37 seconds: A review of the realest film you will see this year
This is a perspective instigated by the current (2020) Japanese film, 37 Seconds, written by a young disabled woman. She wishes to remain anonymous. F writes about similar parallels in her life as a young disabled woman.
In 37 Seconds, 23-year-old comic book artist Yuma, physically disabled due to profound cerebral palsy and emotionally stunted by her well-meaning but overly protective mother, forges her own unusual path to sexual awakening and independence while at the same time discovering love and forgiveness.
– from Rotten Tomatoes
Warning: some nudity and sex scenes in the film
Netflix has a new hit film that it’s not even advertising. I’d ask them to, as it’s the film we all need right now.
37 seconds follows the journey of 23-year-old Yuma, a wheelchair user who has cerebral palsy, lives with her mother, and has a job as a manga artist. Recurring themes of rejection, stigma, control, and other ableist nonsense are explored and removed, leaving Yuma free to live her own life.
This offers a starting point for a conversation that hasn’t yet been had: To what extent do young disabled people feel safe? How can we do more to support them?
*** SPOILERS HERE ***
From the very beginning, we are shown exactly how much control over her own life Yuma is allowed to have, and how others do not see her for who she is.
Her mother treats her like a child, or less than a child. She shows little respect for physical boundaries or privacy, doesn’t let Yuma freely choose her clothes, and doesn’t show any interest in Yuma’s thoughts and feelings. Her boss casually steals some of Yuma’s pay and lies to her about it, and then carries on taking credit for her work.
Almost every scene adds another layer of defeat for Yuma. Seeking recognition for her talents, she sends some of her work to a publisher, who tells her it’s too similar to the work of her boss. Similar? It’s the same – the work he’s comparing it to is her own.
So she starts to push harder to find her own job where she will be respected. An editor of an adult magazine refuses to hire her until she has experience of what she’s drawing.
Online dating is the first step on the path to her new job, and a faulty lift leads her to new friends, new clothes, drunken partying and falling asleep in the car on the way home.
This is behaviour typical of a 20-something year old, and most parents would shrug, tut, and discuss safe behaviour choices.
Yuma’s mother is not most parents. She’s spent years protecting Yuma from everything, giving up her time to do the things that she’s certain Yuma can’t do without her (though she never gives Yuma the chance to try). Then suddenly, she finds everything: the practice sketches for the adult magazine, beautiful dresses, and a plastic penis.
Yuma arrives home very drunk, having refused her friend Toshi’s offer to make sure she gets home safely. She sneaks in, closing the door almost silently behind her, and quietly heads to her bedroom, where her mother sits waiting.
The second she refused Toshi’s accompanying her, I felt afraid for Yuma. Her mother’s level of control had been so high for so long, and yet futile. Yuma and her mother’s relationship had been set in stone, then shattered. Instead of waiting until the morning to talk it out, Yuma’s mother starts to shout. And then turns to physical violence. And then neglect. At every stage, Yuma is trying to assert the truth, and at every stage her mother rejects it.
The next morning, her mother has taken her phone, and places a lock on the door. She’s a prisoner in her own home, with no way to call out for help.
We don’t know how long this goes on for. The next scene is Yuma at a physiotherapy session. Asking to use the toilet, Yuma rushes out of the building and out of her mother’s control. It’s notable that Yuma didn’t feel that she could ask the physiotherapist for help.
She stays with Toshi. She quits her job. She meets her uncle for the first time, and then travels with Toshi to meet her twin sister she never knew existed. Her sister revealed that she’d always known about Yuma, and had been afraid to contact her because she’d been told she was disabled.
It’s not explained why their father left. But learning the whole truth – another layer of rejection – prompts Yuma’s self-acceptance at last. She feels glad that she was the second born twin, who didn’t breathe for 37 seconds. As I understand it, she feels it’s better to have been hurt by the actions of others than to have caused pain to others by your own actions.
It’s a cleverly written film. Viewers are given just enough of the other side to see that the social stigma surrounding Yuma’s sister was her only source of information, and that this had kept them apart. We saw that Yuma’s mother, who is never identified by name, had had a daughter taken from her, and the idea of Yuma being taken away by the world was too much.
But that doesn’t excuse her behaviour. Her pleas to the police officer to find her daughter who can’t yell for help sound hollow given her earlier choice to lock Yuma in the house alone.
