Month: October 2021

A Supernova-Sized Burst of Accessibility: RAB Response

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  1. “How a Blind Astronomer Found a Way to Hear the Stars” by Wanda Díaz-Merced from Disability Visibility

  2. Summary:

Wanda Díaz-Merced’s short personal narrative, “How a Blind Astronomer Found a Way to Hear the Stars” was originally performed as a TedTalk in February 2016. Beginning with a description of how supernovas work, Díaz-Merced explains how the star she was studying at the time she lost her sight, became a magnetar. Detected by their gamma-ray bursts, astronomers are able create pictures of the most energetic part of the supernova explosion. Something important to understand about them is that people are unable to see these events occur with the naked eye because we can only see a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Díaz-Merced emphasizes this because the only reason why astronomers create visual constructions of supernovas is because its a common and generally easy way to interpret them. That is, if you’re a sighted person.

When she lost her sight, Díaz-Merced thought that she might have to leave her field because of the lack of accessibility. Instead, she decided to make the work accessible herself, so she could continue to study the work she loves. Díaz-Merced. Because all light is a curve which can be turned into a table of numbers, those numbers can be translated into sound. Her and her collaborators worked really hard on this sonification project that had never been done before, and now “she is able to do physics at the level of the best astronomer,” (Díaz-Merced, 170). After telling her story of accessibility innovation, Díaz-Merced bought the TedTalk to a close with a last thought for the audience, which is that anyone can develop a disability in their lives, and most people eventually do. However, this doesn’t mean people should be excommunicated from their area of work. Scientific fields in particular have many systemic barriers in place that aren’t keeping up the outer world’s increasing focus on accessibility.

3. Quotations:

-“If people with disabilities are allowed into the scientific field, an explosion, a huge titanic burst of knowledge will take place, I am sure” (Díaz-Merced, 173).

-“I think science is for everyone. It belongs to the people, and it has to be available to everyone, because we are all natural explorers” (Díaz-Merced, 172).

-‘While other countries told me that the study of perception techniques in order to study astronomy data is not relevant to astronomy because there are no blind astronomers in the field, South Africa said, “We want people with disabilities to contribute to the field”‘ (Díaz-Merced, 172).

4. Reflection and Review:

I found the last quote I listed to be particularly interesting because when the various countries Díaz-Merced offered her new techniques to rejected them because there was no perceived need, its so clearly obvious that the reason there aren’t blind astronomers is because of the lack of accessibility which she was attempting to correct. It reminds me of a piece I read once about planes that have seen combat, where when the surviving plane came back from battle, engineers looked at where the damage on them was, and wanted to reinforce those areas. However, eventually someone pointed out that these were the surviving planes that they were looking at, and what they really need to do is to reinforce the areas of the planes where there was no damage, because those were in fact the places that if hit, would send the plane spiraling to the ground.

My big takeaway from this piece is that organizations can’t look at the people who maneuver easily through their field to decide how to accommodate people with disabilities, because nondisabled people are the ones the organization was built to cater to. They have to look to the people who are being left behind. They need to listen to them and their needs, and then work to create space for them, by either allowing disabled people to innovate the system themselves like Díaz-Merced, or working in groups that have direct contact with people with disabilities and prioritize their thoughts.

Here’s a link to the TedTalk:

Wanda Diaz Merced: How a blind astronomer found a way to hear the stars | TED Talk

Ho, Sandy, “Canfei to Canji: The Freedom of Being Loud”

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Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From The Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong, Vintage, June30th, 2020.

Summary:

The author Sandy Ho starts her essay with the birth of her nephew. She describes an instance where she is reminded of her family’s outlook on disability, in particular the cultural origin of it. She explains that she had been told often as a child, she was lucky and should be grateful to have been born in the US. Her parents immigrated from Vietnam and Hong Kong before she was born, carrying the general sentiment towards disability that was common in East Asia at the time. For context Ho explains that, in 1968 Deng Pufang, a disabled man, founded the China Welfare Fund for the Handicapped and led the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. However, there would be no change in the openly hostile environment of East Asia until the 1980s. This is around the time Ho’s parents emigrated to the US. It was practically impossible for a disabled person to make a living and live a comfortable life before, but in the 1980s that was only gradually changing. People with disabilities were popularly considered useless. It was not until 1990s that a noticeable shift in attitudes occurred, with the introduction of the colloquial term “canji”, a word meaning sickness to replace the word “canfei”, meaning useless, when describing a person with Disability. Most of Ho’s relatives hold similar attitudes, some even encouraging her mother to abandon her at the hospital after her birth. Sandy ho starts to close her essay by discussing the tragedy of Sagamihara in 2016, an incident where nineteen disabled people where massacred, while twenty-six were left injured in a violent demonstration of the belief that disabled people should be euthanized. She makes a point; the saddest part of the whole crime is the fact that the Japanese government refuses to release the victims’ names to help the victims’ families from avoiding public shame for their relative’s disability. Sandy ends the essay by expressing how important she has found the struggle to express herself and exist in both her cultural world as an Asian American with a disability.

Quotes:

“Now I understand the exchange of silence for the comfort of other as oppression; in this case because I still fearing knowing how little value my life might hold for others.” (113)

“As a marginalized disabled person I want it all: for all of us to remain as fixtures in our shared world views, for the space to do more than survive, and for our voices and presence to experience the indelible freedom that comes with being louder. ”(116)

“Some relatives told [Sandy Ho’s] mother she should abandon [Sandy] at the hospital because [her] disability diagnosis meant [Sandy] was canfei, a “useless burden”.” (114)

Reflection:

This was one of the three sections of Disability Visibility that I found the most disturbing so far. Sandy discusses her experience in a less positive way than others have in this book. Not that any of them have been sunshine and rainbows. But Sandy is making a point to mention gruesome and ugly aspects of her knowledge of ableism. I appreciate this a considerable amount. While discussing positive aspects of being disabled is great, I think it is hard to fully grasp any situation without discussing the negative aspects of it. By no means is it a person with disability’s responsibility to convey these negatives, if they do not want to, they do not need to. But, It helps others gain insight when they do. Most of the events Sandy referenced, I did not know about prior. They are not really discussed, kept off the mainstream radar. Her sharing this has inspired me to do some more digging for issues surrounding disability and keep my eyes peeled for news relating to these discussions.

Disability Visibility: Last but not Least – Embracing Asexuality by Keshia Scott

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Scott explains her discovery of her asexual identity in this story, and its relationship with her blindness. She explains that she was always the last of her friends to achieve life milestones, and how as an impressionable teenager she had many insecurities and wanted to fit in with her friends. She was surrounded in her teenage years by other disabled people, and her insecurities about her appearance were amplified by her friends’ ideas of what the ideal woman was like. She explores her lack of interest in men and how throughout her life she has felt indifferent about sex. Many of her experiences with men that she recalls consist of groping and sexual harassment, and as she grew older she has felt more anxiety about explaining her life choices: to not be married, have kids, be sexual with other people. 

She details her discovery of pleasuring herself and the term asexual. She had a conversation with a classmate who said, “disabled people are either asexual or hypersexual” (126), and at first she was taken aback by the blatant ableism in this discussion. Later, she did more research about asexuality and realized that she had the wrong idea in her head about what asexuality was. Now she uses the term and has talk some friends and family about her identity.

At the end she explains her happiness with her independent life. That she is at grad school and many of her friends have taken different paths in life. At the end she explains, “The thought of sex is still uninteresting to me, the thought of having kids is still unpaltable to me, and still, all the time, learning what it is to be a woman, with all that this entails. I look forward to what happens next. And every day I’m still smiling.” (128)

There is a lot in Scott’s writing about the connections between disability and asexuality, which I found overlapped with a lot of what the keywords reading also talked about, that queerness and disability often go hand in hand. Howveer, what Scott and many other people in the asexual and disabled communities often points out, the two occur on their own. There is intersectionality to these communities, but they are not one in the same. Scott even discusses this, that she, “ couldn’t bear it if [her] sexuality ended up being determined by disability” (127) Asexuality could often be misdiagnosed as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, and many people on the autism spectrum also face a lot of stigma by often automatically being labelled as asexual. I’ve found too that in the asexual community there was at one point an effort to disconnect asexuality from disorder, but there was also quickly push back against this as asexual people realized that there was overlap in the communities and to try to fully separate them was to disregard disabled asexuals. 

