Krysta is a friend of a friend of a friend's. Halfway through the
interview, I got bored with my blindness questions and wished she didn't
live three thousand miles away. I think we could do anything together — chase boys, holler at protest rallies. I bet she could play pool and have a good time with it, relying on her sense of humor and the sound of the balls clicking.
And I bet that nasty, old, sighted Melissa Sue Anderson sucks at pool.
Lisa: Do you have a physical type?
Krysta: I used to. I've become less picky. I like a medium build. Hair and eye color don't matter, obviously.
Lisa: Have you ever had a trophy boyfriend, someone you knew was good-looking even though you couldn't see him, and paraded about with him?
Krysta: Yes! [laughs] There's all kinds of information that gets projected about someone. A lot of time you can tell someone's really good-looking by how people treat them — like saying "Can I help you?" in an eager sort of way. I went on a date with this guy I knew was pretty attractive by his personal ad. At dinner I found out he wasn't lying — the waiter started hitting on him!
Lisa: Are you good-looking?
Krysta: I have gotten enough random cues so I know I can be attractive.
Lisa: What do you look like?
Krysta: I'm 5'8" with brown hair. It's also been black, red and purple though.
Lisa: How do you decide what color to dye it?
Krysta: Friends make suggestions, or tell me what would go with my skin tone.
Lisa: How do you match colors for clothes?
Krysta: I don't have my clothes labeled like some blind people do — I just remember by the texture which piece of clothing it is and what color.
Lisa: Were you born blind?
Krysta: No. It happened when I was three. I had a disease of the retina.
Lisa: What sort of school did you go to?
Krysta: I was in a special education school for three years, and then I was mainstreamed.
Lisa: How were you treated by the other kids?
Krysta: Like I did not exist.
Lisa: What did it feel like?
Krysta: It felt like it feels when you're the only one of your kind in your school.
Lisa: How old are you now?
Krysta: Thirty-three.
Lisa: How has your blindness affected your ability to meet guys?
Krysta: There are some drawbacks during the initial flirtation stage, like not being able to make eye contact. But it is possible to get around that. I did this test in college where I'd walk into a bar. If my white cane was apparent, men would offer me help. If it wasn't, they'd offer me a drink.
Lisa: Did you think men ever use the offer of help as an "in"?
Krysta: Yes, but since I'm a very independent person, I didn't figure out for the longest time that people might think offering to help me would be a way to meet me.
Lisa: Do you think anyone is ever drawn to you because you're blind?
Krysta: Yeah. People who think it has this weird mystique — blindness as symbolism for being able to see, that somehow I'm more perceptive of the truth. Some guys also have a savior/protector ideology.
Lisa: That sounds obnoxious.
Krysta: It is. I tell them, "You're wasting my time, you patronizing pain in the ass." Or when people are so impressed: "It's so cool how you do stuff." Right, I'm getting on with my life. Wow. They think going out with me automatically means they'll have to be reading my mail and feeding me and who knows what. They have moments of cognitive dissonance when they find out I have body piercings and a tattoo. I don't have handcuffs in my bedroom, but I've thought about it. I don't get freaked out easily, and that goes against the perception of blindness being asexual, helpless, conservative, quiet, timid and not terribly adventurous. I tend to be fairly liberal and well aware of what's going on in the world.
Lisa: Yeah, I think blind people are expected to be anachronisms — sit in a room with wallpaper from the twenties and wear a shawl.
Krysta: A lot of blind people are anachronistic — listening to old-time radio plays or such. But I think a lot of that comes from lack of employment opportunities and financial disparities. They don't have access to resources and information that other people have. When I had a low-paying job, I didn't go to the movies — not because I'm blind, but because I didn't have money for the ticket.
Lisa: You go to the movies?
Krysta: Yeah, I can tell what's going on from the dialogue — I listen for the subtext. If there's an action scene, my friend can whisper to me what's happening.