Her mother chose to ignore that her daughter was an adult. She failed to support her to grow into the young adult she wanted to be. She failed to listen. She chose to react with violence. She chose to lock her in. That’s not OK. That’s very not OK!
What’s more not OK is that this film is only fictional in the specifics. The ingredients are factual.
I whispered “Go, go, go!” as Yuma left the physio clinic. But where was she going? Her Plan A had been to check into a hotel, and had she stuck with that plan, I’d have been worried what would happen when the money ran out. Instead, the perfect solution appeared: Toshi.
This is where the reality of the film breaks down for me. How many disabled teens and young adults know an accessible safe place away from their parents with someone who understands and respects them and has a wheelchair accessible vehicle to get them there? And who can accompany them to another country (somehow without her passport) just like that?
In the real world, that doesn’t happen. Someone in Yuma’s position would have very few options of where to go; very few options of how to get there; and have very few people who could be there during that time.
For young adults who do have support needs, it’s harder. Questions like: “Where would I go?” become “Who can I trust to move me, give me my meds, and assist me to get washed and dressed? How can I get my medical equipment?”
Yes, social services solve these problems every day. They meet these young people and do the best they can. And that’s fine, if you trust them. But when every doctor, nurse, social worker, OT, TA, teacher and other grown-up has treated you like a mascot, or pet, or simply not as a person, are you going to trust a stranger with your future? When you have a parent who keeps telling you that others are incompetent, and then the professionals reinforce that by failing to act professionally; are you going to trust them? When you’re told that many children with your condition are given up for adoption, and you’re lucky, and if you say the wrong thing you’ll be take away and put in The System; you’re going to feel ungrateful and ashamed.
Yes, I cried at 37 seconds, because I understood some of how Yuma felt. I remembered some of how Yuma felt. No, I don’t have a twin sister, or any skill at drawing. But I remember what it was like to live in a situation that made me feel very afraid; afraid to speak up, afraid to do anything that might be frowned upon, afraid to be anything other than what they wanted, which wasn’t who I was.
That was a long time ago now. I grew up, and I left home, and I started to find my own self. I discovered new talents. I discovered what music I really like. I discovered that actually people seem to like me. I discovered that if I speak to the right person at the right time in the right way, I will be listened to. I discovered it’s OK to not agree with people and to make up your own mind.
I forget these things sometimes, start to revert to old habits which protected me. Good friends remind me that I don’t need to do that anymore. They encourage me to be the me that I want to be, and nothing else. For the most part, they themselves have experienced rejection or control in one form or another – they understand things I’ve never told them.
I know so many Yumas. They’re easy to spot, if you know the signs.
People wearing clothes that don’t reflect their personality – bought and chosen by someone else.
People not asking or asking hesitantly for the things they need, even from paid PAs or Care Assistants – afraid of the consequences of being annoying or too much of a burden.
People who never have any money, but don’t know whether they’re accessing the right benefits – the paperwork is handled by someone who doesn’t involve them.
People dismissing their own medical issues as “It just does that”; “It’s because I didn’t try hard enough to… (reason that makes no sense)”; “I’m just getting lazy” – someone else has told them that a new symptom isn’t important, or is made up, or is somehow their fault.
People not sharing ideas or joining in with what’s going on around them and which interest them – waiting to be given permission.
People avoiding eye contact and not talking for themselves, and then suddenly saying a thousand words with a look when the person with them moves away for a moment – there’s something that they want to say, but can’t.
The solutions are simple. Support the kids, and support the parents. Let the kids have space to grow, and make friends, and join in with what’s fun for them. Let parents have space to be themselves outside of the parenting role. Give them the knowledge they need to understand how to support their kids to develop into adults. Give kids the knowledge to understand how other’s view of disability is not the only way, and to find their own way.
To anyone reading this right now who has lived or is living any part of Yuma’s story, I’d offer the following advice:
– Remember you are not them. Their actions do not make you a Bad Person. Your choices are your own.
– Not everyone is like that. There are some kind and friendly and fun and supportive people out there who can be trusted. There are some people who are the opposite. There are some who are middling. Go find the people who find the best in you.
– Find a way to organise your thoughts and express yourself. Art, dance, cookery, music, writing. Anything that gives you the chance to be you.
– You don’t have to do this alone. When you feel the time is right, seek support. Maybe from a friend or family member, maybe from an organisation, maybe from a professional; anyone who you feel comfortable with. Ask their support, tell them what you want to happen, and let them go with you as you navigate this, in your own way, in your own time.
