Sins Invalid is a short film featuring a troupe of the same name from the San Francisco area. The troupe is composed of performers with varying disabilities who express their sexuality and experience on stage for a live audience. The film chronicles the creation and heart of the troupe, formed out of a need to shift the narrative of disabled sexuality from something grotesque or shunned to something visible and celebrated. Sins Invalid is an active performance to display the varying sexualities and sensualities of each performer and to give the audience insight into the beauty of disability.

When analyzing the film from a disability theory angle, it is clear to see the subversive nature of the film. Robert McRuer explains in his essay on “Sexuality” in relation to disability theory that, “exclusion from normality or a presumption that one could not be part of the heterosexual/homosexual system, in other words, sometimes allowed for disabled pleasures and disabled ways of knowing that were not reducible to dominant systems of heterosexuality that were dependent on ablebodied definitions of sexual norms” (McRuer, 169). Given that in the 20th century people continued to find ways to label disabled sexuality as “abnormal”, there  is a need to break out of the othering that comes from heteronormative analysis of disabled sexuality. Sins Invalid as a performance troupe finds their own ways of subverting the narrative of abnormality, transforming the concept of disabled sexuality into something beautiful and sensual. This explicit subversion is emphasized in the lapdance performance of Maria Polacios, where she turns her wheelchair into an object of sexual mobility and sensuality. Something that the heteronormative society would see as abnormal suddenly appears erotic, freeing the label of disabled sexuality.

Patricia Bearne, Co-Founder of Sins Invalid, speaks in the film about there being a distinct lack of disabled bodies on stage, how people with disabilities need a space where they can perform and grow as performers. In a short story labeled “The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People”, s.e. Smith defines the concept of crip space as “unique, 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” (Smith, 273). This is exactly the kind of environment that the founders of Sins Invalid have fostered. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha expands on this concept by speaking about how the first time she watched the show, she was amazed and moved to tears by the the notion that the queer and disabled performers did not have to hide any part of their identity while on stage. Sins Invalid as a troupe is working towards freeing the boundaries that have been set by society for people with disabilities, expanding the definition of what it means to live free lives full of love. In Petra Kupper’s analysis of “Performance” in disability studies, she explains how in performances like these “the action moves out from the individual and toward communal action, and a staged performance becomes a way of presenting disability in public” (Kuppers, 138). For the people who are disabled in the audience, this is a celebration of the lives of fellow people with disabilities. For the nondisabled in the audience, it is a chance to see another facet of disability, one that has long since been locked away by society. All around, it is another chance for the audience to see how acceptance and support can create stunning and captivating narratives for all viewers.

As someone who is asexual, this would not be my first choice of a performance to view. However, I do understand the need to shift the current accepted narrative that people with disabilities are without sexuality or that their sexuality is otherwise repulsive. Interpretive performances are also not my first choice of visual performance, but I think that each scene represented in the movie has its own beauty. If I were to watch performances that are not overtly sexual, I would have an easier time enjoying them. But that is a personal preference to avoid blatantly sexual media. However, I am struck by the moments of spoken word, specifically the performance of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, relating her relationship to an adventure through the cosmos. And I can appreciate the stories that they are trying to communicate and the medium of which they are doing so, and I hope that they continue to find joy and freedom in their performances. From a professional standpoint, 4 out of 5 stars, from a personal standpoint, 3 out of 5.