4 Things You Should Never Say to the Queer Cripple During or After Sex

There are a few words I love hearing after sex.  I love it when we’re laying there together and my partner turns to me, his eyes all wide and tired with exhaustion (because I am that good), and he says: “Wow, I’ve never done that before.”   These words make me grin ear to ear, and I know that I have given you an experience that you won’t want to forget.  I love hearing this stuff.   Unfortunately though, I tend to hear some pretty weird stuff from sex partners after the fact, and I wanted to share a few of the most awkward things that have been said to me “post-cripple coitus”.

1.         Taking Care of You Isn’t So Bad.

So, we have just had sex, and I have asked you to help me get dressed and get back in my wheelchair.   As you are helping me with this, you will look me straight in the eyes and say, in this cloyingly sweet voice, “Taking care of you isn’t so bad after all,” OR “Taking care of you was kind of fun.”   I never know what exactly to do in this situation.   Do I say thank you?  Should I be grateful?   Either way, it’s super annoying when guys say this to you as a disabled guy after sex.   It completely negates all the hot sex we had, and minimizes our experience into something you did for me, because you felt bad for me.  Ugh.  See, I thought when we came all over each other, dripping in sweat from the ecstacy of the moment, we took care of one another.   You getting me dressed after I fellated you and vice versa should be no big deal.

2. Can You Get it Up?

I have mentioned this in many a blog post before: you should never ask a guy with a disability if he can “get it up”, period.   It is literally one of the most dehumanizing, desexualizing questions ever posed to a disabled man.   While you should never ask me this question if you want to get in my pants, you should especially never ask me this question while you are in the middle of unzipping/pulling down my pants.   I can’t even begin to count the number of times I have been just about to show a guy my “crip cock”, and he whispers this in my ear.   What the hell, men?   I am certainly not going to get a boner now, buddy.   Also, I just have to know, what would you do in that situation if a guy asked you that just before he was about to go down on you?   How might you react?  Probably not so well, amirite?

3. If I were you, I would kill myself.

To be honest, this one came out of left field for me.   I had met this guy at a conference, and we went back to my hotel room to play.   We had a pretty good time; clothes came off, bodies touched, things had gone pretty okay for an impromptu hook up.   As he was putting his shirt back on, he very nonchalantly remarked, “I don’t know how you do it, man, but if I were you I’d just end it.  I’d kill myself.”    I was utterly and completely taken aback.   Where did this come from?   More importantly, why did this guy feel the need to share this?   I ushered him out the door, closed it behind me; still shocked, I broke down.  So, he would sleep with me, and in almost the same breath, felt compelled to tell me that if he were me, he’d feel his life wasn’t worth living?   Talk about afterglow turning into “after-no”. 

4. You Remind Me Of….

Probably the most unsettling thing a guy said to me during sex was this.   Let me set the scene for you a little bit.  We were in the middle of a heavy, heavy make out session - y’know, the kind that’s so intense, you can’t really breathe, but you don’t really want to, because it’s just that good?  Yeah, that was happening.   All of sudden, he stops abruptly and looks at me straight in the face.    I was secretly hoping for a second he was catching his breath and regrouping, or something, but I kind of thought he was about to say something disability related.   I just didn’t expect this.    There we were, half-naked on my bed, and he says: “We have to stop.  We have to stop RIGHT NOW.”   I was like, “Okay, okay, no problem.”    Against my better judgement, I asked, “Why?”    He says, “It’s because you remind me of my ex’s 12-year-old child who passed away. They were in a wheelchair just like yours.”    I remember trying to be super sympathetic, but also I was super annoyed, and definitely shocked.    Not all disabled people look the same, and just because we’re both wheelchair users, doesn’t mean we are at all similar.  I was so very weirded out.   I also remember being mildly concerned that I resembled a 12 year old.   Ummmmm…. Awkward.

These are just a few of the things you might want to never say to the queer cripple during or immediately following a hook up with them.   Sadly, this list is not exhaustive by any means.  The next time you have sex with a hot guy in a chair, think to yourself, Is that something I’d want to hear after sex? Or will saying this thing make it unbearably uncomfortable for all involved?   I share these stories with you so that your next encounter with a sexy, seated lover will end with happy moans and cripple cuddles instead of groans of discomfort.  

In Cripness And In Health – Sexy, Seated and Sick

There’s this thing that happens to you when you’ve lived with your disability your whole life.   You learn to adapt to pretty much everything that is thrown at you.  I don’t mean adapt in that clichéd way people talk about overcoming illness.  I mean, that as a disabled person your body, your being and your spirit make room for your disability, and it becomes a part of you.  You learn the difference between disability pain – the kind of pain that comes with muscle spasms, contractures, being moved the wrong way, being scared by loud noises…the list could go on forever – and real pain, the kind that stops you in your tracks and makes you take notice that something might be really, really wrong here.

A couple weeks ago, I experienced some of that real pain for the first time in a few years.   I wasn’t able to pee for two days with no real reason why.   I was scared and I didn’t really know what to do.  I eventually ended up deciding to go into hospital, which as a disabled person comes with its own particular brand of discomfort.   After all the initial workups, and doctors probing to understand my disability without really understanding anything at all, it was decided that they would put a catheter in my bladder.   I’ll save you the unpleasant details surrounding that procedure, but when all was said and done, I had a tube coming out of my junk.   Sexy as fuck, right?  