– If you see someone who needs some support and you have the time, energy and knowledge, offer your support to them. Even if they say no, they’ll know someone’s there for them.
Yuma’s story is so many people’s story. But it doesn’t have to be.
Sisters of Frida displayed at Rawthmells, RSA’s new coffeehouse
We are proud to be one of the first to be displayed at the new Rawthmells, the RSA’s 21st century enlightenment coffeehouse. it is an honour!
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is a London-based, British organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges, with a Fellowship that is a global network of 29,000 people supporting the RSA’s mission to enrich society through ideas and action.
Rawthmells, the RSA’s 21st century enlightenment coffeehouse, is a place where Fellows and members of the public can encounter new and inspiring ideas.
Address for the RSA House 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ.
(There is a separate entrance for level access entry – ring the doorbell to gain entry.)
Through a system of changing displays, coffeehouse guests will be exposed to the best new ideas from our Fellowship, stories from the archive, briefs and designs from the Student Design Awards, and the work of the Royal Designers for Industry appointed each year.
Changing displays in the Gerard Room, the first room as you enter the coffeehouse, place a spotlight on the innovative and interesting work of Fellows around the world including that of Sisters of Frida’s.
Sisters of Frida were awarded a Catalyst Grant by the RSA in 2016 to run a series of workshops which focused on neglected conversations about disabled women and sexuality. Read more in the blog written by co founder Eleanor Lisney
Do drop in to have a look if you are a RSA Fellow and let us know what you think by commenting below or writing to [email protected]
https://www.thersa.org/
https://www.thersa.org/
With the SOF Banner outside no 10 downing street for Processions 10th June celebration for women getting the vote (photo with the display)
Disabled Women: Facts and Stats
We often get asked why we campaign for the rights of disabled women. Here are a few reasons.
Employment and Pay
- 35% of disabled women (and 30% of disabled men) are paid below the National Living Wage in the UK.[1]
- Disabled men face a pay gap of 11%, while disabled women faced a gap twice as large at 22%.[2]
- Despite qualifications, disabled women have lower participation rates in higher skilled jobs and work fewer hours than both non-disabled women and disabled men.[3]
- 27% of disabled women are economically inactive compared with 16% disabled men.[4]
- Lone parenthood reduces female employment generally by 15%. However, disabled female lone parents are more than half as likely to work than non-disabled female lone parents.[5]
Violence and Abuse
- Disabled people experience more domestic abuse than non-disabled people. Disabled women are significantly more likely to experience domestic abuse than disabled men.[6] In fact, one in ten experienced domestic abuse in 2012-13.[7]
- Abuse is also more severe, more frequent and more enduring.[8][9][10]
- Deaf women are twice as likely as hearing women to suffer domestic abuse.[11]
- The Serious Crime Act 2015 made ‘coercive and controlling behaviour in an intimate or family relationship’ a criminal offence (s.76). The Act provides that it is a defence for a perpetrator to show that they believed themselves to be acting in the victim’s ‘best interests’. This was intended to cover carers. We believe this defence risks preventing disabled women and people with learning disabilities from seeing their abusers brought to justice.
Health and Medical Care
- UK maternity care does not meet the needs of disabled women. A 2016 study revealed that only “19% of disabled women said reasonable adjustments had been made for them.”[12]
- The CEDAW Committee is concerned that “Disabled, older, asylum seeking and Traveller women face obstacles in accessing medical health care and that Disabled women have limited access to pre-natal care and reproductive health services”.[13]
- Disabled women, particularly with learning difficulties, are at risk of forced sterilisation in the UK or are encouraged to consent to sterilisation as a form of ‘menstruation management’ rather than be presented with a range of options available to other women.
