Skip the Polite Introduction…Can You Have Sex?

{Content Warning: Dating puts you in some sticky situations, some of which will make readers uncomfortable. As I endeavor to be 110% transparent with my audience about the highs and lows of my love life, I don’t want to offend anyone. Trigger warnings will be used for sensitive subjects. This first post is pretty tame.

Language: In a perfectly politically correct world when talking about people with disabilities you always use people first language. I switch back and forth between that and just saying I’m disabled. And I may or not, refer to myself as “cripple.” Just like every offensive word on earth, insiders can say it but outsiders can’t. Last but not least, fuuuuuuuuuuuck. That was to scare off anyone with delicate sensibilities. I’m sex positive as fuck. If the word pussy makes you squirm, if you don’t understand bdsm, if talking about disability friendly toys makes you uncomfortable, or if you think it’s unladylike for women to enjoy sex this blog ain’t for you.

Anonymity: To protect the identity of the douches I’ve encountered; I’ll never use real names.}

Like most basic millennials, I love sex. I love sex and I’m a woman. I love sex and I’m a BIPOC woman. I love sex and I’m a BIPOC woman with such a severe physical disability I can’t wipe my cute ass or even flick my bean (more on that in a future post). Most of all, I love the look on people’s faces when I tell them I’m sexually active.

I’m not hot, at least not in a conventional sense. I have had just as many guys call me “ugly” as I have had call me beautiful. I lack the plastic surgery IG curves that are so en Vogue. On a good day, my boobs are a small handful and on a not-so-good day they are just really nice nipples. I can’t smile (or suck dick…I’ll talk more about my sexual limitations later). My nose is scarred and slightly misshapen from 20+ years of nightly cpap use. I have a feeding tube. My ribs bell out and at the right angles I look five months preggers. My limbs are thin and inflexible from not being used. The list goes on and I can’t get surgery on any of it. That being said, this was the human I was put into.

I come from a family where most of the women have modeled or been encouraged to model. I got the sex talks in school as I was lucky enough not to have my teachers tell me I didn’t need it (this happens pretty often in the disability community). And I got the birds and bees talk from my mom. I even got little nuggets of advice from her like this when I was 16: “if you ever have sex, you should probably keep your shirt on.” She said “IF” like she didn’t believe it would happen. When I was 14, she said, “You probably won’t get a boyfriend in high school.” So, I never even tried.

Between my realist mother and the total erasure of my sexuality in media (when was the last time you saw someone with a physical disability have sex in a movie who wasn’t a man and who didn’t pay for it? I’ll wait…), it took me a long time to delve into my sexual needs. And years later, I’m still dealing with the repercussions of not having positive, sexual, disabled representation growing up. So, while this blog is for me, it’s for you too. You with the disability, the “messed up” body, the vCard you can’t wait to get rid of, the low self-esteem. And maybe, just maybe, a non-disabled person will read this and see you as a romantic prospect instead of just a great friend or instead of immediately asking, “can you have sex?”.

This is Disabled Fables and Things. This isn’t about the proverbial Prince Charming or Happy Ending. I don’t know if either of those exist. But it’s about kissing the frogs. All. The. Frogs. It’s about self-respect and self-esteem. It’s about learning to do what pleasures you when you have been taught you don’t deserve pleasure. It’s about bucking the status quo. It’s about figuring out what bodily autonomy means to you when you have never had it. But mostly, it’s about the Erotic Misadventures of a Captive Libido.

Moral of the story for you: You are not alone. Your feelings and desires are valuable and deserve recognition.

Moral of the story for the non-disabled reader: Open your mind.