Lisa: In your sex fantasies, can you see?
Krysta: No.
Lisa: What's that like, to fantasize without seeing?
Krysta: What's that like? I never know how to answer that kind of question.
Lisa: Yeah, I guess that would be like someone asking me what it's like to see — you just see.
Krysta: Well, there's smell and taste and sound, all sort of sensation. Not just the intentional sounds people make, but also the sound of how you know where someone is. I have had fantasies of another person being dependent on me, or at least not in control, especially with a sighted partner. Where there's a role reversal, like they can't see, or are tied down.
Lisa: You know how in movies they make it really sexy when a blind person feels someone's face to see what they look like? What's it like in real life for you?
Krysta: I've never done that. Well, the way they do it in movies, it's always a lead-up to something. If I touch someone's face, we're in bed and I touch it just like everyone else does.
Lisa: Have you ever had a one-night stand?
Krysta: Several. My first sexual experience was a one-night stand. I was twenty and was in that late teens/early twenties angst of "Oh my god, I'm going to die a virgin." I was out of the country at this provincial school and extremely bored. This Danish guy was visiting; he was playing pool and he'd been drinking some. He noticed my cane had a golf grip and was playing with it when it snapped open. He thought he had broken it, and I had to reassure him, and that got us talking. We went back to a friend's dorm room where we talked, drank, laughed. At last I realized he was interested in me. He took my hand and there was that electric shock. So when it came time to break up the little party and we were figuring out where everyone would sleep, he ended up in my room. It was a very good experience. The next day my friends said, "He was really cute!" I said, "Oh, good!"
Lisa: How do a guy's friends and family tend to react to them being with you?
Krysta: I've never met a boyfriend's parents, it's never reached that point. But sometimes there's issues with not knowing how to introduce me to their friends. Some people react like: "What are you doing with this disabled woman, this blind woman?" There have been people who kept me as a separate little part of their life — that gets old real fast — and then there are others who just handle it. Ooh, I have to go — the UPS guy is here.
Lisa: I can tell you: all UPS guys are cute. I think maybe that's their marketing strategy. "How can we stand out from the other delivery services? Hire all handsome men."
Krysta: He seems nice, too. He comes to deliver things all the time.
Commentarium (17 Comments)
amazing article. tough, smart people interviewed by a tough, smart person. Hooksexup, do you have any idea what a gem you have in carver? and the people interviewed for this story are an inspiration and just plain interesting which cannot be said for 74% of the able-bodied population.
good one. really good. thanks
hey lisa thanks for artfully expanding my world. you rock.
This was so intriguing. I've always wondered how disabled people "do it" or even if they want to. People who need help to get along in the world seem to be disregarded in almost every aspect, even though they seem to be the people who have to work the hardest to survive, so it makes sense that they'd have an enormous sex drive! So much survival instinct packed into one little body. How could I have missed this all these years?!
The schizophrenic story did make me sad, though. That guy is going to be on my mind for a long, long time.
viva lisa! lisa is a great reporter.
Lisa, I like the article, and I appreciate that you included someone with schizophrenia. I think two disease-related disruptions of his sex life - social isolation and medication side effects - apply to several forms of mental illness across the continuum of severity. Social isolation is tragic, sometimes unnecessary (people think an episode of incapacitation precludes sanity at other times,) but often reasonable (the reasonable sentiment being "Take care of yourself, and good luck, but I/we need someone stable / don't pass your problems onto me/us.") The sexual side effects of medications are generally underappreciated. Again, part of that's reasonable: isn't anorgasmia a fair sacrifice for freedom from suicidal ideation? However, there's also the less-necessary problem of mentioning the problem: How many partnerless patients who've stabilized after a debilitating episode (and probably have at least some minor, if only collateral, depression) fail to say their doctors, "I'm not completely heppy with this treatment. I can't masturbate anymore." Documenting that sexual side effects can encourage suicide forces the recognition that they aren't trivial; they deserve attention.