Mental Health
- Disabled women with a mental health problem die on average 13 years earlier than the general UK population.[14]
- Nearly half of female prisoners in the UK have been identified as having anxiety and depression. This is double the rate of male prisoners. What’s more, nearly half female prisoners (more than double the rate for men) report attempting suicide.[15]
Public Life
- The CEDAW Committee is concerned that ethnic minority and disabled women are particularly poorly represented in Parliament, the legal system and on public sector.[16]
You download this as a factsheet here: Disabled women – Facts and Stats 2017
[1] Equality and Human Rights Commission. 2017. Being Disabled in Britain. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/being-disabled-in-britain.pdf
[2] Papworth Trust. 2016. Disability in UK 2016 Facts and Figures. http://www.papworthtrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/Disability%20Facts%20and%20Figures%202016.pdf
[3] All Party Parliamentary Group for Women and Work. 2016. Women Returns Annual Report 2016. https://connectpa.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Women-and-work-Annual-report-low-res.pdf
[4] TUC. 2015. Disability and employment. https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/DisabilityandEmploymentReport.pdf
[5] The Poverty Site, 2011 http://www.poverty.org.uk/45/index.shtml
[6] Adding insult to injury: intimate partner violence among women and men reporting activity limitations. Cohen, M. et al. 8, 2006, Annals of Epidemiology, Vol. 16, pp. 644-651
[7] Public Health England. 2015. Disability and domestic abuse: Risk, impacts and response. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/480942/Disability_and_domestic_abuse_topic_overview_FINAL.pdf
[8] Adding insult to injury: intimate partner violence among women and men reporting activity limitations. Cohen, M. et al. 8, 2006, Annals of Epidemiology, Vol. 16, pp. 644-651
[9] Prevalence of abuse of women with physical disabilities. Young, M. et al. 1997, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Vol. 78, pp. 34-38.
[10] Partner violence against women with disabilities: prevalence, risk and explanations. Brownridge, D. 2006, Violence against women, Vol. 12, pp. 805-822.
[11] Women’s Aid. 2015. https://www.womensaid.org.uk/16-days-deaf-survivors-and-domestic-abuse/
[12] Hall J, Collins B, Ireland J, and Hundley V. (2016) Interim report: The Human Rights & Dignity Experience of Disabled Women during Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Parenting. Centre for Midwifery Maternal and Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University: Bournemouth. http://www.birthrights.org.uk/2016/09/maternity-care-failing-some-disabled-women/
[13] UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women : Great Britain, November 2014, available at: https://nawo.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/CEDAW-concluding-observations-EHRC-and-NAWO.pdf
[14] Equality and Human Rights Commission. 2017. Being Disabled in Britain. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/being-disabled-in-britain.pdf
[15] Light, M., Grant, E. and Hopkins, K. (2013), ‘Gender differences in substance misuse and mental health amongst prisoners: Results from the Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SPCR) longitudinal cohort study of prisoners’. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/surveying-prisoner-crime-reduction-spcr
[16] UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women : Great Britain, November 2014, available at: https://nawo.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/CEDAW-concluding-observations-EHRC-and-NAWO.pdf
Other resources
Sexuality and Dis/ability
READING LIST: intersectional disability & disabled women
More articles/blogs/podcasts
Daley, Michelle
Intersectionality and its relevance in social care for Disabled Women
Rise Up Against The Harm And Killing Of Disabled Women Through Myths (Huffington Post)
Parker, Lani
Sideways Times is a UK-based platform for conversations which in different ways link together struggles against ableism, white supremacy, capitalism and heteropatriarchy.
Exciting new project on skills development for Sisters of Frida!
Participants at a previous Sisters of Frida event
New peer led skills development course for disabled women
(Start date and venue TBD probably September now.)
Sisters of Frida is proud to announce a new peer led skills development course for disabled women.
Following our successful projects ‘Disabled women’s voices from the frontline‘ and Disability and Sexuality, Rosa funding is funding us to further develop disabled women’s skills and leadership in a space led by and for disabled women. This exciting project will span 12 months and will give the participants opportunities to
- develop facilitation skills
- presentation skills
- and research skills
- identifying your own specific skills
The project will be split into two parts. The first part will consist of three sessions aimed at building facilitation skills and confidence for the participants we will then go on to design a further seven sessions tailored specifically to the needs of the group and individuals within the group. You will have a mentor who will support you in gaining skills in the area of work which you are interested in you will then share the skills and knowledge through a facilitated workshop designed and facilitated by you.
Ideas for topics include
- disabled women and domestic violence
- sexuality and disabled women
- building campaigns and spaces wich work for all disabled women
- working with disabled young people
- arts and self-expression
- re thinking work for/with disabled women
- building support networks in challenging interpersonal violence
The list is not exhaustive and will be led by the participants. There are limited spaces on this program, please get in touch if you are interested to [email protected]
Kirsty Liddiard: Dis/Cinema: An Unshamed Claim To Beauty?