Asexuality is very fluid, with different people falling into different levels of attraction, both sexual and romantic, so seeing Scott’s own detailed account of her relationship with her sexuality was very eye opening to me. And I am glad that she as a disabled asexual has written about her relationship between these two identities.

In Sickness and In Difference

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(I apologize in advance but I am doing two essays. I figured a few of us might choose one of them, but I still wanted to give my thoughts on it!)

CW: Sex toys

Keisha Scott’s “Last but Not Least- Embracing Asexuality”

Jamison Hill’s “Love Means Never Having to Say… Anything”

“Love Means Never Having to Say… Anything” begins with Jamison Hill’s desire to say “I love you” to his partner, Shannon. Hill recounts the times when he thought he was in love with previous partners, when he could still speak and have conversations with them, before defining his condition of myalgic encephalomyelitis, a condition that keeps him bedridden and unable to speak. Hill continues by speaking about how he had met Shannon and how their shared condition turned into a relationship, and how that relationship between two sick people can be just as good as a relationship between a sick person and a healthy person. He talks about the way they take care of each other and share their lives together without vocal conversation and he ends with his painful attempt to vocalize his love. The essay finishes with his failed attempt, but Shannon’s understanding of what he wanted to say.

“Last but Not Least- Embracing Asexuality” begins with Keisha Scott’s recounting of always being the last person to hit milestones. From her blindness, to getting her period late, Scott tells of how she felt different from everyone around her, but she desperately wanted to be a woman. She continues with talking about how all of her friends were interested in children, boys, and having sex, being jealous of the attention that her friends got from men, and the desire to gain respect by finally becoming a woman via getting her period. She talks about how she had started by conforming to gender norms for women but was still late in the process, how she first experienced desire to when she first saw porn and masturbated. Scott recalls being disillusioned with the concept of sex, how nothing felt right and that she took a while to understand the sensation of sex. Scott then talks about buying sex toys, dodging questions about sex and relationships, and feeling a “wrongness” that she didn’t align to societal norms. Scott continues by talking about how she took a course on feminism and sexuality and how a conversation about sexuality and disability made her to begin questioning the meaning of “asexuality”. Scott ends the essay by researching asexuality, finding peace in the narratives she read and explaining that she has no desire for sex or children, contrary to what the world around her says.

Quote Bank:

“When we are together, we spend weeks in bed, mostly holding each other, our bodies aligned like two pieces of broken plate glued back together” (Hill, 263)

“These failed romances remind me of the baffling incompatibilities two people can have, but also how love can transcend even the most insurmountable obstacles when you find the right person” (Hill, 264).

“I had never thought about it like that- the possibility of two sick people being in a successful relationship together” (Hill, 265).

“I started to read more on asexuality, read personal stories of others- both disabled and able-bodied – who were completely fine: some were married, some had kids, some have sex once in a blue moon, some have never had sex, some were single” (Scott, 127).

“I already faced discrimination and ableist views from society in so many other ways; I couldn’t bear it if my sexuality ended up being determined by my disability” (Scott, 127).

Reflection:

I chose to do two analyses because I identified so strongly with one, but I also understand that it might be a popular choice in our cohort. So firstly, I will talk about Jamison Hill’s “Love Means Never Having to Say… Anything”. There is a societal pressure that in relationships, certain things *have* to be performed. A romantic first kiss, a declaration of love, a passionate urgency in the early stages that gets rekindled over time. I think that Hill does a great job in subverting these expectations through his writing of his relationship with Shannon. He acknowledges that kissing next to your expended body fluids is not the most romantic thing, but for two sick people, it works because there is a mutual understanding of illness. He might not be able to vocally say “I love you”, but the ways in which they take care of each other are acts of love in themselves, not needing to be spoken aloud. As someone who is a hopeful romantic, I understand to the depth of his definition of “two broken plates glued back together”. There is a fascination with perfection in relationships as well, everything has to appear perfect at all times to the world because no one should know if you have tension in your relationship. However, Hill defines the two of them as broken plates, something deemed by society as “apart”, but together they are “whole”. While they might not be “broken” in the same way, it is through that brokenness that they find wholeness together. The art of *kinstugi*, or repairing broken pottery with gold, allows the artist to highlight the brokenness through something beautiful, and I think that is exactly what Hill has done in this essay. He has taken the brokenness and uniqueness of two people and shown how together, their love and understanding is so beautiful it is beyond words or expectations.

