transabled.org

Dear Sarah

Thank goodness someone has broached the subject of sexuality and BIID. For me personally the two are inextricably linked. On the one hand I am sexually aroused by the image of a woman in a wheelchair and on the other I have a strong deep seated need to experience what it must be like to be such a woman. ( I have strong transsexual leanings btw) I have had these desires for as long as I can remember. Sometimes there is a sexual element in my fantasies i.e I imagine what it must be like to make love as a disabled woman or man but at other times it is the disability itself (paralysis and the dependence on a wheelchair or callipers) which is a real turn on.

Would welcome further comments.

There is a link between BIID and sexuality, which seems to greatly vary from people to people. The vast majority of people I know are not sexualy aroused at the idea of becoming paraplegic.

For me, the relationship lays in the fact that sexuality permeates most areas of life, and hence, BIID as well.

There’s also the fact that when you are more comfortable in your own skin, you usualy feel more attractive, and better able to engage in sexual activities.

Sarah, for my part you are absolutely allowed and welcome to express however things are for you. Perhaps we can learn from our differences as well as our similarities.

This is certainly an interesting subject, and one which has analogies with GID. Some transsexuals are asexual until after they have genital surgery. This does NOT mean that it is a paraphilia. Other transsexuals have no issue with sexuality regardless of their physical state. It seems reasonable to me that we would find an analogous heterogeneity amongst us with BIID.

I agree with everything Sean said. I’ll throw my own experience into the pot:

I was pretty much asexual until I was 23. I had my first orgasm at that age, with my boyfriend. I had never masturbated to orgasm prior to that. As soon as I became sexual I started “playing” paraplegic during such activities on occasion, but definitely not all the time. Fast forward to two years ago: Since then I have been anorgasmic by choice, because it is part of my BIID. My partner and I still make love but I am always in paraplegic mode. It no longer feels like playing. I don’t think I could do it any other way now, because it would feel inauthentic. I’m still rather asexual, but I think my sexual desire will increase after I become paraplegic. This may seem a bit strange, because part of my BIID is a need to have no genital sensation. However, my genitalia has never been my primary erogenous zone in any case. I think what it comes down to is that the closer I am to my self image, the more comfortable I will be with my sexuality.

This has got me thinking…I’ve never allowed myself to I’ll say “enjoy” sex and you can read into that, with a man. I’m wondering if it is because my sexual identity tells me I’m not *supposed* to feel and enjoy sex in the traditional way.

When I started this journey I would have sworn to you that there was no sexual component to my BIID. I’m a devotee, yes, but I wasn’t sexually turned on by the thought of myself being a paraplegic. I had been pretending for a year off and on, and for a couple of months regularly, when I started to notice something very odd. I usually used the chair when I went to school, which entails a rather long commute. I gradually became aware of an uncomfortable sexual arousal as I approached school in my car. The arousal seemed to be *in anticipation* of wheeling. I didn’t like this feeling, it didn’t feel good, and I certainly didn’t seek it out. I couldn’t understand why I should feel sexually aroused by anything. Once I was actually at school and in my chair, it totally went away and didn’t bother me again until the next time I was driving to school. I don’t really know how to explain this, except to say that while sexuality is not by any means my primary motivation (or even secondary motivation!) for wheeling, there does seem to be a sexual element. I don’t know why this only happened when I started to wheel with regularity. Some have suggested that the sexual element comes from the feeling of being *whole* and feeling right with your body. This makes some sense to me, but I am not convinced that that’s all there is to it. This is still happening to me, but the feeling isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Sarah, your post had me thinking quite a bit. Let me share this.

My BIID always had a fairly strong sexual component. Or, rather, my sexuality doesn’t exist outside of my BIID. I cannot engage in sexual intercourse as an AB, or if I do, I’m not really here, I’m trying hard to imagine I’m an amputee and I’m not really with my partner (not satisfactory at all :(

I also easily get aroused by disabilities in others, but this is due to identification/transfer, I don’t really want to enter a sexual relation with a disabled person. I made a few attempts of that sort, but quickly found I wanted to be the disabled one. Besides, the disabled guys I tried to have a relationship with were so uneasy with their disabilities and their body image as such that it was a real turn off. I was really sorry for them. I want to be in a relation with an AB as a disabled. I join the others and borrow Chloe’s words to say that “I think what it comes down to is that the closer I am to my self image, the more comfortable I [am] with my sexuality”

Matter of factly, my erogenous fantasies were exclusively focused on me having a physical impairment (mostly amputation) from the very beginning. For a long time I thought it was a weird kind of fetishism of sorts. But then I started to imagine what life would be like if I were what I want to be, and it went far beyond the sexual area and started to invade all the areas of my life. Did someone write something like “it taints everything it touches”? :)

Welcome Sarah, and thank you for raising this!