HI lisa,
I really appreciated this article and the whole disability issue. I had my lower right leg amputated a couple years ago and was afraid that I would never be viewed as a sexual being again. I became very aware of the lack of disability in the media, and specifically in sexy or dramatic roles. That's why this issue was important to me. I have learned to find people with disabilities sexy and I have met a wonderful partner with whom I have a wonderful sex life, but I worry that disabled people are so often excluded and "otherized".
thank you, thank you,
Annie
The Love Stool? How does that work? And where do you find one?
Dear Ms. Carver,
What an amazing piece of literature. I want to give it to everyone I know (and I work in the medical profession) so they "get it"--being sexual can be part of everyone's life.
Thank you.
re: sex & disability
wow.
thanks
The Love Stool. Say you have Parkinsons and you shake and your muscles give out. But you feel studly and want to be on top. You slide The Love Stool over your partner and stick your organ through the hole in the lid and you can go at it supported without falling off. It's a real medical device!
I wrote this letter to the British edition of Forum magazine, but have as yet to get anything other than an acknowlegement of my e-mail posting. I live in Reading, England. This shows the other side of the coin regarding how I feel about myself, and how I perceive magazines like the one mentioned above, deal with 'us'. No doubt you will draw your own conclusions, but I would like to contribute to Hooksexup in some way, and maybe you might be willing to follow this up. As well as my ordinary e-mail address, I also run Yahoo's messenger, under the ID of samssauce. There are also some images of me on my ID page. Since I also have short-term memory loss, and forget names, so that I know who you are, mention Hooksexup in your e-mail to me.
Sam.
Dear Sir or Madam.
I can see that unless I can find some way to resolve my feelings towards the emotional 'baggage' I have dragged around with me for the past 50 years, I am going to end up a very lonely, unhappy individual for the rest of my life, forever keeping at arms-length those who I just might be able to form some kind of relationship with.
The baggage? ah! mild spina-bifida is one bit of it, but I came to terms with that, well before I was in my teens. It's the bladder control side which invairably come with this condition that torments me so. (and torment, is maybe not even strong enough a term.) To put this in some form of context, my SB is such that it is for all intents and purposes invisible, as is the impact it has on me.
I have had a few relationships, but, having been slapped down in some, and avoided the pain of the revelation to those concerned, in the others, I suppose it's not surprising that I find myself in the situation that I am. Where I was 'slapped down', this took the form of accusations that I was being less than honest about myself to them, and one way or another, we split up, never to even talk to one another afterwards. Maybe they couldn't cope with what I was revealing to them; I don't know, and certainly wasn't going to ask, for fear of the response and impact that would have on me. Avoidance and sitting on the fence is, I now realise, what I have been doing. Having said that, knowing that fact, does nothing to square things up, so that I can go forward from that point. About 10 years ago, I started to get problems with my legs, which mean that the bones in my r/hand foot is seized up solid, and as a result of ensuring that I didn't overload the foot after it was operated upon, got an infection in the l/hand one, which has led to the amputation of all of my foot beyond the heel. Neither of these have had a negative effect on me, probably because I just relate it across to the SB, and treat it in the same manner. In short, all of the 'challenges' I have faced over the years, except for the incontinence side of things, I take a very positive attitude towards; I carry their particular 'badges' with pride. Although I was able-bodied, at first I attended special schools, and felt a bit out of place there, and thinking back, probably felt rather jealous of those who were a lot more 'challenged' than myself. But odd one I I certainly was.