“Last But Not Least- Embracing Asexuality” is one of the most relatable pieces of writing I have read all year. Aside from being blind, the bulk of Scott’s essay was a reflection of my own experience with having chronic illness and discovering my sexuality. As a whole, Scott talks about the dual struggle of being different from her blindness, but then also not having the same feelings and desires as her peers. I have written about the concept of asexuality and disability before, but I will reiterate the point that those who identify as asexual are even more likely to be ostracized in the spaces they occupy. For one, if they are in heteronormative spaces, it is possible they will be ostracized for being disabled. But in disabled spaces, where people with disabilities have fought to be seen as regular sexual beings, asexuals are more likely to be ostracized for not pushing the sexual narrative. There is a unique difficulty that presents itself in these spaces as is, but to have a sense of dual-difference is even more challenging. Despite all of this, I cannot help but feel so validated in Scott’s narrative that she created. In a world that is simultaneously so sex-forward but prudish towards the expression of sexuality, to have any sort of dual-identity with asexuality can be a very lonely process. I can certainly identify with her finding peace in the stories that she read of other asexuals, and it brings me peace to read her narrative. From a disability studies standpoint, I would absolutely recommend anyone studying the intricacies of intersectionality to read this essay. It does a fantastic job at weaving together the truths of gender performance, societal expectations, sexuality, disability, and the general sense of belonging that plagues our existence.

The Artist’s Embrace of Oneself

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The documentary provided a raw, poignant view of the creative process of disabled performers who took the stage in 2012 to share their stories as disabled people. The yearly show explored disability and race, gender, sex and sexuality, and featured many artists of color and LQBTQ artists. The documentary itself, fully titled Sins Invalid: An Unashamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility, was directed by one of Sins Invalid’s founders Patricia Berne, was released in 2013 and detailed the performances’ development, the performers’ thought process behind their parts, and the importance of such a show. 

Sins Invalid features a variety of acts, with some done entirely independently and solely for the performer. In one performance, a disabled man takes a bath and uses a sponge to clean himself. The performance is done entirely alone and independently, which a few of the other more intimate performances do. However, what really stood out to me was the performances that had multiple people in them. One performance features Nomy Lamm, a singer and amputee, dressed in a bird costume in a nest of human prosthetics. She layers her voice to create a song, and is soon joined by another performer who clasps hands with her. The performance is heavily symbolic, and has a huge focus on unity and community. The importance of group performance is emphasised in Keywords for Disabilities, “Performance”, where author Petra Kuppers explains that such performances, “moves out from the individual and towards communal action, and a staged performance becomes a way of presenting disability in public” (138). The final performance featured in the documentary starts with a man in a wheelchair being caught in a fight between a bipedal individual. It is halfway through the performance when this individual disappears and the man in the wheelchair is lifted into the air, using his arms to hold himself atop a wooden beam. The performance ends with the projection of a cross over his form, evoking imagery of crucifixion. This performance is a result of the combined efforts of group and individual performance, and conveys a harrowing connection of abuse and violence on the disabled community. These performances, which we see the behind the scenes of in the documentary, are performed annually, with different stories and performers taking the stage each year. 

“This space[…] is for me” says E. E. Smith. The concise declaration really doesn’t beat around the bush. These spaces, these performances, are one of the few spaces for the diabled to feel fully welcomed and accepted. The in-your-fact descriptions of sex and sexuality, of the instability of their place in an ablist world, the fear or violence and containment, they are not only necessary — to be seen and heard —  but they mirror many of the worldviews that the audience holds. 

There is something powerful in finding yourself surrounded by your community. A magical sort of emotion as you feel true belonging in the face of invisibility and oppression. When you talk to a stranger about your personal experience and realize that you are not alone; they feel what you feel and think what you think. That you no longer have to hide. Much like the audience in Smith’s writing, the audience of Sin’s Invalid would become a part of the performance itself. Not only do you see the unfiltered performances of diabled people, but you are a part of the space itself, with each audience member having their own unknown — and previously unacknowledged — stories.