As I laid there in the hallway of the hustling emergency department on the most uncomfortable gurney ever, I was sure that the doctors would come back with some definitive answer for me as to what was happening.    Some hours passed and the doctors finally came to me bedside.   The doctor looked at my chart and back at me.  “So, we’re not really sure what’s going on.  It might just be related to your disability.”  The rest of what he was saying didn’t register to me at all.   You know in the movies where the protagonist gets a really scary test result back and they zone out?  I did that a little, but it wasn’t because I was necessarily scared of what he was saying to me.   He was talking about catheterization, but I wasn’t thinking about that.   The words that I had become most focused in on were, “it might just be your disability.”   He said it so matter-of-factly and without any real concern, as if this should simply be expected because I had Cerebral Palsy.     

My brain started firing all these horrible thoughts.  I was picturing that this would be my life now…tubes and catheters.   I should stress again that I wasn’t necessarily scared for myself in this instance.  None of this stuff worried me – the medical side of it anyhow.  What scares me is that if this thing doesn’t resolve itself, I wondered how others might perceive me?   Lovers?  Dates?   I have worked my ass off branding and incorporating my disability as it stands in my life, to make it something worth learning about, worth understanding.   Could I be sick and disabled?   Who would sign up for that?   Who would stay or want to stay?   Who’d fuck a chronic cripple?   

It has been interesting that since this happened – all of these insecurities about my ability, my sexuality and my overall attractiveness have presented themselves all over again.  I find myself worrying about it as if I were 17 all over again.   This has kept me up at night more than anything else.  The doctors could tell me that I need a penile transplant, and that probably wouldn’t faze me as much as the thought of never having a partner in the hospital with me.  Willing to stay with me, and to experience it – whatever it happens to be.   I’ve had nightmares where the most attractive guy fucks me in a Grey’s Anatomy style hospital moment only to leave and never come back after seeing my tubed penis.  I have enough issues feeling fuckable as a Queer Cripple and now this?  The fear of adding more to the pile of things I have reclaimed as mine makes me a little nervous.   How do I make a cathed crip cock sexy?   I guess I could find a guy who was into sounding.  

My point is, I guess, that these things that are done to us – the disabled – these things that are “just a part of the disability” are never really understood from an emotional level.   I am scared about adapting to a new type of rejection, a new guy telling me “no” all over again. I’m not ready for yet another time that a guy bolted out of my place because he didn’t know what to expect or what to do with me.    Those moments are what scare me the most as I wade on through the disability experience as a Queer Cripple. And – if I’m honest – the realest pain about all these potential changes, is knowing that I’ll adapt and accept them as I always have, but I’ll never know, truly know, if someone else will too.

Accessing Anal: How to Make Anal Sex Accessible to The Boy in The Chair

The other day I was scrolling through my Social Media feeds and I came across a bunch of articles alerting me to the fact that it was a day to celebrate something called Power Bottom Appreciation Day.  This is the day (apparently) where we pay homage to the guys who can “take it like a champ”, without any pain or fuss.   The more and more I read about this ‘holiday’ the angrier I became.   I was angry for two reasons – the first being that I really dislike the top/bottom binary that we have put on each other as members of the lgbtq+ community, and the second being that I really, really want to explore bottoming (my desire to do this is very real) but I am afraid that I can’t do it.  More to the point, I am worried that I won’t be physically able to do it.

Every time I fantasize about the sex I want in my head, one of the very first images that comes to mind, is my being fucked both gently and not so gently by my lover.   I imagine my legs above my head, and me staring deep into their eyes – loving every second of it.   I imagine them on top of me, feeling the warmth of their body…Sorry, I got atad carried away in my on visual there…. Of course, that fantasy fades away rather quickly when I snap back to the reality of my disabled life – my body that is stuck at 90 degrees in a sitting position, unable to lift or bend my legs in anyway to accommodate a good fucking.  Le sigh.

I hear all the time from the queer MSM communities that “anal sex is real sex”, and that everything else doesn’t really count.   Now, I know that this isn’t true, and I know that I can have just a satisfying orgasm as the next guy with oral sex and other forms of stimulation, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel, as a queer crippled guy who works in sex and disability, I was missing out somehow.  I was missing out on an experience that made me a truly queer men. I remember being a cast member on the fifth season of MTV Canada/Logo’s 1 Girl 5 Gays and having questioned posed to the group about anal sex.  Everyone else would spout of a brilliant sound byte, and I would sit there with nothing to say at all—feeling this weird sense of shame and exclusion that I can’t really put into words.  I should also make clear that I’ve been offered the chance to explore anal sex a few times (although, having a one night stand, sloppily mutter, “let me roll you over and fuck you” isn’t exactly the sexiest thing I have ever heard), but each time I turned it down.  