Reposted from Kirsty Liddiard’s blog with kind permission.
Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to introduce Sins Invalid’s film, An Unshamed Claim To Beauty? The film was screened as part of Dis/Cinema, University of Sheffield, which facilitates film screenings with themes of dis/ability, mental health, difference, and otherness. Check out its work here and follow Dis/Cinema on Twitter at @DisCinema. Below I share my introduction and slides. Not surprisingly the film instigated some powerful discussion which followed themes of privilege/power and race, class, gender and nation; the beauty industry and the economics of (bodily) shame; how we culturally come to be repulsed by otherness through fear; and our own experiences of being/enacting the spectacle of disability. A big thanks to Dis/Cinema and everyone who came along to contribute to such a stimulating night.
Introduction
When I got invited to facilitate this session, my immediate thought was, how on earth does one introduce Sins Invalid? What can I possibly say that can prepare you for the transgressive beauty that you’re about to witness in its Kickstarter-funded film, An Unshamed Claim To Beauty?
So I thought I’d begin with a story of the first time I saw Sins Invalid. It was live, at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). I had just graduated my PhD, in which I’d spent three years working with disabled people to tell sexual stories, and moved to Toronto in order to undertake my first postdoctoral position at the wonderful School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University.
This was a massive move for me, particularly culturally, as I’m from Milton Keynes, which, as much as I love it, really is where culture goes to die*. Everything I saw that first week of living in a new country, far from home, was new, rich, and vivid. But seeing Sins Invalid, and sitting with its audience, opened me up to the possibilities of politicising pleasure, (or disabled people’s lack of intimate justice to pleasure, sexuality and love), through art for the first time; that art, politics and power enable silenced stories to be ‘loosed into the world’. These threads have persisted through my own research since that very night.
So what does it mean to “politicise pleasure”, and why is it important to advocate for disability justice, the politic centred in the work of Sins Invalid? Activist Mia Mingus describes disability justice as a truly collaborative and intersectional movement that brings the body back in; as that which proudly centres accessibility; and which shatters the inherent Western, ableist and neo-colonial myth of independence. Patty Bearne, Co-Founder and Director of Sins Invalid, defines disability justice like this:
‘A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are unique and essential; that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met. We know that we are powerful not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them. We understand that all bodies are caught in these bindings of ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state and imperialism, and that we cannot separate them. These are the positions from where we struggle. We are in a global system that is incompatible with life. There is no way stop a single gear in motion — we must dismantle this machine. Disability Justice holds a vision born out of collective struggle, drawing upon the legacies of cultural and spiritual resistance within a thousand underground paths, igniting small persistent fires of rebellion in everyday life. Disabled people of the global majority — black and brown people — share common ground confronting and subverting colonial powers in their struggle for life and justice. There has always been resistance to all forms of oppression, as we know through our bones that there have simultaneously been disabled people visioning a world where we flourish, that values and celebrates us in all our myriad beauty’.
(Bearne, 2015)
http://sinsinvalid.org/blog/disability-justice-a-working-draft-by-patty-berne
For me, Sins Invalid offers us a new lens through which to come to know, see, and feel bodies in ways counter to the dominant culture. It makes space to think about bodies, self and desire in affirmative ways – that bodies with what disabled feminist Susan Wendell (1996:45) calls ‘hard physical realities’ – bodies that droop, sag, spit, dribble, spasm, ache and leak in ways deemed inappropriate (Liddiard and Slater, fc; Morris 1989; Leibowitz 2005) and minds that confuse, forget, hallucinate, or take longer to learn are not non-human or subhuman, but can open up new ontologies of pleasure and alternative economies of desire.
Disabled people have long had their intimate citizenship and justice deprioritised – dominant discourse renders our sexual lives, selves and bodies at best as unimportant, secondary to things like housing, care, education, and legislation; as if civil life is detached from intimate life; like the personal isn’t political. We might think, in the current age of austerity, where in the UK and beyond, successive governments have served to denigrate disabled people, our communities and our families, that access to sexuality and intimacy is of lesser importance. That in a new world order controlled by Trump, May, LePenn and others, sexuality becomes, once again, the very least of our worries.
But austerity, neoliberal-ableism and global instability inevitably proffer new forms of precarity that drive us, at best, back into the normative body and self: meaning now is the time to politicise the impacts of such forces in our intimate lives; to claim, as the wonderful Tobin Seibers affirms, a sexual culture of our own.
