomplished poet and it is to the credit of Australian feminists at Spinifex Press that they have published her previous work (although I suspect some SM dykes might have some problems with one of their other authors, pro-censorship/transphobic/anti-leather lesbian feminst Sheila Jeffreys).
That said, though, Sandy has another book out- Flying With Wings: Reflections on Living With Madness (North Carlton, Victoria: Vulgar Press). She talks about growing up in an abusive family, psych wards and anti-psych survivor ableism in the 'outside world.' Happily, it's also about black humour, resistance and survival. Sandy is also involved in a way cool virtual reality project at the University of Queensland that teaches those of us who don't share her experiences what it is like to live with schizophrenia.
Okay, so she's not LGBT, to my knowledge. So what? This woman is still our sister, and I celebrate her survival and her courage and her creative wisdom.
Recommended:
Karina Kelley: "Virtual Reality: Psychosis" ABC Australia 13.02.03: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s777317.htm
Helen Elliott: "An insight to counter fear of the mentally ill" Melbourne Age: 07.11.09: http://www.theage.com.au/action/printArticle?id=842912
Sandy Jeffs email: meekz05_sweetsugal@hotmail.com
I’m giving a short, one hour workshop on womens sexuality and disability. Not alot of time I know, so I wanted to know folks perspectives on some major “issues,” to raise. Here’s some of the things I figured I’d talk about, but you know, the issue is soooo broad, I’m sure we could talk forever.
1. Please Someone, Anyone…Sexually Objectify Us. – assumption that all women are sexually objectified by men, is an ablist assumption that denies the reality of a majority of women with physical and visible disabilities, who are many times desexualized, infantilized, etc. The need for websites, calendars, and so forth that show women with disabilities WITH their disabilities on display: wheelchairs, canes, breathing masks, etc. as sexual beings and not medical objects of curiousity.
2. She’s looking for a caretaker Mommy – the assumption that WWD (in lesbian world anyways) are looking for caretakers, and not hot, rocking sex.
3. Oh “Yeah!” she’s got disabilities, she won’t WANT to have sex, I’ll date her so I won’t have to deal with sexual intimacy. The assumption that WWD don’t want to be fucked and fucked dirty or hard, but simply gently “cuddled.”
4. The assumption that so called “Vanilla Sex,” DOESN’T leave major bruising, and DOESN’T cause major, excruciating pain, is fundementally ablist and denies the realities of millions of WWD who 24/7 live life in pain, and all touch causes pain and suffering even the most gentlest of touch, and who don’t distinguish a line between pain and sex.
5. Talking about Good Pain VS Bad Pain similiar to Good Touch/Bad Touch with sexual abuse, instead of saying “all pain during sex is wrong, bad and abusive,” kind of anti sex perspective.
6. The need for us to have professional Sex Care Workers, paid by the government, like professional Home Care Workers to care for our touch and sexuality needs.
7. Isolation and loss of Social Skills that go with this, lead to problems even getting dates, or fitting in with groups to socialize. More emphasis needed on helping queer women with disabilities FIT into the group, and the group fit around them, instead of simply judging them for being odd, loud, different, poor social skills etc. HELP them, instead of judging and shaming them.
8. BDSM and Disability Community – large degree of People into BDSM are people with disabilities, who use BDSM as a way to manage their chronic pain, eroticize their medical and social realities, and find ways to explore their sexuality that isn’t of the TAB missionary style behavior. BDSM as physio therapy as well as sexual therapy, etc.
Other ideas, topics? Then I’ll focus and whittle them down….
I see that there's some quite justifiable anger here at the excuses made for celebrity rapist Roman Polanski. However, let's also spare a thought for other victims of abuse and homicidal violence...within the UK disabled communities.
Like New Zealand, Britain’s Criminal Justice Act 2003 has a provision related to criminalisation of hate crimes, which includes sexual orientation, gender identity…and disability. It is the latter that I want to focus on here.
Last month, Geoff Adams, BBC disability issues correspondent, referred to an apparent spate of antidisability hate crimes in the United Kingdom. He started with the suicides of Fiona Pilkington and her disabled daughter after prolonged harrassment from local thugs. However, there are other such incidents, tragically enough, as he relates:
In 2007, Christine Lakinski, a woman in her 50s with learning and physical disabilities, was taunted, urinated upon and sprayed with shaving foam as she lay dying in the street. [Why does this remind me of the similar horrific case of Tyra Banks, a New York transwoman who was denied medical treatment and died, because of the facile transphobia of so-called ‘emergency staff?- c]
In 2007, too, Brent Martin, a young man with learning disabilities, was kicked and beaten to death by a gang on the estate where he lived in north-east England.
It wasn’t the first such case, either:
In the Forest of Dean, Elizabeth James told me about her son, Kevin Davies, who had been preyed upon by three people, confined to a shed and systematically tortured until he died in 2006.
And it hasn’t stopped since then, either:
In January 2009, three young men were jailed for gang-raping a 16 year-old girl with learning disabilities. The filmed their attack on mobile phones.
In order to destroy any forensic evidence, she was doused with caustic soda which left her in a coma and permanently disfigured.
As far as I am concerned, these are all demonstrable hate crimes and acts of aggravated assault and homicide directed against people with disabilities. However, try telling that to presiding judges. Commendably, the Pilkington tragedy has prompted recognition of the seriousness of antidisability hate crime, at least in the United Kingdom. The UK Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, and former Director of Public Prosecutions, Alan Johnson, have raised the issue and it looks like there will be action.
What about Canada, or New Zealand? Is it time that we revisited our hate crimes legislation, and fine-tuned it? Shouldn't we be raising these issues in the LGBT communities, rape crisis centres, and LGBT antiviolence prevention groups, as well as the disability rights movement? I've also mailed this in my Gaynz.Com bloggers column, so I hope there's some response.
Strongly recommended:
Geoff Adams-Spink: Focus on Disability Hate Crime: BBC News: 29.09.09: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ifs_news/hi/newsid_8280000/8280577.stm
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