film project

my buddy kate and i are working on a film. it's going to be about 30-60mins and focus on disability, sex, queerness and smut through a narrative-docu lens. i'm super excited about the project but only now am i realizing how HUGE an undertaking these things are. 

so we were sitting down for brunch with her pal who was giving us advice on how to write a budget, etc, and she said 'you know, you'll probably get asked why sex? isn't sex oppressive/dirty?'

and it's funny how the most obvious questions can be the most difficult to answer. 

sex. its that thing that we all have in so many capacities. stolen. empowered. but it plays a role in defining us a people. personally it was the battleground on which i lost legitimacy in my humanness.

Can you even have sex? Can you even kiss? Did god make you to be celibate? 

i'm a survivor, so its not as though i don't realize sex isn't always pleasure - isn't always empowering. But isn't validity something we all chase?

if i meet you under the sheets instead of on the street, the rules change. we're naked and fucking and it's forgiving and about getting off, rather than pretending we're normal. i can see every freckle, mole, stretch mark you hate. and my business is loving your body - if only momentarily.

it changes things. its the proof i need to demonstrate what my tired words never suffice. telling you i'm 'normal' is bs. telling you i'm just like you is also bs. telling you i wanna fuck and it'll be hot, is not. 

sex is that place of infinite contradictions. you can fuck someone you hate. you can fuck to express love. you could fuck and rather be doing your laundry.

i'm sick of having to smile and play the part of some two dimensional helpless, white quasimodo girl just to get respect. respect doesn't get me laid, i'm sorry. and yeah, sex isn't everything. but goddamn it, i like a good fuck as much as the next guy. 

so i look at porn and think - well yeah, this isn't me. no hunch backs. no facial differences. no clubbed feet. i can't go around telling you i'm 'just like' these porn stars, cuz i'm not. my body maps different curves. and jesus. i don't want every crip to have to go through as much therapy as i did to unpackage the ableism they're swimming in, just to realize 'hey - i'm fucking sexy' ten years and several thousand dollars later.  disability should not be a scapegoat for self deprecation and masochism - an excuse to not let yourself be happy. 

and sure, not everyone's gonna listen to me. we're a breed hell bent on destruction. but some of you will. and if that gets a few more sexy crips laid, then i'll die a satisfied queer.

i mean really. who wants to waste any time wondering if the sex they do have is just a series of pity fucks? 

i'm worried too. i know that putting myself out there like this has risks. a lot of which are due to the fact that we are all on different pages when it comes to what acceptable behaviour when it comes to being naked for public viewing.

but when i stand in a doctor's office and let him touch and examine my body i do not feel ecstasy. nor when i stand in a naked in a gallery, on the walls. but one is expected of me. regularly. the other, rarely. 

you're allowed to look at me in text books at the library and its science but in a magazine behind the counter its filthy? what is oppression, anyway? 

it's control. 

when i get naked for my lens, its mine. when i am depicted as sexual, its mine. when i force you to deal with my sexuality, gender, privilege, scars, your fetishes, your fear - its mine.