The truth is because of my disability; as much as I want it, I am scared to try anal sex.  Fucking terrified.  I am worried about the level of pain that comes with it (when you live with spastic Cerebral Palsy, sometimes even the suggestion of pain, can cause your body to tense up and leave you with muscle spasms that go on for awhile).  I am worried about being so tense that I chop the guy’s cock off with my cakes of steel.       

I am scared that because I am disabled and unable to clean myself, that my partner will be tasked with doing that.  I have no idea how I would even start a conversation with my partner about making sure my ass was clean (is there a guide for making douching the disabled guy sexy)?  Would it go like: “Hey baby, wanna clean me out real good?”  I’m not so sure.  

I’m also worried that if I were to bleed or have some tenderness or redness afterward, that I would have to explain this to my attendant care workers.  I’m sure that most first time bottoms don’t have to contend with someone else seeing their ass first thing in the morning—they can deal with any mishaps in private, without any judgment from others.  Is #BottomPrivilege a hashtag yet?  

I want my first time bottoming as a queer, disabled man to be, well, special.   I want to go into the experience with some kind of knowledge base that makes sense for my crippled body.   When I Googled, “anal sex tips for disability”, I was inundated with tips on how to be a better bottom that were all designed for able bodied men, who could reposition themselves at will.   Not fair.  Why wasn’t there anything for my body?  I’d love to see a headline that read: How to a Bottom When You Have Spastic Cerebral Palsy or How to be a Bottom Boy in a Chair.   We need information made available for everyone and every body on how to get their cherry popped in a way that is accessible to them.  Not having this available sends the message to other queer cripples, that anal sex isn’t an option for them, and that they can’t have real sex.     Look, I am all about anal – and I am more than ready to explore that with someone, but if anal sex is the epitome of male on male sex; if it is truly considered ‘real sex’, then as a real man with disabilities, I would appreciate some real information on how anal sex can be made accessible to me.     

Dear Disability: An Open Letter to My Disability

The work that I do as a Disability Awareness Consultant has hinged on telling my truth around disability.  I have become obsessed with uncovering, exploring and deconstructing how disability feels.  I aim to go beneath the surface, and touch the heart of the disability experience.   

When I look at the work I have done accessing my disability, I am happy that I can see it as the best part of who I am.  I firmly believe that I am defined by my disability, and while I couldn’t be where I am without it, I also can’t pretend that it doesn’t fuck me up from time to time.   There are moments when the experience of disability—living in this body—embodying this experience, full of intersections is hard as fuck, and I want the opportunity to tell my disability part of that story.  I want my disability to understand how it has affected me, and how sometimes just for a split second I hate it.  I wrote my disability a letter to let it know what that feels like.

Dear Disability:

Because of you, I am always nervous and scared that I am “too much.”   I am in a constant state of uncertainty that you will scare someone away, or that I did something wrong, because I am disabled and haven’t had the opportunity to be socialized like everyone else.   I hate that you make me worry so much that I will never be good enough, that I am not worthy of all the things.

I lay awake some nights and wonder what my relationships might be like if you weren’t around.   Would I be so scared or anxious? Or would I have all the things that I dream of—partners who wanted to know me and spend time with me?  Would I still live on the cusp between personhood and poverty?

Sometimes, I worry that all everybody sees is you and not I?  In that same breath, I hope that they don’t ignore you as a part of my experience.   There are days where I wish we weren’t so close, days where I wish you weren’t there with me at all. 

I wish that when I liked a boy, you weren’t the first thing that popped in my head – worried more than I should be about what they think. I wish that you didn’t make me question and second-guess everything about everything.

I get angry with you sometimes when I think about my Dad leaving.  Even though it has been years, and I have a man in my life whom has filled that role better than anyone ever could, deep down inside I know you are the reason my birth father left.   You spooked him, Disability, with all your needs and requirements.   It’s because of you I think that no one will ever stay. 

I look at my body sometimes – spine fused, spastic arms, lanky, limp legs, and I wonder if anybody actually finds me attractive.  I have worked at incorporating you into my sexiness, but sometimes, holy fuck, it’s hard.   What would I look like if I could walk, Disability?    

On the other hand, Disability, you have helped me find community.  I have been able to connect with so many great people, and have been able to tell/hear stories that no one else would understand.   You’ve helped me find a job, and create a name for myself.   You have put me in a unique position to help others, and I can’t thank you enough.

I just want you to know what it feels like to be with you, Disability.

Deepthroating While Disabled: The Symbolism, Importance and Realities of Oral Sex as a Queer Cripple

He anchored his legs on either side of my wheelchair, planting his feet firmly on the ground, providing me an all access pass to him and his cock.   This is one of those tiny perks as a Queer Cripple, one of those little magic moments that you don’t ever take for granted and use to your advantage whenever you have the chance - being sexy and seated means that you are almost always at crotch level, and this is never a bad thing.   As he unzipped his pants, teasing me with anticipation, he pushed my head off my headrest and down into him.  I took that moment in, burning it into my memory.  I remember that as he positioned my head, straddling me in my chair.  As his cock sprang to attention, him motioning it toward my mouth, I paused.   

