sexuality

Sexcapades of the Sinless and More: A Sins Invalid Review

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Sins Invalid is a short film exploring a performance piece put on by disabled artists based in San Francisco. The performances vary in a range of unique expression but relate to the idea of sexual freedom, beauty in identity, and loving different bodyminds in different ways. Viewers get insight on the stage performance itself as well as behind the scenes. Co-Founder of Sins Invalid, Patricia Bearne, is shown speaking to her artists and reacting to their performances before they go on stage. This BTS footage is a clear showcase of how close the entire cast can be, and how special the art is to everyone involved. The addition of various types of art forms from each artist is something refreshing for the whole audience.  

A common important theme, and dare I say tone for this show, was that of an intimate one between artist and audience. While not every piece related to sexuality or sex itself, it dealt with the human body. A different bodymind than what is mostly represented in society. With that, expect to see nudity, stories of sexual encounters, and a brief tragic history lesson on euthanasia. While some might want to steer clear of that for personal reasons, I was able to admire the honesty. It did not just feel like being an audience member, it felt like performers truly got to be themselves possibly for the first time. That is not something I think many people in general get to experience nor are willing to for that matter. As s.e. Smith said, it felt as if “All the barriers between us have fallen away” (Pg. 271) once it began and all throughout.  

One performer by the name of Matt was on stage while audio of ableist and violent statements were thrown at him. He dodges, fights back, and bleeds on stage as if the voices were assailants attempting to kill him. This one in particular stands out the most to me. The point of his work may be obvious, but I feel it can go a step further if analyzed deeper. In that moment Matt was a victim of normalization as many people are. Normalization being a set standard of what bodies should be able to do and what they should like as well as expected behaviors associated with the bodymind. I think his performance showcased this well because of the different voices in different settings that were abusing him. Normalization is a disease. There will always be one group in power enforcing it, but that groups members can be switched out from time to time. You might be thinking why that is and author Tim Dean can explain. “Normalization does not exclusively bolster the interests of the so-called normal, since it also puts them at risk” (Pg. 144). Normalization may not switch continuously, but people do change. Even if you fit into “normal” you may not always.  

The first performer we see on stage is seen taking off her prosthetic legs and washing herself in bed. During this, she remembers a love-fling and goes into great detail about their sexcapades. This was yet another favorite of mine because it begins our show with the ultimate closeness and in my opinion, empowerment. You could tell from her movement and voice it was a happy memory for her. Two parts of this I found the most important. One, the fact that someone from the disabled community was able to display their sexuality free of judgement. And two, normalizing different types of relationships such as a casual sexual one where the woman was not degraded or shamed. I believe this opening felt powerful enough to be an example of someone from the disabled community “actively owning” a space as Smith writes (Pg. 272), and I could not be more encouraging of that energy.  

Overall, this show earns a 4/5 star rating from me. One main point of emphasis felt related to the idea of de-sexualization of those with a disability. Often people wrongly assume they are asexual or call them asexual which is not only the wrong terminology (asexual an identity a part of the LGBTQ+ community is not equivalent to de-sexualization) but a false, ignorant narrative. Many people may wonder how people with physical and mental disabilities have sex to begin with. If you are one of those people, I recommend reading some literature on relationships within the disability community. Additionally, there is such a thing as medically assisted sex. Vice recently put out a piece on this titled “Inside The World of Medically Assisted Sex.” The purpose is to encourage sexual freedom and desires of those who have been restricted from it physically and socially through payment of another person to service someone. Once you’ve done some light education, then I advise you to watch this beautiful art performance if you’re into some abstract thinking.   

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.

Crip Spaces: Sexual, Fulfilling, And Revolutionary

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Summary of Sins Invalid

Sins Invalid is a short documentary about a performance team of artists portraying their understanding of sex and disability – as disabled, sexual beings. The team is made up of an entirely disabled cast and crew. Throughout the documentary we see live performances as well as interviews of the crew members. Performances range from dance routines and singing, to poems and short plays. We get to know a bit about the crew and their experience navigating sex as a disabled person in a world that dismisses or fetishizes sex. The documentary celebrates queer, disabled and identities of color through an artistic lens. 

Quotes:

“This is precisely why they (Crip Spaces) are needed: as long as claiming our own ground is treated as an act of hostility, we need our ground” (Smith pg. 274)

This quote ties in well with Sins Invalid and the need for performances like theirs. There are countless sexually-charged shows, but how many include disabled bodies? How many are accessible for disabled patrons? The organization provides an opportunity for the performers and viewers to feel safe, seen, and validated. Not only that, but Sins Invalid provides a space that disabled folks can actually show up to. The moment from the film I am drawn to is at the very beginning when the audio describer/host(?) is explaining who Sins Invalid is and what they stand for. The disabled voice of color celebrates disability and praises the sexual queerness of people. 

“…we might conclude that it (the way disability and sex is misconstrued) is because sexuality is always a site of deep-seated anxieties about normative forms of embodied being” (Shildrick pg. 165)

This quote speaks in tangent with our class conversation about feeling uncomfortable. Sex is not for everyone. Additionally, not everyone has a positive relationship with sex due to lived experience. It is not a good or essential aspect of many lives, however, I will challenge the discomfort for those who come from a cultural/religious place of taboo and anxiety. If sex is taboo for “normalized” bodies, how are we digesting sexuality within disabled bodies? How are our discomforts and anxieties being projected on those who society deems “abnormal”? I am brought back to the scene in the film when the woman who uses two prosthetic legs is on stage while a narrator graphically explains a sexual encounter. I don’t believe this performance is intended to be a dichotomy; her disability is not in opposition with her sexual experience, but rather in tangent. Our discomfort may be projected onto her not having legs, when realistically it may come from a place of insecurity and social taboo regarding sexuality.

