Nerve has a great personal essay on a woman’s quest to develop her sexuality after an accident paralyzed her and put her in a wheelchair. (Emphasis added)
Unfortunately, when we turned on the lights, I discovered I had bled like a sieve. Back then, I had a catheter in my urethra to keep my bladder empty. (I can now independently drain my bladder via a tiny hole in my bellybutton.) His penis had rubbed the catheter the wrong way and irritated the inside of my bladder. Blood was flowing into my drainage bag, which was lying on the bed beside me.
But I didn’t let this scare me off. A year later, the Oklahoma guy and I were deep in a serious, sexually active relationship, even talking about marriage, when a friend of mine told me I was being stalked online by several “devotees,” a group of fetishists who get off on wheelchair users, particularly those with atrophied legs and spastic muscles. I told my boyfriend about this shocking revelation and he acted surprised, weirded out and disgusted. A week later, he tearfully confessed that he was one of those freaks. I was devastated. He told me that even though my wheelchair was what attracted him in the beginning, he was now truly in love with me. I was too in love with him to break it off.
…we sat on my automatic bed and made out. He leaned over and quickly pulled up my tank, exposing my breasts. He was so deft, so confident, and clearly experienced. I let go at that point and let him explore me at will. I’m a submissive at heart and get turned on from giving up complete control. Being paralyzed makes that very easy to do, which is perhaps the one ironic benefit of my accident.
The relationship to how powerful people are in their everyday life and how powerful they act in the Scene or in bed. There seems to be no correspondence between the two, in my experience. Some people who identify as Dom are high-powered, authoritative types in the work and home lives, while others have low authority jobs.
So, what’s the relationship between a person who fantasizes about being disabled (other examples: Vicky Hooks, ParaCathy) as a form of submission and a person who is submissive sexually and disabled? If your physical circumstances require you to be submissive, does your sexuality adapt to that out of necessity?
More on disability fetishists