Asserting, celebrating and living our own pleasures at this time in our history offers radical counter narratives. We can affirm the vibrancy of disability life through pleasure and desire in the face of social and literal death that austerity brings to our communities, and at the same time chip away at the normative boundaries of human pleasure which deem it unnecessary and grotesque for a range of marginalised bodies: disabled, fat, queer, Crip, black and POC, and genderqueer and Trans bodies. It is important, in times of such existential precariousness, that pleasure and sensuality (regardless of their form) are not relegated to luxury, but are means of survival and thus necessary for creativity, vitality and disability future.
I want to end with the words of the wonderful Eli Clare (2002: no pagination). Words which speak to the very bringing together of pleasure, politics and power that Sins Invalid demands: ‘I want to read about wheelchairs and limps, hands that bend at odd angles and bodies that negotiate unchosen pain, about orgasms that aren’t necessarily about our genitals, about sex and pleasure stolen in nursing homes and back rooms where we’ve been abandoned, about bodily—and I mean to include the mind as part of the body—differences so plentiful they can’t be counted, about fucking that embraces all those differences. It’s time.’
Thank you: here is Sins Invalid. See the trailer and buy the film here.
* Sorry to those who live in/love MK – I do – but it ain’t no Toronto for culture…
“Aesthetic Experience ” Allison Estergard (acrylic on canvas0. Showing this month at International Gallery of Art, Alaska, US (Photo courtesy IGCA) Text – Sins Invalid: An Unashamed Claims to Beauty, Dr Kirsty Liddiard Research Fellow, The School of Education
Email: [email protected] Twitter: @kirstyliddiard1 https//kirstyliddiard.wordpress.com
: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/
Disability Justice – A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are unique and essential, that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met. We know that we are powerful not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them. We understand that all bodies are caught in these bindings of ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state and imperialism, and that we cannot separate them. These are the positions from where we struggle. We are in a global system that is incompatible with life. There is no way stop a single gear in motion — we must dismantle this machine. Disability Justice holds a vision born out of collective struggle, drawing upon the legacies of cultural and spiritual resistance within a thousand underground paths, igniting small persistent fires of rebellion in everyday life. Disabled people of the global majority — black and brown people — share common ground confronting and subverting colonial powers in our struggle for life and justice. There has always been resistance to all forms of oppression, as we know through our bones that there have simultaneously been disabled people visioning a world where we flourish, that values and celebrates us in all our myriad beauty.” (Bearne 2015) http://sinsinvalid.org/blog/disability-justice-a-working-draft-by-patty-berne
‘I want to read about wheelchairs and limps. hands that bend at odd angles and bodies that negotiate unchosen pain, about orgasms that arent necessarily about our genitals, and sex and pleasure stolen in nursing homes and back rooms where we’ve been abandoned, about bodily – and I mean to include the mind as part of the body – differences so lentiful they cant be counted, about fucking that embraces all those differences. Its time.’ (clare, 2002:no pagination)
Discussion... In what ways did the film surprise you or touch you? what was your favourite part/scene in the film? Why? Was there anything about the film you didnt like or agree with? In what ways did the film make you think about disability, sexuality and/or activism in a different way to before? In what ways in current society are we made to feel shame about our bodies, disabled or not? How can we make (more) space for the arts, performance, activism, solidarity and justice in the Academy? In what ways might we enact disability justice – an appreciation that ‘all bodies are unique and essential and that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met (Bearne 2015) – in the Academy/Higher Education?
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Disability and sexuality film day: Sat 26 Nov, Islington, London
After the 4 workshops on disability and sexuality, Sisters of Frida is presenting films which explore themes of disability and sexuality.
Films to make you: Think, feel, laugh, shake, desire and more…..
With food and discussion
Please note the films contain controversial themes, they also contain scenes of nudity and frank explicit discussion of sexual acts and sexual desire as well as scenes depicting violence.
Date and Time
Sat 26 November 2016, 12:00 – 17:00 GMT
Location
Disability Action In Islington, unit 3 Marquess Estate
St Paul’s Road, London N1 2SY
Please register at the event brite or write to [email protected]
Margarita, with a straw
(A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves her home in India to study in New York, unexpectedlyfalls in love, and embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery.