Thanks for this thread Sarah.

My wish to be physically disabled (partially/wholly paralysed in my left leg and needing to use a calliper) does have a sexual content: the thought of being in my desired body image and “kit” sexually arouses me as does seeing others with my desired body image and using similar orthopedic appliances (leg-braces, spinal braces).

In summary I’m saying that the whole BIID thing is, for me, a mix of emotions and desires whih definitely includes a sexual element.

It would seem there are quite a few of us for whom sexuality and biid are inextricably linked. For myself I long to share my innermost feelings with others of like mind. However this forum may not be the appropriate arena for such intimacy. If anyone would like to discuss their feelings with me I can be reached at matrons@hotmail.com I look forward to hearing from you

It seems then that there are 2 very seperate groups. I would place myself in the group where I feel far more comfortable with myself when in my wheelchair or pretending/appearing to be paralised. For me it’s not sexual though when my mind isn’t taken up with wanting to be paralised I am better able to get in touch with other feelings (including sexual ones). I don’t get aroused at the thought of being what I want to be or seeing others who are as I want to be, which is where I think there seems to be quite a distinctive difference.

For me it’s all about being who I’m supposed to be, and being recognised as such by society. I want to be paraplecic and I want society to percieve me as paraplegic. When I feel I’m being successful at that then I’m much more likely to feel deeper emotions. Like maybe all the time my energy is going into ‘wanting’ to be paralised I can’t be properly happy, or properly sad/excited/etc. For me sexuality is something that requires everything else to be OK first, so that I can feel the deep emotions that calls for.

Sorry for the essay, hopefully it made sense to someone!

Beth, don’t be sorry, it’s a good comment. I like how you say “when my mind isn’t taken up with wanting to be paralised I am better able to get in touch with other feelings “. It hits the spot for me

If I may put in my 2 cents worth:
To me there is a strong sexual component to BIID that is possibly related to the fact that I am also a devotee. Clearly, that is not the case with all; Sean is a very notable exception.

What does puzzle me is why anyone might get worked up about this issue? Whether or not BIID can have a sexual component does not change the fact that we were born with or developed at an early age our need to be disabled. Perhaps attempts to label BIID as a \\\’paraphilia\\\’ are somehow meant to pigeonhole the disorder in some existing class and, therefore, avoid having to do anything about people with BIID. Of course, we will still have people with BIID whether they have the sexual side or not. I guess that what I feel is simple: BIID is somewhat diverse in its manifestations.

The issue for me is that society perceives “philias” as the lowest of the low, well below pond-scum. Think of paedophilia and necrophilia to name two. Transabled people have been compared often enough to paedophiles, and not very favourably either. I believe that as long as it is perceived as such, the likelyhood of us ever having access to surgery is remote, at best.

I agree with Sean on this one. As long as BIID is seen as a sexual thing, like the examples mentioned by Sean then we’re not going to get respect and treatment from the medical community. Even if BIID is compared to a minor sexual ‘abnormality’ such as enjoying it more in public places or when handcuffs are involved, or even in a santa suit or whatever turns you on then it’s not going to get treatment as a severe mental health issue that needs physical correction. It will be thought of as a preference rather than a NEED.

Anything that has to do with body identity, is likely to affect sexuality, I am asexual, something that many psychos, which I approached, have a very hard time sealing with.

Well, I don’t think BIID is seen as a ‘sexual’ thing; I think merely people have so far stated, they feel more comfortable with themselves, which then obviously affects their performance in many aspects of life, be it sexual, academic, professional.

I think to the educated professionals (and the ones who would be open-minded enough to even consider BIID academically), this would already be a foregone conclusion and already considered, so I don’t think it would be something that would negatively affect the effort to establish treatment. It’s the media and the public that has to be dealt with, with that aspect; unfortunately, no matter what happens professionally, I think there’s going to be negative spin by media and the public. Even the more ‘accepted’ of the medically, etc. different still often are seen as lower than the rest of the society.

