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The disability inside
Written by Claire on Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Paradevo board is for devotees of disabled men. Someone there recently posted a link to a YouTube video of a hot guy in a chair doing transfers. I had seen the video before, the guy in the video had originally posted it to the wheelchairpretenders2 group. I told the female devos there that the guy was a pretender, and there was an ensuing discussion about how that killed the feeling for them, he could be as hot as he wanted, if he was a pretender, then from a devo point of view it did nothing for them. He was fake, he didn’t have a "real body", was a total fraud, not the real deal. One other person said (anonymously) that it didn’t matter, the video was hot anyway. I agreed, but didn’t speak up, having been flamed there before for being a pretender myself.
What struck me was that no one could see through the fact of working legs to the real disability inside. Here was a guy with a real disability (BIID), dealing with his disability in the best way he can. Like anyone. To me, it has the same poignancy as a paraplegic doing transfers. Paraplegia or mental illness, it’s all disability, it’s all frailty, and imperfection in the world’s eyes, and yet beauty, too, in the physical uniqueness and the inner strength and whatever else draws devotees to the objects of their admiration. I’m afraid I didn’t have the guts to post these thoughts on the board, not really wanting to get flamed or pulled into pointless arguments with people who refuse to even try to understand.
I’m not saying that devotees ought to be attracted to pretenders. Attraction is a very personal thing, you’re attracted to what you’re attracted to. I just was struck by the derisive attitude of most of the devos towards the pretender: fake, fraud. In another post, a devotee proclaimed that the whole idea of BIID made her "feel queasy." It hurt to read that. What would that devo say to an able-bodied person who told a quadriplegic in a power chair that he "felt queasy" when he saw them? She’d no doubt be enraged. So why did she think it was okay to say that about people with mental illness, and say it TO the people with that mental illness?
While many devotees do understand and support their transabled friends, I am surprised by how many don’t. I once naively assumed that devotees in general, struggling with their own unusual desires, misunderstood by a large portion of society and the disabled community, and hated and mistrusted and misunderstood by many if not most, would have a much better understanding and appreciation for a wannabe’s situation. I assumed wrong.
I have good friends who are paraplegic wannabes and I have noticed that over time my perception of them has changed a lot. At first, I thought of them as walkers, because they can and do walk, and were "pretenders". Then gradually I began to think of them as a wheelers, and pictured them mostly in their chairs, but still pretending, sitting in their chairs, but not needing them. Now, having finally internalized the concept that "a psychological need for a chair is not less valid than a physical need for a chair", and having come to know them much better, I see them, actually, as disabled, as needing the chair. The ability to walk is irrelevant. The point is, they need a wheelchair, and are disabled.
If our close cousins the devotees can’t even see this, how long before we can make society in general see it?
[tags]BIID, Pretending, Pretender, Wannabe, Devotee, Disabled, Disability, Transabled, Mental Illness[/tags]This entry appears in Claire's Thoughts, Other's Thoughts, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2 Comments
It’s hard to believe that in a community this small and vulnerable, in a sense, to thoughtless scorn we would turn on each other. Since I was young, I’ve ben trying to think of ways in which we could actually come together as a community and actually interact beyond simply being internet groups.
I’m saddened by your experience as it makes me realize the situation is not as good as I had imagined it to be. Still though I have some sort of dream I will keep trying to bring to fruition.
Thanks for your post people don’t normally talk about the “Disability Fascination” community and the inter and intra-action of its subgroups. I think just beginning to acknowledge it is the first step towards building a stronger, more accepting, and more cohesive community.
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1 On 11 February, 2007, jen said:
As long as I know someone is a pretender or has BIID, that’s fine by me. This has gotten an unpopular response on paradevo as well, but hey, this is my preference.
I know people with BIID who have days, too, when they don’t want to be in the chair or on crutches. But this is how they’ve chosen to go forward in their lives and they don’t have an easy escape from it.
I have a zero tolerance policy for anyone who pretends and doesn’t let it be known. No, I don’t expect someone to wheel up to me out of the blue and say, oh, btw, just pretending here. But the amount of pretenders on boards who never own up to it and instead are outed is just amazing to me.