With Kalki Koechlin, Revathy, Sayani Gupta)
and Sins Invalid
Sins Invalid: The film
(“Sins Invalid is a performance project on disability and sexuality that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized from social discourse”)
Please register at the event brite
or write to [email protected]
Eleanor Lisney: Disability and Sexuality workshops
Last night one of my new colleagues expressed surprise on mention of my children – she said she had no idea I had children. She did not mean it to be malicious but the fact I have children prove surprising to most folks. I think, to be brutally honest, most people do not expect disabled people to be sexual beings let alone have offspring.
And for disabled women it is doubly problematic. Consider the stereotype of being a woman –as a caregiver, as a sex object, mother, housekeeper – you get the picture? Many of those roles are not seen to be within the capacity of disabled women. All the media, films of disability and sexuality are from the perspective of disabled men where they have their needs fulfilled by non-disabled women. Examples, Me Before You (even if he did not think it was enough to keep him living), The Sessions, there not many based on the needs of disabled women (excluding Children of a Lesser God).
There is not much space afforded to disabled women on sexuality and how to factor in disability in the search for companionship, romance, relationships and sex. The narratives are missing. I was made aware how much so when I joined the group of women who went to the first workshop (there are a series of four workshops) lead by Sisters of Frida steering group members, Lani Parker and Dyi Huijg, on Dis/ability and Sexuality. This workshop was titled Crip Sex, Because We Want It Our Way
As disabled women we have a wide range of experiences, positive and negative, around disability, sex and sexuality. Disabled women are sexy, sexual, passionate, loving, caring, desirable, hot, beautiful, strong and much more! Our experiences of sexuality are also affected by different kinds of oppressions such as ableism, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, classism and age.
In this workshop we will explore what sex means for us as disabled women, non-normative sex, positive self-image, exploring sex alone and sex with others
I felt we really shared our experiences as disabled women intersected by faith, culture, and sexual orientation. We examined the differences with impairments, acquired and from a young age, we spoke about chronic illnesses, the barriers and effects of medication and age. Does sex alleviate pain, do we/should we have sex when we are in pain? We compared the attitudes of social workers, medical practitioners and partners – in and out of relationships, domestic abuse from families, society and community pressures.
I cannot wait for the next session. I hope more people will come to visit this wonderful space where we afford each other sisterhood and non-judgemental sharing.
workshops
Themes and dates of the workshops
Workshop 1: Crip Sex, Because We Want It Our Way (finished)
In this workshop we will explore what sex means for us as disabled women, non-normative sex, positive self-image, exploring sex alone and sex with others.
Date: Sat 30 July
Time: 12-4pm
Workshop 2: When It Doesn’t Feel Good and It Isn’t Right
In this workshop we will discuss negative experiences and difficulties we have around sex and sexuality, our boundaries, consent, privacy and ableism in relationships.
Date: Sat 27 Aug
Time: 12-4pm
Workshop 3: Disabled Desire: Sexy and Sensual Possibilities
In this workshop we will discuss positive experiences we have and want to have around sex and sexuality, pleasure, and what it means to desire and be desired.
Date: Sat 17 Sept
Time: 11.30-3pm
Workshop 4: Sex: Getting What You Want and Need
Here we will build on the other workshops, and discuss how to develop confidence and feel empowered to do and want sex differently, challenge internalised oppression and other obstacles, and talk about how to put our desires and needs into practice.
Date: Sat 22 Oct
Time: 12-4pm
this project was funded by
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Eleanor Lisney is a founder member and coordinator of Sisters of Frida. She is an access advisor, an NUJ member on the New Media Industrial Council and the Equality Council. She is also on the British Council Disability Advisory Panel and the web team of the International Network of Women with Disabilities.
Disability & Sex/uality workshops
Disability & Sex/uality project
Invitation
We are delighted to announce that we are now able to continue the Disability and Sex/uality project that we started in September 2015. This phase of the project will consist of four workshops, each with a different theme. These workshops are for self-identified disabled women who want to create a space to talk about disability, sex and sexuality. It would be ideal if you can attend all the workshops, but if you prefer, you can just come to the ones you want. We would love to see you there!
Please RSVP now for the Disability and Sex/uality meeting on 30 July 2016, 12-4pm, London. ([email protected]
The project
The idea for this project came out of a screening of the documentary AccSex, which showed how a group of disabled women in India experience their sexuality. We at Sisters of Frida, a disabled women’s cooperative, felt the need to create a space where we can safely discuss our sexuality in a supportive and empowering environment.