Eventually, I was 'allowed' to transfer to a 'conventional' school, but there, forever wondered 'Do they know?, should I tell? There was no medical reason why I needed to, so I didn't. The word 'Avoidance' I see lit up in bright neon lights in your mind. and I suppose, that is the defensive mechanism which one is inclined to put into play. Maybe because of my early schools, and 'our' capacity to 'grow up before we are ready to' which challenged people invairably do, (being responsible for yourself, and a large dose of self-reliance.) I was certainly aware of the differences between males and females from about 7 years of age, and furthermore, what these involved. Having said that, these didn't trouble me that much, until that is, as an adolecence with all those teenage hormones flying around and about me, I must have come to the conclusion that very few people are going to be interested in some one who is with the best will in the world, and whatever strategies one wanted to, or could draw on, basically a 'dirty' individual. I would hear all the gossip that floated around, and the people involved, but at the same time, realised that I was hardly likely to participate in them. My experiences with women after I started working, were to 'prove' my fears well-founded.
So, what am I to do? turn my challenges into some form of inticement to those who seek gratification of their fetish-based liasions? No, that would end up with one being loved for what you are, not what you are! No thank you! I have been educating people for as long as I can remember, in the principles of social integration ... se the person, not the condition. That would mean disowning all that I have to now, promoted. I am not looking for someone who is able-bodied, just some one who can take me for who, rather than what I am. But, I have to say, I have yet to find anyone who shows more than a cusory interest in me. But, that could well be because for my part, I have used this invisible barrier of only letting people get so close to me.... not even close enough for them to even consider looking in my direction. I expect I exude a aura of being self-sufficent, and all too happy on my own, which again is maybe telling them that I am just not interested in those around me.
I think I have gone a long way in analysing what my 'wron-thinking' is, but it does nothing to over-turn it. What, in your opinion, should I do, or what help should I seek to come to terms with this situation or am I just a waste of space sexuality-wise?
I trust that you do NOT come up with that old chestnut and say that the area of the disabled is not one you deal with. (which just may well be the case, based on reading your magazine on various occasions since it was originally published.) I have to say, I have on very few occasions, seen any articles relating to sexuality and the disabled, and/or how 'we' and our partners are supposed to deal with the same issues which burn in the minds of all able-bodied people. To do that, would be to be very much like the Victorians who you have on occasions blamed for our repressed sexuality by sweeping it under the carpet, hoping that it will resolve itself. Well, I for one, would say, dealing with it like that, will not, and if you did, you would be as great a bunch of hypcrites as they were! After all, many relationships develop between able-bodied individuals, who also seek advice ... do you treat them the same? or is what I suspect I will get be a list of helpful contact points, with the rider often used, that 'our' needs/concerns do not impact on the colums sufficently, and their issues are too personal to be printed. To that argument, I would cite your covering rather diverse sexual practices, which do not take up a large proportion of letters you receive, and therefore you are hiding behind self-imposed standards, maybe because you just do not think it will be of interst to readers, and that you think that 'our' sexuality is in some way different to your mainly able-bodied readership.
'Our' sexuality needs just as much airing as others do, and indeed, probably many of the fears/concerns we have, and how one deals with them has direct relevence to everyone else. One could, by reading a number of issues of your magazine, be quite justified in coming to the conclusion that either you are unwilling to deal with 'our' issues, and air them, or, that people with disabilities do not have sex lives at all! (Disinformation based on what is NOT published!) You seem quite happy to print stuff where names/places/dates are changed to provide anonimity, so why cannot you be just as capable of doing the same thing with letters fron people with disabilities, or as I prefer to label myself, those who are 'challenged' in whatever way that may be?
Sam Chapman.
Dear Lisa, I know you must get a lot of fan mail so I cut the crap but your writings are the most iluminating about sexuality in all it's different forms and convolutions. You are one incredible woman! Thank you for being so blunt and so deadpan honest about this aspect of our humanity that normally get's simply not talked about. I have learned so much and just wanted to say thank you from the depth of my groins for being there and writing about it. You should publish your "Lisa Files" in bookform.
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wow! what a cool site. thanks for diving into this subject.
i have a podcast dealing w/sex and disability.
what is interesting is "what" people think of as a disability.
here is my link...check it out and tell me what you think:
https://sextalkradionetwork.com/show-details/mperfect/