A is for...

Scope's most recent addition to their extraordinarily awkward "End the Awkward" series of publications is an alphabet of disabled sex.  Forgive me, but this was too good to just leave alone.  Sex and disability is a fascinating and under researched topic, so can't you just imagine the dreary afternoon spent trying to come up with an entire A-Z of disabled sexuality.  I hate to think how many biscuits they all got through.

Going through the list, I will trouble you with my own guesses as to what they might have come up with followed by a little critique of each subject.  So here we go.

A.  Given that I was anticipating a pretty righteous and yet baffling start to the list, I guessed Autustic Sex.  I was anticipating something along the lines of "Wasn't Dustin Hoffman cute in Rainman?".  However, I forgot about the single most sexualised disabled group - amputees.  Given the rubbish a lot of amputees go through online, it would have made for an interesting discussion.  It was, if anything, rather simplified.

B.  Whilst trying to guess, Deb mimed a clue.  That didn't help as much as you might have thought.  I didn't even manage a guess and Burlesque really is scraping the barrel.  Again, you could have interesting discussions about how disabled bodies fit surprisingly well into the Burlesque aesthetic, especially as it's often tainted by the dark shadow of the Freak Show.

C.  Thoroughly unimpressed by B, I guessed that C stood for Cucumber.  Which makes marginally more sense than Coffee.  Or Coffee?  Because Coffee? is the universal euphemism for "Fancy a quick macchiato upstairs?".  Which explains why Starbucks has done so well.  Given that I don't drink coffee, I suggest that we create more euphemistic consumables.  Cucumber is perhaps a little too obvious, although "Do you want to come upstairs for a cucumber sandwich with the crusts cut off?" is pretty much on my level.

D.  Given that most Disabled Loos are considered hot spots for illicit sexual activity, I thought they might feature in this list as something to be reclaimed.  But no, they've gone for the rather more chaste option of Dating.  Which seems wantonly Dull.

E.  For epilepsy?  Electroshock therapy?  Or, if we're being a bit more sensible, emotions?  Nope - Experimenting!  Firstly, I felt rather robbed because the person interviewed has non-EPILEPTIC seizures!  So close!  But it's a rather miserable little story about how sex with a disabled person can be 'weird'.  And in the example, it's weird because someone might have a seizure during intercourse rather than any of the hundred other more extreme examples of 'weird' I can think of.  Of course, none of those weirdnesses even compare to the weirdness of, say, having sex with someone who really enjoyed Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town.  Or someone who enjoys coffee.  Or someone who came up with the idea of a Disabled Sex A-Z.  *shudders*  Weeeeiiiiirrrrrd.

F.  Heh.  It's not what you think!  No, it's not that either, I checked.  Ooo, flagellation!  I didn't think of that one!  No, still wrong.  F is for Flaunt it.  Because, as we've learnt with Free the Nipple, the way to change any attitude is for people to post naked photos of themselves online.  In all seriousness, it would be great to see more variety in the images we see around us, and particularly in those of a sexual nature where white, very young, perfectly proportioned and apparently non-disabled women dominate.  However, that's not so much up to us as it is up to advertising companies who think that 'perfection' sells.

G.  Gay!  I got this one straight away.  But this is wonderful - listen to this.

G is for Gay… or bisexual, or lesbian, or trans.

It's not, you know.  Otherwise it would be gisexual, gesbian or grans.  So does this mean that disabled people should start sleeping exclusively with grandmothers now?

H.  So fed up, I didn't even try to guess.  But whoever wrote this thing was either messing around or hasn't got into any trouble while trying to get their lumbar rearranged.  Happy Endings apparently, in this case, have nothing to do with insalubrious salons but is, in fact, the *heart warming* tale of someone who had to wait a lifetime (or at least until they were in college) in order to meet their eventual spouse.  Move over Brief Encounter.

We'll have to wait now for Scope to continue this fascinating series.  I suggest you spend the rest of the day trying to come up with your own guesses for what they might come up with for the rest of the alphabet.

The God of Sleep

Content warning for self harm

When I was a child of eight or so, I remember dreaming about drinking whiskey. I knew that spirits were bad for you and yet also something special. And as such, in my dreams, a nice scotch tasted somewhat like liquid ice-cream.

