George Dureau, Wing Ding At The Mantle, ca. 1980
The rationale behind shaming devotees is powerfully, if not exclusively, influenced by the stigmatization of disability.
Cut that shit out.
Not exclusively, it’s also wrapped up in societal fears of fetishism in general. There is nothing wrong with fetishes…
This I think is also true… unless you think that being attracted to *any* specific physical characteristic of a person is not legitimate. Which I know some people do think, although it hurts my head trying to process it.
The rationale behind shaming devotees is powerfully, if not exclusively, influenced by the stigmatization of disability.
Cut that shit out.
This… I want to shout a massively enthusiastic “yes!” to this…. but. It also makes me think that I really need to write some of why I’m not always happy with the word/concept of “devotee” though… I don’t quite feel happy using it just to mean “people who are attracted specifically to disabled bodies”, because it has also come to mean a community that, as a person who is that but who is also a) not a man, b) not heterosexual, and c) disabled (albeit “invisibly”) myself, I very much don’t fit into. Need to think more/get brain together about it.
hip-bones-and-freckles-please:
People (not me specifically, or even generally) butt people have types of other people that they like. Sometimes a white guy is only into Asian girls, sometimes a guy only likes girls that are shorter than him, girls who only like taller or older guys, you know? Some people have their type.
…
So… this seems to be controversial. I’m very very bad at detecting irony/sarcasm/similar types of humour, so it’s a bit hard for me to tell whether this post is mocking or serious. But if it’s serious… well, I don’t like some of the language used (such as “handicap” and particularly the horrible “handi-capable”), but I feel it needs seriously considering…
I think *some* people with Down’s are absolutely gorgeous, but I certainly don’t find myself attracted to *every* person with Down’s that I see… just like any other impairment category really. (Sarah Gordy is one example of a seriously beautiful woman with Down’s, and I’ve posted a few others.) I think there is probably more stigma attached to impairments (like Down’s, or autism, or general “learning difficulty/disability”) that are “mental” rather than “physical” when it comes to sexuality, because the stereotypes are different… people with physical impairments might be seen as undesirable, or unable to physically have sex, but I think they are still generally thought of as adults and it’s accepted that they have sexual desires, even if they’re not considered able to act on them. But people with mental/learning difficulty type impairments get seen as being like children, in need of protection, so that they are considered “innocent” and not even capable of genuinely being sexually attracted to others or having the ability to have autonomous sexual relationships, so being specifically attracted to them(/us) gets seen as something almost like paedophilia. Which I have all kinds of feelings about that I’m having trouble expressing, but none of them good.
So… I’ve never heard of someone who was *only* into people with Down’s (like for example the people who seem to be *only* into amputees). But, if people did have that sexual preference, I think they’d be even more afraid to express it, for fear of being called things like paedophile and rapist.
Also, I think there are differences in the ways that these sort of things are viewed with regard to whether it’s disabled or non-disabled people who have the attraction - I think especially with “learning disability” it’s often seen as “OK” for people with that sort of impairment (including Down’s) to fancy each other, but not for non-disabled people to fancy them. Which to me feels both ableist and hypocritical, but it seems to most of the time go unchallenged.
Anyway, I’m feeling the part of my brain that puts words together starting not to work, so I’m going to stop here although I feel like I haven’t finished thinking about it. But the most important thing IMO is that adults with all sorts of impairments can and do have genuinely consensual sexual relationships. Some people might need more help with communicating that than others, but that doesn’t mean people should assume that they can’t, or that people who are attracted to them are inherently “wrong” for feeling that.
Isn’t it strange that I can’t any of this, what makes it worse is I think I forgot how it feels #paralyzed #paralyzed #wheelchair #feet #legs #tattoo #ink (Taken with instagram)
Your tattoo, your feet, your chair… all beautiful.