As a man with severe physical disabilities living with Cerebral Palsy,  I don’t have much say in how my body chooses to move or what it wants to do. I can’t bend myself into a pretzel with a lover, or recreate the Kama Sutra with him; my spastic body just won’t allow for such luxuries in lust.  One thing I seem to have pretty good control over is my mouth muscles.   I know how to flap my lips, and I certainly talk about how talented I am in “smoking pole.

There I was, the “boy in the chair”, all of 19 years old and freshly away from home, finally getting the chance to be with another man; touch him, smell him and suck him, and embrace these two identities that are never talked about, seen or sexualized. It was one of my first times sucking cock, and all these forbidden things: queerness, sexuality and disability were coming to a head in one beautifully political act.   Just as I was getting comfortable in that moment, I heard a voice in my head telling me that I had better give him the best blowjob of his life, because if I didn’t, I would have nothing else to offer.  The voice I heard, goading me own was my own.   I was terrified that I would somehow fail at this act, and as a result fail at sex altogether.  I was (and still am) too scared to try anal, fearing that my muscles wouldn’t relax enough for anyone to enter me.  So, this was my chance. It was time for this gimp to give it good.

I opened my mouth wide, and started mimicking all the acts that I had seen performed.  Wait. I realized very quickly that something wasn’t quite going as I had hoped.  My body was jerking, stopping and starting in spastic fits, as I tried to recreate the porn scenes I had so eagerly devoured and deconstructed.  It must have looked really weird!   I was unable to take him in one smooth motion as I had planned to.  I was having trouble holding his dick in my hands and blowing him at the same time.   My disabled hands, trying desperately to relax so I didn’t hurt him, were unable to do so.   I thought, “Fuck, body, you had one job.  Don’t fail me now.”   I kept pushing myself to do this one thing right.   I wanted to show him that I was good at something in bed, that despite the fact my body couldn’t do what he might have expected, I could do this, and do it well.  If I couldn’t even fellate him, what fun was I?   

As he thrust himself in my mouth, I tried my best to take it like a champ.  Of course, right then, my spastic gag reflex kicked in.   I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t breathe, and I was pretty sure that gagging violently (not in the sexy way”)  on his dick wasn’t all that appealing.   Shit!   He stopped to make sure that I was okay, and I motioned that I was, continuing my sad attempt at suckery.

He saw that I was struggling with this and we stopped.  He told me that everything would be okay, and not to worry about it (I have come to learn that the phrase “don’t worry about it” in reference to sex, is never a good sign).  I remember that he put on his jeans, said a short, curt goodbye and left.   I could still taste him in my mouth, along with the utter disappointment that I had done it all wrong.  It stung pretty bad, and for a long time afterward that experience made me worry that my skills at fellatio would be forever flawed.

Since then, I don’t really know if I have gotten any better at giving good oral sex. Others have flashed that same disappointed look which reads, “He can’t even do this?!” which, I am sure in some small way, solidifies their sneaking suspicions that disabled people can’t even have sex after all.   With each and every encounter though, I learn a different technique than I had before; only take the tip, breathe as you need to, and go at your own pace.  I have also learned that oral sex isn’t so much about the technical aspects, but has a lot to do with performance and play.  I love the teasing, touching and body contact that oral sex offers.   I’ve learned to go slow - take my time - and enjoy the show.

In our communities, it seems that oral sex is considered less than real. We laugh it off and say, “Oh, it’s just oral.” Oral sex is so much more than simply a prelude to anal, and it is “real sex.”   It doesn’t adhere to our broken binaries of “top” and “bottom” that seem to keep queer and gay men shackled to toxic stereotypes of what gay and/or queer is supposed to look like.  It asks us to really be with someone, caressing every curve of queerness with all of our senses.  It asks us to be vulnerable as gay men, and tap into our sensuality, not just our sexuality. When you engage in it with me, I invite you to share in my queer crippled experience, and connect with me and my disability.

Rather than worrying about giving my lovers “the best head ever”, because that’s all I have to offer them, I try to remember what this experience is for me.   It is my chance to connect with my queer crippled identity, to share that part of myself with someone, and to give them the opportunity to go deeper into disability than ever before.

Why We Need to talk about Queerness, Disability and Depression

I remember when I turned 29, I had just gone through a couple major life changes.  I had recovered from a hellish few months of hospitals, complications and issues as part of my disability, and gallbladder disease.  I moved from my college town to be closer to my family, leaving ten years of academia behind me with no job, and no prospects.   I hadn’t yet started my work as a Disability Awareness Consultant.   I was disabled, depressed, and I felt so alone.  I had no one to really talk to about what it was I was feeling -- what it was I was going through.

I would have days where I would do absolutely nothing; laze around the house and watch Netflix, talk to nobody and wallow, and I’d have days where I would just cry uncontrollably for no reason whatsoever.   I kept telling myself that nothing was wrong - that I would be okay - and pull through.  I kept forcing myself not to be depressed.   People couldn’t see me upset; as a disabled man they expected that reaction from me already.   I had to put on a smile and power through.  