By the time I was fourteen, I had already been ill for two years. I had crippling attacks of muscle and nerve pain. Aware that no doctor wanted to help me, I did my best to blank my mind during the worst bouts. I tried to think about the colour black. Surround myself in a never-ending night. Floating above the pain.

I remember a talk by an ME “expert” at the hospital school I attended. Asked how I coped with pain, I said to the audience about my technique...emptying my head. “Of course, that’s easier for some people...” I got a laugh. I felt euphoric.

But I didn’t cope well with the pain. I spent nights awake, I would hit my leg repeatedly and hard enough to send a wave of tingly numbness over me. I took more than the recommended dose of paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen. Later, desperate and searching for some respite, I’d start having a small drink with the pills. Nothing deadly. Although a few years later, my stomach might disagree with that.

My GPs were terrible and I was scared of them. My friends at the hospital school all knew about being branded a drug-seeker. We knew what sort of a future that led to.

It was thanks to Deborah - her borrowed strength, bravery and wisdom, that led me to first experimenting with Co-codamol. The fizz and astringency followed quickly by a lovely light opiate blanket. Feeling the muscles relax. My family and I moved house and I asked the new GP about taking a stronger dose. This was a monumental psychological shift.

Our culture celebrates those who break the pain barrier, who withstand agonies with a quip and a grin and who, when shot in the shoulder, are not only spared incapacity, but who are then gifted with just enough adrenalin to waste an entire bus-load of bad guys. No one writes books about people who sensibly take a few tablets and have a lie down.

People do write books about people who take too many tablets, do stupid things and suffer the consequences. They write books about people who become hooked on drugs and turn to prostitution. They write books about painkillers and weakness.

This has always been the case, and there’s a good reason - no one wants to read a book about me taking my tablets and having a lay down with season three of The Legend of Korra on DVD. And that’s fine - books are important educators, but only when they don’t send people to sleep.

The problem is that, in the UK at least, there has been a political shift which echoes time and again the phrase ‘Hard Working’. The only good person is a hard working one. And I’ll let you into a very personal secret - the one piece of praise I crave more than any other is being told that I’ve worked hard at something. It gives me a massive glow of happiness. But the problem is that the ways in which I do work hard are not the ways politicians mean it. And scarily, their definition has seeped into the bedrock of society. Indeed, there are times when it seeps into my brain.

As such, not only is the story of me taking my tablets terribly boring, it has become morally incompatible.

Last year Deb and I got our own bungalow together. It is, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to us. We’re very happy here and everything in the garden is lovely. However, the physical and emotional tolls the move extracted from me left me in quite a poor state. I had already progressed from Co-codamol onto Dihydrocodeine. But talking to The Most Lovely Doctor in the World ™, I was presented with the option of morphine.

In my mind, Morphine had been akin to my childhood imaginings of whiskey. I had wished for it in the nights. I knew that it was not good for you, but it was effective, mesmeric and addictive. Being a classicist, I knew all about Morpheus, the god of sleep. Being a fan of a good Western, I knew about Laudanum and the opium dens of the past. I knew that this substance carried the weight of many cultures. For some reason, it should have been a much bigger step.

But by this point, it really didn’t seem it. As a child I would never have dreamed of snaffling a snifter of some spirit hidden in the back of a cupboard. I’ve never smoked or taken illegal drugs. Now, though, the idea of just trying something to see how it goes makes absolute and perfect sense.

What’s more, I have learnt that, by taking my morphine, I heal more quickly from my worst bouts. I am able to sleep properly, I can relax and breathe. Deborah has to expend less energy in her care of me. It is all wonderful.

If I were ‘Hard Working’, I would achieve much less, suffer more and so I would also take more of Deborah’s already limited time and energy resulting in her also achieving less. “Hard working” is one of the biggest lies told to us by politicians. Balance is the thing we should aim for. But balance is the boring story. The problem is, it’s also the only way anything great and sustainable can ever happen.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2015

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2015 will be on Friday 1st May!

As in previous years, I'll be helping to run this tremendous blogging carnival - posting updates on twitter and facebook and updating the main site.  If you fancy joining in, sign up at http://tinyurl.com/BADD2015 and please promote the day using the hashtag #BADD2015

Hope to see you there!