Sins Invalid emphasises that the performers do not perform for the audience, and rather are performing for themselves, to create art not for it to be objectified by a view, but instead encompassed in the minds and bodies of the artists. Performing for yourself, for the sake of expressing yourself, is an extraordinary way to create art. Artists are often uncomfortably aware of their audience, and this usually impacts the creative process in some way. What will the viewers think of this? Will they accept it? Will they hate it, jeer and boo me off stage? The artist freeing themselves from the expectations put about by the audience are able to focus solely on their art. And for the case of Sins Invalid, this resulted in an enchantingly unashamed show.

It is impossible for film to capture the experience of seeing the live performance. There is so much different about being there in person, seeing the entire expanse of the stage and feeling the entire room vibrate with the voices of the performers, to see the curtains sway open and closed, that cannot be truly captured in film. The act of becoming one with the audience could even itself be a part of the performance. Actors could enter the audience, break the fourth wall, there are even performances entirely made up by the audience. John Cage’s 4’33” is a completely silent musical performance, where the sounds of the auditorium make up the music itself. The audience’s breathing and shuffling, quiet whispers and coughs. Being a part of the audience completely changes the experience, so I feel like as a viewer of the film, I have yet to fully see the true performance. Because of this I give the documentary a four out of five stars.

Middle School Traumas

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There’s a Mathematical Equation That Proves I’m Ugly Or So I Learned in My Seventh-Grade Art Class by Ariel Henley

This essay was about a young girl with Crouzon Syndrome and how she found beauty in herself, even when everyone and everything is telling her otherwise. Her story is focused on her experience in a middle school art class where they learn about the golden ratio that mathematically defines feminine beauty within art. Throughout the class, this girl tries to find a way to be comfortable in her own skin and feel beautiful.

“Beauty is subjective” (46)

“”Fix me””(42)

“I have never understood mathematical equations or ratios, so the only thing I learned from her lesson was that these were the beauty standards a woman must meet if she wanted to be deemed worthy” (41)

I think the main take away for me from this essay is that beauty cannot be defined. It’s subjective to the eye of the beholder and there is beauty in absolutely everything around us. I also really liked that this was about this girl finding beauty and seeing herself as beautiful. I think often in these stories we hear about people dealing with physical deformation problems that end up finding beauty in their personality and they’re inside rather than their outside. I understand how important it is and that what’s on the inside matters but it’s nice to read a story where someone doesn’t give up on their personal appearance and finds beauty in their physical outsides as well.

Keywords for Disability studies, “Sexuality” by Robert McRuer

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The section for the keyword “Sexuality” discusses the connections between sexuality and disability. Specifically, with how queer identities mirror and often overlap with disability. The historical role of queer identities being labeled as disabilities heavily ties into the role of the “abnormal sexuality”, which McRuer explains connects the physical differences of disabled bodies to “abnormal desires”, which results in the abnormal sexuality. (168) There is a stigma around people with “abnormal sexuality” having excessive sexuality, which also contrasts with the stigma of some disabled people being seen as non-sexual people, often being initialized as well. 

McRuer discusses the historical impact that “shock therapy, sterilization, and castration”(168) have had on these communities. McRuer argues that a newer mindset has emerged that discusses alternative sexual experiences, and how this as diverged from a hetersexual/homosexual binary. McRuer quotes Foucault, who “famously insisted: that homosexuality materialized a ‘new species’ of person” (168), and examines how this “new species” would be increasingly regulated by the state for many years. 

The queerness of disability itself has challenged heteronormativity, which McRuer argues almost requires able bodied-ness. McRuer ends the section reflecting on how sexuality has continued to oppress disabled people, “but it has also become a profoundly productive site for intervention, experimentation and transformation”(170). I think this really reflects how in-depth discussion has brought this aspect of disability forward, and how continued discussion and awareness of these topics are vitally important marginalized communities. 

One thing that really resonated with me is connecting queerness to disability. Specifically the author categorized heteronormativity being perpetuating the expectation for the norm to be cishet, allosexual, and able bodied. With LGBTQ+ identities being labeled disabilities throughout history, the connection to sexuality and disability is impossible to deny. I really feel as though the connection between the two could further the destigmatisation of these communities. 