For a long while, that’s just what I did.  I took a deep breath, got up every single day, got in my wheelchair and moved on with my life.  Let me make clear before I go any further, these feelings I was having had everything to do with my relationship to my disability, and they DID NOT have anything to do with the fact that I am disabled.   I came to terms with my disabled reality when I was 6 years old, and the physiotherapist handed me a toy car license for my chair.  It was one of those moments that you just inextricably understand as final, as real.   I got it.  Right in that moment.   So, no, I was never an angry person over my being in a wheelchair.  The anger came when I started trying to share that reality with others who were too stricken with a disease called ableism to see what I was offering.

These feelings were there the first time I met a boy I liked, and wanted to ask him out, and he nervously said that he couldn’t.  I remember that the first couple times I got these reactions after putting myself out there.  I shuffled them off as we’re taught to do.  My friends told me that this is what happens, that it was “normal”.  For awhile, I believed them.  The more and more stuff happened though, I knew it wasn’t okay anymore.  

I was tired of having people ghost me online. Cancel on me last minute.  Promise to hang out and not ever follow-through. Fuck me, and then never see me again, making me feel horrible about my body, my disability, and myself.   I had gone through years of this self-imposed torture, trying to make my mark somewhere, trying to connect with someone and show them who I was.   
 

So, a week after my 29th birthday, there I sat in the therapist’s office.  I watched her furiously writing everything I was telling her.  I didn’t even know where to start.  I wanted to shout, scream and deconstruct every time a guy had been rude to me over my chair, every time I had fallen in love with the thought of a guy, only to know deep down that he would never go for a guy like me.  I wanted to tell the therapist that I used sex as a tool for connection, and all that I wanted was intimacy.  I told her all that, and SO MUCH more.  I laid it all out.  Every single time that I had encountered ableism as a queer cripple, every single time I was left to pick up the pieces of my own heart.    After all that, she put her pen down and looked me in the eyes.   Okay, this is it.  She’s going to help me here. (Full disclosure, I never expected her to fix things in our first session, but what she said in that moment was extremely telling.)    She looked at me and said, “Oh. I never thought of it like that.”   I was confused.   What did she mean?  I pressed her for an answer, some context.   She continued, “I never considered all of the things you bring up with respect to disability.”   

I understood where she was coming from, not being disabled, but I was angry now.  I had come for help.  For some level of guidance.  I told her things that I had kept inside for a very long time, told no one.  I learned very quickly that this space, one designed to help people work through their shit, was ableist too.   Over the next few months, I taught her about my experiences as a queer cripple, and each time she would be stunned by her own ignorance.   

She would advise me to go to events, and try to meet people.   I tried that, and each time I would be met with some level of ableism; a rude comment, inaccessible spaces, etc., and again when I would tell her, she would have no concrete solution for me.  

We need to start talking about the very real effects of ableism, ignorance and prejudice levied against the queer crippled community.   This is a type of depression that cuts deep and long across our communities.   It happens constantly.   It makes us feel unworthy, disenchanted and unimportant.   

When I was a young disabled kid, I was told by everyone around me to speak up for myself, and to go after what I want.  I learned that I had to do this, to be seen and be heard; to be taken seriously as a disabled person, I had to be obtuse about it.   I had tried to apply this same principle of directness to dating dudes while disabled.   I was dismayed to learn, almost every time, that asking for what I wanted, standing up for myself as a young queer cripple, didn’t work in this arena.    I was knocked down by ableism time and time again.   Each time, the guy couching his ableist rhetoric in “unawareness” and “honesty”. They would tell me that they were telling me the truth, and being real with me about how my disability affected them.  They’d say this in easy tones, as if I should be thankful to them for hurting me.  They could care less about how their words affected me, leaving a scar bigger than the last.

This kind of subversive ableism that runs rampant in our community is not okay.   It is dangerous and divisive.  Moreover, the disabled individual dealing with this has nowhere to turn.  No one to talk to.   Our friends, no matter how kind or empathetic, “just don’t get it”, and therapists are ineffectual, and altogether financially inaccessible to the queer cripple.  C’mon, would you want to pay $150 an hour to have the person charged with helping you, tell you that they never even thought of how things might affect people in your circumstance?  Yeah, didn’t think so.

We need to talk to queer communities and remind them that their honesty about disability is actually ableism, and that pretending like you just didn’t know any better, no longer gets a pass.  At least not in my book.   We need to create spaces for the queer cripple to share their stories and be validated.    We need to create spaces where the queer cripple can feel safe to breakdown, a place where they can put down their armor and simply let go.   

We need to realize that disability and queerness make depression look different.  We handle it differently.  We feel it differently.   The intersectionality and linkages between queerness, disability and depression are complex.  But they are there.  We have a responsibility to give them space, educate ourselves on what they are, and where they are, and where they came from.  We need to show they queer cripple they are not alone, and that for once, we have thought about them.  

