a'ishah's writing

[aishah]

i like to talk too much so i guess it's time for a thread

this is something i wrote about crip sex on fetlife...

for me, crip sex is the experience i have when i'm having great, deeply connected sex with people i have access intimacy with. people who completely get who i am as a disabled person and what my body goes through and what my needs are, during and outside of sex. i find this much easier with other people who are disabled and we get each others' access needs, or that sex for us sometimes looks really different than what it looks like for able-bodied people because we can't do some of the same things...BUT there are other things we can TOTALLY do that able-bodied people might never even think of doing. for me it has broadened my horizons so much as i get comfortable with my sexuality as a disabled person. sometimes it can happen with able-bodied partners with whom i have great access intimacy, or with able-bodied partners as we touch on limitations and different ways i have of having sex. my primary partner is able-bodied and definitely the way we have had sex has changed over the years as he's come to accept and celebrate and love the way my body is different, and also as we've built access intimacy with each other. i feel like often when having sex with able-bodied people or when listening about disabled sexuality talked about in mainstream culture, there's so much focus on limitations - what i can't do. someone once asked me, "so, basically your partner settles?" meaning when it comes to sex, because a lot of the time i physically cannot be on top. i believe my body is not somehow broken or limited or less - it is different and the ways i have of doing things are different. and different does not have to mean bad or less. sometimes different is hot, fierce, deeply connected, intimate, no boundaries. that's what crip sex means to me.

in my experience, able-bodied sex is often expected to look or feel or be experienced in certain ways. there are certain things that are considered shameful among mainstream able-bodied society, like, say, wanting to have really hot great sex when you've got a catheter or a colostomy bag, or experiencing pleasure when much of your body is paralyzed. in my experience disabled people are usually desexualized, unless we're being fetishized, and i don't like having to choose between not being permitted a sexuality or being permitted a sexuality only at the whims and objectification of someone else. i feel in some ways claiming my sexuality as a disabled person is a political act because we are basically denied our own sexuality in mainstream able-bodied culture. for me, crip sex is in many ways a fuck you to that idea. for me it means asking the question - why is there so much shame in sex if we don't have bodies that look or act a certain way? why do we have to make value judgments about people's access needs during sex (or any other time, for that matter)? how can we have sex that is life affirming and body positive when we have bodies and lives that a lot of people would rather erase or destroy or pray they never end up with? how do we celebrate pleasure in our lives when the dominant narrative about us seems to focus only on suffering?