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Responding to Ashley Connor’s Article
Written by Sean on Sunday, November 29, 2009
I found a recent article on what appears to be a student online newspaper. "Amputation Onsession (sic): Body Integrity Disorder". I fear the article isn’t particularly well written, it doesn’t flow, but that’s the least of its problems.
The article is full of innaccuracies, although that doesn’t surprise me much, because it’s pretty typical to have articles that get their facts wrong.
BIID is a psychological condition that causes its victims to have a strange desire to have certain body parts amputated.
Ah, yes, that’s one much repeated. The thing is, the jury is still out about that, isn’t it? I mean, what with Drs. McGeoch and Ramachandran’s evidence that there is neurological. So such an assertion as "BIID is a psychological condition" may not be all that straighforward.
As for the bit about having "certain body parts amputated", again that’s not new. I wonder when will people finally catch on to the fact that BIID is NOT just expressing itself as a need to be an amputee?
According to the Body Integrity Identity Disorder Database, infants who see an amputee have the image imprinted on them and their obsession emerges.
Errr, what? Where? BIID database? Is there such a thing? I’d love to have a reference to that please, because to my knowledge, there is no BIID database. And even if there were, the idea of infants seeing amputees being the cause of BIID is far-fetched at best. Especially considering the vast number of people who report never having been in contact with people with disabilities before BIID first manifested itself.
While it is unknown how many people have BIID, as many are too ashamed to admit their illness, it seems – for an unknown reason – to affect more men then women.
That statement needs some serious unpacking. It is true that we don’t know how many people have BIID. It is also true that many people who have BIID are ashamed of it. But the second statement isn’t the only cause of the first. We don’t know how many people have BIID because nobody bothered to really count. And also because so many professionals don’t know about BIID, so they couldn’t count even if they wanted to. And because many people with BIID don’t know they have BIID, so can’t disclose they have it, regardless of how ashamed they are (or aren’t).
And we don’t know whether or not it affects more men than women. The first few studies showed more men, but that is changing. And don’t forget that initial studies were showing that Gender Identity Disorder was more from male-to-female transition, but now there seems to be an even’ish balance between MtF and FtM.
Sabine Muller concluded in her article ‘Amputee Envy,’ that all people have a body map that outlines their senses and parts of their body. For some people who have BIID, the unwanted parts of their body have been permanently deleted. In such cases, the only way to find relief would be to perform the surgery.
Sabine Muller didn’t arrive at the conclusion of body maps. And she’s advocating AGAINST surgery. Wow, completely misunderstanding articles.
If you or some one you know is suffering from any of these symptons, the Wellness Center offers free and convidential counseling.
Now that’s interesting. It’s good that there is an offer of support at the Wellness Center. But, what are they going to do? I’m quite curious about it.
Tags: Amputee, BIID, Body Maps, Surgery, Therapy
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5 Comments
Find 50 copies of this newspaper, cut it into strips about 4 inches wide, join all the strips end to end, roll it up in the bathroom and recycle as needed.
3 On 29 November, 2009, Phil said:
Dear Sean, when you reply in public to such a bad article, you give it more attention than it is worth. And you just do yourself no good.
Better write to the editors and the author and demand that it be corrected where wrong. And if it is a student’s paper, you can write to the professor as well.
But why transporting wrong information further…?
Best wishes!
4 On 1 December, 2009, Sean said:
Hey Phil,
The problem with the internet is that, unlike print media, it is easy to find and remains on archive forever. So it is important to respond to erroneous statement and set things straight, so when people are searching for information about BIID, and they come across that link, they see the responses as well.
I *have* contacted the editors, but they haven’t responded. I’m not surprised. I doubt they will respond.
5 On 2 December, 2009, Phil said:
Dear Sean,
a person who searches for BIID related information will find better places like transabled.org or biid-info.org first.
Every link to or mention of web sites is like an ad for them so that they are easier to find.
I really do appreciate your activities and advocating for all of us very much. But are THESE web sites really so important and influential? Or are there more important places to advocate - with higher impact of your energies?
We have an old rule here in Bavaria: “not even ignore” something or somebody. Maybe that’s why I am just culturally blind ;-)
Best wishes
Phil
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1 On 29 November, 2009, Becs said:
The article is badly written, badly researched and I’d guess that this was someone’s term paper or essay for a psychology or anthropology class.
If a prof. vetted it, that was badly done as well.
I have a feeling The Wellness Center would be both terrified and fascinated if anyone came in and said, “I need to be paraplegic.”