Boys in Chairs: Body image, boyfriends, Sexuality and Self-image—what it’s like to be inside our intersectionality

Last night, I decided to re-invigorate my online dating profile. My “deliciously dirty thirties” (you’re welcome those of you in/or nearing 30) are approaching, and I thought it was time that I tried yet again to connect with someone.    Soon enough, this guy and I started talking.  We’d planned to meet for coffee over the next few days.   Certainly not wedding bells, but a start.   I then changed my profile picture to accentuate my chair.  (Full disclosure: I didn’t necessarily talk about my disability in my new profile.  Mostly because it was late when I created it and I just wasn’t thinking about it.)   Well, the minute the guy found out that I’d be bringing my own chair to coffee, his whole demeanor changed.   He said that I had deceived him, and that I hadn’t been honest.   Now, this kind of stuff happens to me quite frequently, so I have developed a pretty thick skin (that’s not the only skin I have that is thick, in case you’re wondering). (I’m just going throw on some Molly Ringwald and 90s Alanis and gorge on Chinese, and I’ll be fine.)   

I use the above incident as a catalyst for my entry today.   It bears reminding that educating the larger LGBTQ community on the needs of Queers with Disabilities is sorely needed yet exhausting work.   In my work, I want to bring to light the lived experience of the cripple (hahahaha, sounds like a Nat Geo segment, amirite?).    So often, I feel as if Crips (both queer and otherwise) are attempting to navigate their disabilities in order to ensure the comfort of others.   There have been many nights wherein I lay with a guy in what was meant to be this steamy, sexy time but instead turned into me literally asking the guy if my disability was too much for him.   Oh yeah, I am a master of second date sabotage.     It is very rare that we delve into the mind of the cripples themselves when we explore romance or sex.    The majority of the time, it would seem that we are trying to convince everyone else we’re viable.  So, I wanted to go over some common fears that cripples have when we date/engage in sexual congress to highlight how we feel about it.   I talked to some other Queer Crips so that I could gain a fuller perspective.

Body Image:  This is not specific to Queer Crips, as I think everyone has issues with their body, especially gay men.   That said, I think it takes on a whole different feeling when you have a disability simply because you can’t go to the gym to ‘work off your crippled’.    I know for myself, I am the king of the selfie because I am constantly trying to fit into that homo-normative box, hoping that a certain angle or lighting trick will make someone see past the chair and make me look ‘worthy’ of my sexuality (I have been trying recently to have my chair in every photo in an attempt to make it part of my awesomeness).  

 Interestingly enough, a few of the Queer Crips that I talked to about body image highlighted that it is hard for them to be called ‘hot’ or ‘cute’, mainly because they don’t feel like they can trust it.   I can relate to that.  So often we are patronized and talked down to out of a lack of awareness, that when someone pays a cripple a genuine compliment, it is met with a barrage of suspicion that goes something like this: ‘He’s just saying that’ or ‘it’s just because I’m disabled’.   All this comes from the fact that the disabled body is not prominently featured enough in popular media (HBO, have the producers of Looking call me… 647….), and also that PwD have constantly been told that our sex is not valid.  The suspicion that we feel is proof that we have heard this one too many times, and are starting to validate and internalize it.   Many of us will never be the 8 pack bearing model, wheelchair or not; the difference is that without any kind of role model or schematic to draw from, Queer Crips may feel like they are not sexy to anyone—themselves included.    One Queer Crip said it best when he said: “Don’t you just wish some guy’s balls would be sweating ‘cuz he’s so hot for you?”  I can’t say I’ve ever wished for that particular scenario, but the sentiment is all the same.

Help / Personal Care:

One of the most anxious moments of any date for a cripple is that moment wherein you realize that you actually need help with something.  For instance, you’re at a fancy restaurant (by fancy, I mean the McD’s down the street, who we kidding?) with your date and you’re laughing and connecting… things are going amazingly…until you hear a loud noise, go spastic and unintentionally throw your date’s drink back in his face.    The visual is pretty hilarious, but the reactions of my dates’ have been less so.   Or imagine you have survived a night of awkwardly navigated crip-sex (and the guy actually stayed the night), only for you to wake up and need to pee.  Under normal circumstances, you’d call your care-worker in to help, or pee in your leg bag (urine bag) and take care of this.   No can do.  This beautiful stranger who actually stuck around, can never actually know how much work is involved with you…you must pass as able at all costs.   So, you spend a good five minutes ‘going zen’ trying to hold your pee, until you relent and ask for help.   Now you have to deal with how awkward it is for this guy to transform from ‘hottie’ to ‘handicapable helper’ (shudder – I hate the term handicapable). 

That can be awkward enough, but one Queer Crip quipped that as a result of his disability he can’t go anywhere without his ventilation system or a chaperone.  One of his biggest fears is how a guy would handle all of the ‘baggage’ and extra stuff that comes with dating or interacting with us.    For many cripples, needing help with certain things that others take for granted is part and parcel of being one of us (oooooh, that sounds cult-like, awesome).    It becomes stressful when you have to ask in romantical (a word I invented, you’re welcome) situations because you’re constantly waiting for the guy to say: “Dude. This is a lot for me to handle.  You’re cool, but…”  In fact, there have been times where I was expecting this so much that I orchestrated it, and pushed the guy away, and then was all: “See. It’s because I am crippled.”   Wrong.    It’s because I am afraid of you being afraid of me being crippled.    Worse than that, I have been scared of guys who have not flinched at my disability, thinking: “Am I their fetish?  Just another guy they wanted to pity fuck?”