What also really stood out was the discussion of sterilization and the medical attempts to “fix” disabled people, or to prevent them from having children. This is a very horrifying aspect of this discussion, that shows the painful aspects of what dehumanization and othering made people think it was okay to do this to disabled people and reading about it really angered me. 

The authors terminology was also really fascinating, especially with how efficiently McRuer was able to convey such complex concepts. “Abnormal sexuality” to note was a very effective term that is fluid enough to cover both the stigma of excessive sexuality and of reduced sexuality. It was also really eye opening for McRuer to use film and literature from these times that reflect the historical oppression of sexuality in the disabled community. Using examples from William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929) to show an example of a disabled man who is castrated for his disability, as well as using examples of Shakespeare and the movement to show disabled people in a nonsexual light. This also helps really put into perspective the vast timeline of these issues, and how this has been going on for centuries.

Sexuality and Defiance: A Review of Sins Invalid

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Summary:

The short film “Sins Invalid” showcases a performance project by the same name, created by disabled artists Patty Berne and Leroy Moore. This collection of performances by a collection of artists of all disabilities, races, ethnicities, genders, and sexualities focuses on the nuances of navigating sex, desire, and relationships while existing in a world that is incredibly hostile to any displays of sexuality in disabled people. The first performance by ET Russian shows them removing their prosthetic legs for the night and rubbing lotion on their legs while a narration plays over the scene describing a past sexual experience with another disabled person who was injured in a car crash. Next, Maria Palacios explains her relationship with sexuality as a wheelchair user and how she was taught that she would never have sex, get married, have children or even grow up. Palacios also describes the horrible medical treatment she experienced in her youth that dehumanized her. After these introductory performance, Sins Invalid co-founder Patty Berne comes onto the screen and explains why she wanted to create this performance troupe with Leroy Moore, highlighting the way she was paraded around her elementary school naked for doctors to analyze. This performance project is a way for these disabled performers to own their bodies and display them for an audience in a way that is empowering for themselves and others.

Next, the film explores the United States’ past of eugenics, beginning by listing the “5 D’s of types of people who should not reproduce”: Degenerate, Dependent, Deficient, Delinquent, and Defective. Performer Seeley Quest takes on the story of a woman named Carey whose mother was in colony of people that fell under the 5 D’s. When she was young she was assaulted and became pregnant, but was forcibly sterilized on the basis of her family history of disability. One of the most difficult performances to watch came next, with the co-founder Leroy Moore on his knee in the nude while another performer pulls a long list of insults from his mouth, symbolizing how the words of the world are easily internalized. After that, deaf dancer Antoine Hunter explains the experience of non-deaf people telling him he shouldn’t dance because he can’t hear music. We see Hunter dance without any soundtrack, exploring an internal rhythm he seeks to share with the audience. Next, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explains how poets and writers like her too are able to join Sins Invalid and shares a poem she wrote about the love between herself and another disabled individual and how pure and strong their devotion to taking care of each other is.

Later, Leroy Moore performs a scene of going to the doctor in sexual bondage attire and then performs a scene with Juba Kalamka where they play dominos and joke with each other until it turns to hugging and kissing. Then, performer Matt Fraser conducts a sensual bath scene where he shows the audience how he cleans himself, making use of his legs to reach areas his arms are unable to, and invites the audience to see his beauty in the way shower scenes in movies and television often sexualize the love interests of the protagonists. Right afterwards we watch Fraser in a new scene being beat up and eventually killed by an invisible assailant which we find out is an embodiment of the microaggressions he faces in day to day life. The most moving performance for me came next, where artist Nomy Lamm dressed in feathers and wings sings an eerie wordless song atop a nest of limbs. Nearing the end of the showcase, Piepzna-Samarasinha orates another of her pieces, which is a story about the experience of flirting with another disabled individual online and dreaming about their possible life together. Finally, the last performance Sins Invalid gives us is a dramatic chain of events between performer Rodney Bell and Seeley Quest where at first they are in an intimate and tender moment that turns violent when Quest attacks Bell, trying to use his vulnerabilities as a wheelchair user against him. In the last few minutes of this scene, Bell rises up into the air with his wheelchair, twisting and turning and is displayed in front of a red cross, reminiscent of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Quotations and Observations:

From “Disability and Sex” in Keywords for Disabilities, Margrit Shildrick writes, “…disabled people, like everyone else, understand their sexualities in multiple different ways, which do not fit easily with the convenient models of social management” (Shildrick pg. 164). I thought this quote is depicted very nicely in Sins Invalid because inherent to the production is the fact that each of these disabled performers have different experiences and stories based on their lives as people of color, queer people, and each of them utilizes different mediums in which they choose to perform their stories. I think one of the reasons why Sins Invalid is so good, is because one of their goals as a production is to essentially scrap the “convenient models of social management” in favor of showing the world who they truly are, safe within their community of people who support and cherish their art.

Another quote from Keywords for Disabilities from the chapter “Sexuality” by Robert McRuer says, “Disabled people often have been discursively constructed as incapable of having sexual desires or a sexual identity, due to their supposed “innocence” ” (McRuer, 168). I connected this quote to Sins Invalid in particular to a section where a performer is expressing her frustration with societies inability to allow disabled people the experience of seeing people like themselves on the screen getting to experience sex just like non-disabled people are allowed to. Sins Invalid is a way for people to show off “An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of invisibility” as stated on their website.

Review:

I found the short film Sins Invalid to be incredibly moving in the way the performers were able to get down to the nitty-gritty feelings of pain, weakness, love, and strength that have experienced and continue experience in their lives. Before I wrote this post, I watched it one more time in order to catch the detail I may have missed in our class viewing, and each performance so aptly contends with the oppressive power structures they face, wrought with symbolism and humor. I really would like to see a live performance of Sins Invalid if I ever get the opportunity because only seeing snippets of many different performances, I would assume, pale in comparison to the real experience of getting to see it live. I rate Sins Invalid a 5 out of 5, because of the masterful attention to detail of the camera work, as well as the finely chosen scenes that moved me in such a short amount of time.

“An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility”

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“Sins Invalid”, while the name of the documentary that ENG 401 viewed in class last Friday, is also the name of the disability justice visual-and-performing-arts troupe starring in that film. Based in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Sins Invalid is experienced similarly to an onstage lookbook: it is a performance that explores beauty, desire, the body, and identity through disability, paying careful respect to the intersectional lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Over the 33 minutes of the film artists Cara Page, Seeley Quest, Maria Palacios, Nomy Lamm, ET Russian, Antoine Hunter, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Rodney Bell and Mat Fraser are interviewed about their performance and the motivations behind their various creative expressions on stage. Since 2006, the group have performed on a rotating basis, and are allowed to choose their own acts. A single performance offers everything from slam poetry to aerial gymnastics, all with a focus on the beauty in self-realization among the disabled, and letting go of the ableist myth that our fullest lives and disability are mutually exclusive things.

Chapter two on “Ability” from Keywords for Disability Studies, by Fiona Kumari Campbell, posits that ableism “is useful for thinking not just about disability but also about other forms of difference that result in marginality or disadvantage” (Adams et al. 14). Sins invalid, which is run entirely by disabled people of color, makes this a focus of their work within the disability facet of the performance. Seeley Quest’s performance as “Carrie”, a pregnant foster youth, exemplifies these “forms of difference”, and demonstrates the avenues by which disabled people are too often taken advantage of (financially and sexually in Carrie’s case) when they are not adequately accommodated by the systems in which they must live.

The next chapter of Keywords for Disability Studies, “Access”, by Bess Williamson, adds that our modern pressures to accommodate the disabled “[follow] the logic of the ‘social model’ of disability, which shifts attention from the impaired body to the surrounding environment” (Adams et al. 15). Williamson means here that the social model of disability sees disability as defined by society, not the way someone is born. This reminded me most of the performance of Mat Fraser, who spars with an imaginary foe onstage as audio clips of derisive comments play in the background. As the comments continue, Mat falls and convulses on the ground, unable to get up, with blood streaming from his mouth. I believe at this moment Mat intended to show how the impairments of stigma, judgement, and low self-esteem themselves become a barrier, perhaps equal to or sometimes greater than the physical challenge presented by a given disability.