Reflection:

In reflection of the readings and this film, I feel at ease, but not complacent. I feel hopeful and full of questions.

 I find the concept of “Crip Spaces” absolutely essential, both in my own life, within my identities and for the well-being of humankind. I hope, moving forward to find spaces for myself that embrace my queerness (in all meanings of the word). Likewise, I hope for disabled spaces, Black spaces, Indigenous spaces, spaces of color and tongue, trans spaces, survivor spaces, and beyond. Shameless plug, an online platform that amplifies these folks is SaltyWorld. I would highly recommend checking it out for all identities.

Rating:

My bias leads me toward a 5/5 rating. Despite the documentary being lower budget I believe it was artistically brilliant, socially impactful, and overall well done. 

“Sexuality” by Robert McRuer

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“Sexuality” by Robert McRuer, selected from “Keywords for Disability Studies”

Summary:

McRuer begins by acknowledging that the word “sexuality” is already intertwined with words like “freakish” and “abnormal”. He introduces Michel Foucault’s concept of the “cures” and “visibility” of sexuality as a system of control, often to obtain a sense of normalcy or correction. McRuer then compares Foucault’s views of “sexuality” as being similar to “ability” and what resulted in sexuality being pathologized, or specifically linked to a disability. McRuer acknowledges that sexuality is a social construction, which brought out the emergence of heteronormativity and ableism. Because the two were so linked, McRuer talks about how homosexuality led to “feebleminded” diagnoses and stricter regulation for control. He bridges the link between an “abnormal” sexuality being caused by illness or disability, which creates the conception that people who are disabled have an excessive sexuality. These two “excessive” notions led to violent treatments, misinformation about both sexuality and disability, and eventual ruling by the Supreme Court for sterilization. McRuer discusses a shift in the 20th-century from excessive sexuality and disability to the notion that people with disabilities are without sexuality at all. He mentions the link between poor and people of color being seen as “excessive” while white and middle-class are seen as “without” sexuality. Following this, he talks about the idea of people with disabilities having alternate sexual experiences outside of what was understood, which leads into modern day rebellion of both “excessive”, “innocent” and “alternative” sexuality. McRuer ends with discussing the efforts of disability activists against prior notions, and the acknowledgement that efforts are still ongoing and a source of conflict for the modern day person with disabilities.

Quote Bank:

“…in other words, sexuality was endlessly talked about, managed, pathologized, and (often) “corrected” ” (167).

“In 1927, for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled that Carrie Buck, who had been deemed “feebleminded” and institutionalized for “incorrigible” and “promiscuous” behavior and who became pregnant after being raped, must be compulsorily sterilized” (168).

“Disabled people often have been discursively constructed as incapable of having sexual desires or a sexual identity, due to their supposed “innocence” ” (168).

Reflection:

In all of my academic studies I have come to understand that if there is one thing that white men love to do, it is to control others. The author does a fantastic job at digging into the intertwined history of sexuality and disability and how they cannot truly be analyzed without the other. The pathologization of sexuality as a disability is in itself offensive, but it also gives the people in power the ability to declare someone “of unsound mind” and to strip them of all autonomy altogether. The development of the “correctional” treatments like shock therapy or sterilization was an inhumane way to tell people with disabilities that they had no choice in life, not even a choice to love and be loved without it being controlled. The case of Carrie Buck is not new to me, and I am fully aware that sterilizations like this continue to the present day. Often people assume that if someone has a severe disability, whether of the body or mind, others assume that the person is “too disabled” to have desires to seek out relationship, sexual or romantic. This concept is widespread enough that growing up and seeing people in wheelchairs or people with Down Syndrome in relationships was a televised phenomena, including shows like “Little People, Big World”. Episodes of medical dramas are committed to showing people with disabilities who are in relationships as “strange” or just straight up ill, especially if the other partner is not disabled. But I chose this chapter specifically because I was curious about the idea that people with disabilities are often seen as “innoccent” or “lacking sexuality”. There is a modern day movement to take back sex and sexuality for people with disabilities, not in an excessive or alternative notion like the text discusses prior, but as a sort of “this is me” kind of mentality. But I wanted to address a very specific point of tension within the disabled community on the base of sexuality. While there is a danger of being “too loud” (read: excessive), or “too kinky” (read: alternative), there is an even finer line between the concept of innocence or being without sexuality. Specifically, there is a subgroup of the asexual community who have an inner struggle of recognizing their sexuality (asexuals being people who experience no sexual attraction) and being ostracized. On one end, the LGBT community will always look at them as “disabled”, and sometimes not in a positive context, but the disabled community, especially those fighting to be recognized as sexual, look at them at perpetuating the “innocent/without” stereotype. So not only do people with disabilities walk a fine line to even be recognized as human at times, but they are also often denied their true lives, living and loving who they want because there is even added pressure being LGBT+ and disabled.

Citation:

Adams, R., Reiss, B., & Serlin, D. (Eds.). (2015). Keywords for disability studies. “Sexuality”. McRuer, R.