Disabled sex, folks. It’s time.

This is an official request for your anonymous contribution.

I am working on a post about ableism in “liberated” sexual culture (including feminism, but not limited to it). And I really think there is no better way to illustrate this than with real words, real experience.

Do you have, or have you had, a disability (or, if you do not identify as disabled, do you have a condition which results in some sort of mental or physical impairment)? If so: Tell me about your experience in the bedroom.

Specifically, I am looking for ways your sex life differs from the “liberated” construct. I want to hear how your disability affects your sex life, in negative ways, in positive ways, and in ways that go beyond that dichotomy.

I want to make clear that “sex,” here, should be interpreted in the broadest possible way. Sex with or without partner(s). Het or queer. Any sexual bits included, any sexual act, no matter how long, short, light, heavy, simple or complex. If you think of it as sexual, then yes, it “counts.”

Some questions to start your thought process:

• What difficulties do you face?
  Is there anything you are prevented from doing, or prevented from doing “normally”?
• And how do you adapt?
• What do you do to make sex enjoyable?
  How do you change things, modify things to make them work for you?
• How do you create new ways to find sexual pleasure?
  What do you do that you’ve never seen anywhere else?
• Do you feel like you’re the only one who does (a certain something/a certain way)?
• What do you do? What do your partner(s) do?
• And how does it feel?
  What do you experience, what is going on in your body and mind, from start to finish?
• Do you orgasm? How easy or hard is it to reach it? Is it important to you to orgasm?
• What is it about sex that you enjoy? What is it that makes it worthwhile?
• How important is sex to your life?
  How much do you want it? have it?
• Has media portrayal of sex affected you? Societal attitudes?
  What have you seen or heard, been told, been treated like?
• What have you gone through in seeking health care for sex-related issues?
• Do you have any other stories or experiences?

I do prefer that entries not simply be answers to the above questions survey-style; I want to hear your experience in your words. Tell me a story — write me a poem — paint me a picture — however your experiences are best expressed.

Again: All answers will be anonymous. I will not attach any names, even pseudonyms, to these entries; they will simply be presented as they are.

To contribute, click here.

The link should take you to a page with one text box and one line for your email (which is optional).

If you need to contact me:
My email is amndaw (skip the second “a” in my name) AT gmail DOT com.
Alternatively, just use the form above to say “Hey, email me back!” making sure to provide your email address.

A few more notes:

If your contribution is anything other than unformatted text, contact me (see above) and I will work things out with you. For example:
If text formatting is important to your piece, you can send me an Office/OpenOffice document.
If you wish to express yourself in visual media, you can send me a still image of any file type — I will do any conversion necessary to display in a web browser.
If you prefer to create a video, you can send me the video file (I can point you to services for sending large files if need be, or I can help you upload it to an anonymous account for this purpose).

If there is anything in your piece that can potentially identify you (especially recorded image, video and audio), and you are absolutely comfortable with that, that is fine — but I prefer that anonymity to remain the default, so that more people feel safe and comfortable in contributing.

A tentative due date for submission will be Saturday, June 13, 2009. That gives you roughly two weeks. If you want to contribute, but that time frame does not work for you, contact me and I will see what we can do to make things work.

[shameless] Link around!! The more entries, the better. [/shameless] :-)

Thanks so much to everyone!