Boyfriends:

To me, this notion is a great idea, but a much more complicated reality.  I worry too much about what a guy will think about all my needs, and whether or not they could see past all my needs.   Moreover, how can I ensure they don’t simply become my boyfriendtendant = boyfriend + attendant? 

Touch:

One of the most critical parts about being a human being, regardless of ability or orientation, is human touch.   As a cripple that takes on a whole different meaning -- we are so often ‘touched’ in the clinical sense of the word: doctors, nurses, and caregivers.  It is a rarity that a lover or someone who finds us attractive touches us.   When they do, it can mean the world to us, and almost all the Queer Crips I spoke with underscored the importance of intimate touch in their lives, and how that almost trumped everything else.   They said that it would be their dream come true simply to be touched, or to lay intimately with one they cared for.   See? Cripples ain’t so different after all.

            Lastly, one of the most profound statements that I got out of my discussion was this: “[…] We are just as scared of the relationship thing…”  I think this is so critical to the discussion of disability and dating.    Just like I have been suggesting that the LGBTQ community has no framework for disability, it is imperative to remember that we have no handbook either. We have all shared in those awkward #cripmoments (can we get that trending?).   To our potential suitors: please remember that we too are often scared of how you’ll react to our disabilities, and we are constantly dealing with the echoes of systemic oppression.   That said, I say, let’s both feel the fear, but push passed it into our mutual awesomeness.  Deal?   

Special thanks to my Queer Crips for your insights for this piece.

5 Reasons why Going on a Date with that Disabled Dude will be totally worth it

A few months ago, a young man who read one of my posts on dating and disability started chatting with me via social media.   Like myself, he has Cerebral Palsy and is Queer (sidebar: whenever Queer Crips find each other it’s pretty amaze balls, because we’re out there, but we very rarely connect with one another).   He told me that my writing was like he was reading his life on the page.  I am of course, extremely humbled that my few words could have such an impact on my fellow Queer Crips.   As we continued talking, he said something that touched me in a way that almost two months later, I can’t shake.  

He told me in no uncertain terms, that not once had anyone ever told him that he was sexy.   As a result of this, he hated his disability and all that it had essentially ‘robbed’ him of.   As cripples of every colour and creed – we’ve all had days where we be like, “For serious?  If I could just walk, I’d score me some c**k”.  

The more I thought about what he said and its effects, I thought people probably just don’t realize how fucking awesome we disabled dudes (I was gonna type dudettes here, but this is not a 1987 episode of Full House; to my Gimpy Gals, I love you too) are.

Time someone tells them, right? 

Also, in doing research for this piece (note: despite my academic credentials, by ‘research’ I mean Googling the term ‘disabled dating – super profesh, right?) I found that the main question being posed was

Would you/could you date someone with a disability? 

 

The major problem with how this question is presented is this: automatically the question suggests that there is some sort of risk in dating a disabled person (ummmm, isn’t there a risk in dating ANYONE?).   The phrasing of the question accesses one’s fear around disability above all else.   While it is okay to be apprehensive (being around so much awesome all at once can be overwhelming), the question should in fact be the statement:

“You SHOULD Date someone with a Disability!”

 

Well, of course you should.  We are no better or worse than other options (true fact though, I AM BETTER).  That said, I want to review some reasons that make a date with a cripple really amazeballs:

1.   Looking for Something Different:

I’m pretty sure that every T-Swifty song ever, is based on her desire to find something new, exciting and different.  If you scroll on through any internet dating website, what do you see: “Looking for a guy not like the rest”.   Lastly, I’m sure that the gals on Girls bemoan their quest for different dudes (aside from the fact that program makes apathy oddly amazing) each and every week.

Well, if different is what you want crips got you covered.  What could be more different than your date rolling in the bar through the backdoor in their tricked out 300 lbs. chariot?  Don’t lie, as you watch them coming towards you commanding their chair with confidence – you can’t help but getting a tingle in your nether regions.    Jokes aside, cripples have a different appreciation for the world; we can offer you a different perspective than all those wannabe frat/sorority girls or “young professionals” (can we review this term please – it’s business speak for douche, right?) ever could.

2.   Crip Humour:

On the handful of dates I have been on, people have told me that I have a sick, yet hilarious sense of humour.  I call myself a cripple pretty openly and make fun of the hilariously honest things that happen as a result of my disability… This won’t be the case for all of us, but I think once you see how deliciously dirty disability can in fact be, you’ll be glad you said yes to that “cripple coffee”.

3.   Friendtendant Freebies:

For the record, “friendtendant” is a combo of friend + attendant that occurs when your friends help you out with crip stuff.   It has happened a few times now where people will blindly assume that my dates are my caregivers.   (Before all my fellow crips reading this go up in arms about how someone might use me because of this, not to worry.  Dates: if you want to date me simply to get a free movie, we have other things we prob should discuss.)  In these instances, we have received free movie tickets, meals, etc.   Go ahead.  I’ll totes pretend that you are my caregiver!  When has free shit EVER been turned down? 