Personally, I enjoyed the film for its intimacy in subject, because to me it proved another level of sincerity and frankness in a discussion on bodies. How can that not include love, sex, and romance? However, I also noticed the uneasiness in the class when the nude bodies came on screen. In this country, it’s more acceptable to show a video of a shootout than a female nipple in most circumstances, so I understand their reservations. But, I think that awkward feeling is partially intentional on the behalf of Sins Invalid, as it makes us consider what should be normalized (like the scene where Mat washes himself onstage) for the human body in society, and also reconsider what bodies we do see onstage most frequently and why.

I would rate this documentary four stars because I thought it was a bit poorly produced for a documentary about a performing arts crew (you’d think they’d have better cameras in 2013), but the amount of time spent interviewing the actual artists and not the company was refreshing to me. Aesthetically, and in terms of the message, absolutely a five star film. If nothing else, Sins Invalid is a beautiful performance, and I think the artists important work bringing justice to all “forms of difference” at a degree of inclusivity that felt new to me as a consumer.

“Sins Invalid” – I’M UNCOMFORTABLE.

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Graphic imagery of sexual performances have always made me feel uncomfortable, (especially if I’m not particularly looking for it.); after all, “There can be few practices in everyday life that arouse such strong responses – both positive and negative – as sex.” (Keywords in Disability Studies – Sex, Margrit Shildrik, Pg. 164). So I was not really excited about watching the short documentary film “Sins Invalid”. Now that I’ve seen the film, I must say that it’s not as bad as I thought, but I still had a hard time watching it. The film follows the experiences of a theatre troupe each dealing with their own physical and mental disabilities, as they perform one of their performances on stage.

I had very little problem with the actual message of the film; people with disabilities should be able to develop strong romantic and sexual relationships, and most importantly, be able to express their love for sex and their need for intimacy and desire. People should not be forced to not have sex, or be sterilized because they are disabled, or feel like they don’t deserve love or children because they are physically or mentally disabled. The disabled need a space and a voice to express who they are as humans and individuals; “It is rare, as a disabled person, that I [author S.E. Smith] have an intense sense of belonging, of being not just tolerated or included in a space, but actively owning it[.]” (Disability Visability, Pg. 272). In my personal opinion, the performances were at their best when they talk about the women during the 50’s and 60’s because she was mentally disabled. The performance of the woman in the blue dress, talking about this story of sterilization and abortion was very compelling and heartbreaking. Another compelling performance was that of a deaf performer dancing. It was intriguing, because the dancer can’t hear music, but he enjoys the art of dance – why should he not perform dance, since it’s a unique art that’s distinct from music and is not dependent on it to be an art form? These sections where probably the best examples of “Crip space” as described by S. E. Smith, “A place where disability is celebrated and embraced – something radical and taboo in many parts of the world and sometimes even for people in those spaces.” (Disability Visibility, Pg. 273)

When the film starts having very colorful language, describing masturbation and sexual acts between disabled people, or even displaying violent sexual displays – that is when it became difficult for me to watch. (Having descriptive audio playing didn’t really help very much – it probably made me feel more uncomfortable.). I have no problem with someone with disabilities enjoying sex. I’d encourage more people with disabilities to explore their sexuality. But I do not like watching people have sex. It’s a deeply personal and private act for me. And then there is the case of mental disabilities; when it comes to mental disabilities, it becomes hard for me to encourage sexual exploration, especially with another person (how can a person with developmental disabilities like severe-autism or Asperger’s properly consent to a sexual relationship?). It’s a hard debate. How much can someone with a disability consent to having sex, and how do you prevent sexual predators from manipulating the disabled for their own pleasure?

3/5 stars: This film, overall, has a positive message, and these people have the right to explore their sexual expression in whatever way they desire. I cannot honestly say that I will watch these kind of performances, because I don’t like watching sexual performance art, but it was certainly intriguing, and it certainly made me ask a lot of questions. Author S. E. Smith explains my apprehension very well in her short essay, the Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People: “The nondisabled people are hesitant, nervous, unsure about what to say in response to the work in progress we’d all been invited to witness.” (Disability Visability, Pg. 273)