I don’t get some ‘thrill’ off BIID; quite the bloody opposite. Though it runs parallel in some way to sexuality, seeing as I am a Devotee, and what I need having BIID, also happens to be what I am attracted to as a Devotee (which I’m starting to think there is a much higher occurance of than I previously thought)…

It may be well to bear in mind the experience of transsexuals some decades ago. If an MtF were to admit to their physician or psychotherapist that they were sexually aroused by wearing womens’ clothes, or even that they were sexually aroused by women, they were denied medical treatment in the form of hormones and surgery. Transsexuals learnt that they had to lie about such things in order to get treatment.

Although it is not true for me, there are clearly some of us who may be sexually aroused by, for example, wearing leg braces and/or seeing someone else in leg braces. In the eventuality that we are able to obtain appropriate medical treatment, one might want to be very wary of disclosing such things to a medical professional.

I’ve had sexual (devotee related and other) feelings and drives weaving in and out of my BIID experience for a long time, and I’ve come to understand (like some other posters here) that for me it’s mostly a transference thing; it’s the way that my underlying identification manifests itself, bubbling over into my sexual identity.

I realize that the sexual element is controversial, because some devotee behaviors are troubling (stalking, objectifying etc.) and that it can often muddy the waters when dealing with the psychiatric establishment to move to a recognition of the fundamental condition. But I have to be honest, to myself and to people in a community like this, about the link. I seem to cycle through different scenarios, fantasies and drives in my sexual life (kind of complicated, really), and there’s a disability facet to most of my sexual experiences. It’s almost as if I’m subconsciously “trying on” roles and relationships that involve body differences. But it always comes around to an awareness that my body sees itself at a deep level as a paraplegic and that’s the most natural and comfortable way I experience life. Everything else (those other sexual imaginings) is just variations on a theme — the way my restless imagination processes BIID.

When I’m wheeling, and interacting in public, there’s very little direct sexual connection for me, although overall I find that my senses are more alive and receptive.

All the accusations of objectification trouble me somewhat. I am female. Women have been objects for male sexual attentions for millenia and yet no one (except for myself and the feminist movement) has ever told me that this is insulting, offensive to women etc etc. I hate being the object of sexual appraisal by others (I am in my forties and no page three girl and as such generally invisible to men) and I am ashamed to think that I might objectify anyone sexually. But I do. We all do. So maybe disabled people need to get over it and remember honestly what sexuality was like for them when they were AB.
Rant over. Sorry. The whole sexuality and BIID thing troubles me a lot.

Very nice, Marlon! I think that you have made a very perceptive description of your feelings on the BIID/sexuality issue. What is so great, for me, is that I think that this is a better understanding of this point than any I’ve articulated or have seen and is probably approaching a description of what is operating in my brain.
Thank you.

It is nice to see such a response to this topic. I must agree, that repeated discussion of sexuality will lead onlookers to make the wrong judgement about what is discussed here. The sexual element gives them immediate licence to write us off and cast us down with socially undesireables.

On the other hand, I always had the impression from those who chime in here that the sexuality part was being avoided so that we could take comfort within ourselves that we are not some sort of deviants.

I do not believe from my own experiences and from what I have learned here that BIID is a sexual thing. Humans are sexual creatures, like it or not. It is NOT the end of the world to become aroused when being in our desired physical state. It does not change the roots of BIID(what ever they may be), nor will it turn us into deviants. Is being our desired selves not what makes us happy and feel better?

Danish epigrammist Piet Hein once wrote:
Everything’s either concave or convex
So all that you dream will be something with sex.
No getting away from it, it’s part of every cell of the body, no matter what we’ve got or don’t have it’s going to be part of it. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be all of it.

Personally, my BIID does have some sexual content in as much as I find DAK amps sexy, and the idea of being one equally so, but sexuality is certainly not the *main* driving force behind my BIID. Most men admit to having sexual fantasies, and previous partners have on occasion, asked me about mine. I’ve always inferred that I don’t ‘do’ sexual fantasy- but I suppose the reality is that my sexual fantasies- like most of my non-sexual fantasies, tend to involve disability in some way and- as such, I’ve never felt comfortable discussing them with anyone else. I know you don’t want the whole BIID debate clouded with ‘smuttiness’, but it is undeniably true in my case, that any sexual experiences I have are vastly improved by my imagining myself in my ‘true’ body form. Even as a very young child, pretending gave me probably my first sexual stirrings- I think partly, though- due to the forbidden-ness of what I was doing as much as anything. Possibly- and this is just an idea- those needing amputation are ‘allowed’ to be aroused by the idea, due to their sexual organs not being affected by their impairment, while those needing paraplegia also need a lack of sensation that would proclude such arousal??
Anyway- it’s an interesting debate…

….and the world has not come to an end!