4.    Cripple Connection:

It goes without saying that the majority of people are simply unaware to some of the things that we crips have to contend with.  One of the benefits about going on a crip-tastical adventure date with us is that you will see this firsthand.    You wanna go to that hip new karaoke bar, but it isn’t noticeably accessible… fear not, let’s fight through the throngs of drunken college kids (who by day are “young professionals”) belting out the words to Don’t Stop Believing so that we can get in the club and duet the shit out of some 80s pop.     My point being that you will begin to understand my reality that much better, and see that I can still party, it just takes a wee bit more planning.

5.   We’re All Bad at this Shizz:  

The most important thing you will learn on our date is this: while you may be sitting there trying to mind your P’s and Q’s as to what is PC with respect to my CP, what you should know is that I also haven’t a clue what I am doing, and may also be really shit at this dating thing.  True fact: I have no clue what the f**k I am doing!

So, there you have it.   Ask me out for that coffee, the worst that could happen is that I would have a spasm and accidentally throw it in your face, just before we go into our free movie.   After you wipe the whipped mocha out your eyes they could be open to a whole new possibility.  Not too shabby, eh?

Functionality or Fucktionality: Why Sexual Function needs to be considered in Occupational and Physical Therapies for Disabled People

Ever since I was 6 years old, I have been working with physical and occupational therapists.   I never really liked it when they came around, as they would make me do exercises that strengthened my abilities, but took me away from my friends and playtime.  

Ugh. 

As I got older and began to understand how important they were in my life, I did my best to do the work so that, as they put it, I could “normally complete the activities of daily living.”    I had learned that I could open doors, hold a fork, and do other tasks to assist in my daily life.   Everybody seemed very pleased that I was gaining my independence in this way, and as a wheelchair user with “severely sexy” disabilities resulting from Cerebral Palsy, I was happy that I had the freedom to do some things myself… except fucking.

I was with a new lover one night, and we were engaged in a pretty hot session.  Amid the moans of agreement and pleasure, my lover yelled out: “Put it in me and thrust it deep!”   I paused (froze in terror is a more accurate description).   I wanted to oblige him, and I definitely wanted to fuck him.   I told him to guide me in (read: put me inside himself, because my spastic body couldn’t).   Once inside, he looked at me expectantly, waiting for something to happen.   I tried as hard as I could to thrust myself into him; I used all my spasticity in an attempt to propel my cock forward, while maintaining a sexy, satisfied composure.   Okay, if anybody had been watching or filming this scene, it would have looked ridiculous and impossible to replicate.   There we were; me beneath him, grunting and flailing about trying desperately to do him, while he looked down at me with the unmistakable disappointment on his face wherein he understood that I was “actually disabled.”   I remember that even though we finished playing, he wasn’t happy with the outcome by any means, and neither was I.  

At my next Occupational Therapy appointment, I was meeting a new therapist that I was slated to be working with.   I was kind of excited this time around because she was young, and I felt as though maybe I could be honest with her about what I really wanted help with.   We went through the typical roster of questions about my disability, my function, my abilities, and finally we came to the question about what I wanted from our time together.  What were my goals?  As she asked this, there was a glint in my eye – I had to go for it.   I told her that I wanted to gain functionality in one very specific area: I wanted to learn how I could, as a disabled man, thrust.   I was about as frank as I could be with her, so that there was no confusion as to what I was after.   Her face went beet red and I could tell that this was entirely out of her wheelhouse.     She admitted that she had never been asked this before, and didn’t know if there were any resources available for me.  Our session ended quickly, and I never brought it up with her again.   I felt as though my sexuality had been denied, and I had no place to turn.

Experiences such as this happen to the disabled community on a daily basis.  The systems that we rely on the most to thrive and function in society; the people who first begin to show us how our bodies actually work and what they are indeed capable of, fail to see as full, vibrant beings.   They, like so many others don’t consider that for us to be fully functional, we may want to learn how to fuck, felate or fist our partners as the sexy, seated sensual lovers that we are.

It is really unfortunate that the sexual education for the disabled community (if there is any offered at all) doesn’t even explain how sexuality and disability are intertwined within each other.  There is no guidebook or seminar on how a wheelchair user engages with their own body or others, or what going through puberty as a Queer Cripple is like. The sexual health component that talks about disability begins and ends with the risks associated if we engage in sexuality as members of a vulnerable population.   As we all know, there are so many more layers to it than that.

We need to start engaging with the Occupational Therapists and Physical Therapists to give them the tools to educate the disabled community on how their bodies work in the bedroom.   We ought to have seminars, videos, books and classes that prepare all up and coming therapists (who have been bludgeoned by the medical model of disability) that prepare them for what living with a disability is actually like in and out of the bedroom.  Trust me, it would have been super helpful when I started fucking other people to know what my actual abilities were, rather than to find out by consistently feeling ashamed and unworthy in the moment itself.    I would have had so much more sexual confidence if my Occupational and Physical Therapy team opened up the possibilities for me as a disabled man.

I want all Occupational and Physical Therapists, as well as soon to be students to know one thing: I am very happy that because of you I learned to hold a spoon all by myself when I was younger.  Now that I am a sort of well adjusted Queer Cripple adultish, I’d like to learn how to position myself to spoon with someone, and I’d like to be able to ask you about it.  My “fucktionality” should be just as important as my functionality.