“Sins Invalid” is a vivid anthology of art performance expressing personal experience surrounding sex and sexuality through the lens of disability. Performers share some of the intimate moments of their lives, highlighting the impact having a disability has had on their ability to engage in sex and romance, none. Their performances also shed light on how ableist culture has contorted their daily lives to be abnormal, introducing struggle into their lives. Sins Invalid is a disability justice performance project, run by POC artists with disabilities show casing the talent and creativity of disabled artists. The Film, “Sins Invalid”, depicts the thought process behind one of Sins Invalid’s showcases.  The artists behind Sins Invalid strive to create understanding of issues surrounding their race, sexuality, and lack of able-bodiedness, something society demand participants have, by directly playing against the stereotypical non-sexual and non-sensual script given to disabled people.

According to Petra Kuppers, in the essay “performance”, “Making choices about one’s intervention is part of what an artful and conscientious disability performance practitioner does…”(139). The question to ask, is what type of intervention are the members of Sins Invalid engaging in? The performers are very explicit in their intentions. They are purposefully fighting against oppressive ideas of able-bodiedness, heteronormativity and racism. However, “Disabled people often have been discursively constructed as incapable of having sexual desires or a sexual identity, due to their supposed “innocence” ”(168), as Robert McRuer in “Sexuality” puts, seems to be the main antithesis of the showcase. This is often the only thing connect one part of the film to another. The film has a lot of ground to cover and not nearly enough time, leaving some discussions as footnotes. But does this matter? Not if the viewer is inspired to look further into the injustices and struggles display by “Sins Invalid”.

Now, for the rating of this film, I would rate Sins Invalid 2.5 out of five stars. The reason for this poor rating is digestibility. “Sins Invalid” is a hard watch. Not because of the disturbing treatment of people with disabilities described at times but due to the extremely explicitness of some of the more focused performances. For some, this may not be a deterrent when watching the film. I applaud your comfortability around sex, I suppose. I personally found some parts uncomfortably pornographic, which other parts ripe with symbolism and deep thought were stained by. I know that I am not alone in this mindset. It is not that I am conservative or prude, it is my personal beliefs that intimacy should selectively share with a few and not the world. Of course, there exist a wide range of opinions on sexual expression and its place in society, so my dilemma may be amplified in some and non-existent in others. No matter what your stance on sex positivity and expression, one should consider the messages conveyed by Sins Invalid. There was a borderline freak-showness and over sexualization to some performances that puts the message Sins Invalid is attempting to impart in danger of being obscured by some of the acts. I believe that was purposeful chose embracing the freak show stereotype. My final impression of both the film and project is that the artists are attempting to normalize a disabled sexual experience, but they are inadvertently alienating a portion of the audience with the explicitness of their performances.

Note: Both quotes used above are from essays featured in the book Keywords for Disability Studies, by Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss and David Sirlen.