As disabled women we have a wide range of experiences, positive and negative, around disability, sex and sexuality. Disabled women are sexy, sexual, passionate, loving, caring, desirable, hot, beautiful, strong and much more! Our experiences of sexuality are also affected by different kinds of oppressions such as ableism, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, classism and age.
Themes and dates of the workshops
Workshop 1: Crip Sex, Because We Want It Our Way
In this workshop we will explore what sex means for us as disabled women, non-normative sex, positive self-image, exploring sex alone and sex with others.
Date: Sat 30 July
Time: 12-4pm
Workshop 2: When It Doesn’t Feel Good and It Isn’t Right
In this workshop we will discuss negative experiences and difficulties we have around sex and sexuality, our boundaries, consent, privacy and ableism in relationships.
Date: Sat 27 Aug
Time: 12-4pm
Workshop 3: Disabled Desire: Sexy and Sensual Possibilities
In this workshop we will discuss positive experiences we have and want to have around sex and sexuality, pleasure, and what it means to desire and be desired.
Date: Sat 17 Sept
Time: 11.30-3pm (note the different time!)
Workshop 4: Sex: Getting What You Want and Need
Here we will build on the other workshops, and discuss how to develop confidence and feel empowered to do and want sex differently, challenge internalised oppression and other obstacles, and talk about how to put our desires and needs into practice.
Date: Sat 22 Oct
Time: 12-4pm
Registration
The topics we will discuss can be sensitive. For this reason, please contact us directly to register and discuss participation as this will be a closed meeting: [email protected]
Accessibility and needs
The venue is large and wheelchair accessible. There is an accessible toilet, but without a hoist. There is a kitchen people can use for quiet-time. Please get in touch as soon as possible if you need BSL or if you have other access needs. If you have any concerns or queries about the nature of what might be discussed in the workshop and how it could relate to your experiences, please get in touch. Please note that this is a peer-support group, so we cannot offer professional support.
Other details
Where: New Unity Islington
Address: 277A Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 2TZ
Contact: [email protected]
Deadline for registration: 15 July 2016
Accessibility: please get in touch to discuss your needs as soon as possible
Funded and supported by
Kirsty Liddiard: Inaugural Sexuality Stream 2016 Call for Papers
This is a call for Papers for the Lancaster Disability Studies Conference 2016
The foundational text, The Sexual Politics of Disability, was ‘the first book to look at the sexual politics of disability from a disability rights perspective’ (Shakespeare, Davies and Gillespie-Sells, 1996: 1). Ground-breaking in its contents and its approach, the sexual stories contained within the covers of the book – told by disabled people themselves – challenged the prevailing myth of asexuality and other tropes which render disabled people as perverse, hypersexual, or as lacking sexual agency.
Despite this scholarly activism, the sexual, intimate, gendered, and personal spaces of disabled people’s lives remain relatively under-researched and under-theorised in comparison to other spaces of their lives. Rarely are disabled people themselves authors or co-producers of this work. Where austerity policies dominate, we are unsure of how this impacts the possibilities for intimacy and relationships. Conversely, we lack evidence about the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Significant gaps remain in our knowledge of disabled people’s experiences of sex, love and relationships, then, often in marked areas.
This inaugural sexuality stream marks the 20th anniversary of The Sexual Politics of Disability (1996). In this stream, we aim to celebrate and encourage the broad bodies of work that have emerged within the ever-expanding field of disability studies, gender studies and sexuality studies. For this stream, we will prioritise papers containing original social research, as a response to the relative dearth of empirical work within the field.
We are thrilled to have Don Kulick, Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at Uppsala University, Sweden, as keynote speaker. His books include Travesti: sex, gender and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes (1998), Fat: the anthropology of an obsession (2005, edited with Anne Meneley), Language and Sexuality (2003, with Deborah Cameron) and most recently Loneliness and its Opposite: sex, disability and the ethics of engagement (2015, with Jens Rydström).
We welcome papers on the following themes:
- Identity and imagery: masculinities, femininities, Queer and Trans* identities
- Intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, nationality, age, and religion/faith/spirituality.
- Sex education and sexual health
- HIV/AIDS
- Pleasure, sensuality and desire
- Sexual and bodily esteem, confidence, self-worth and self-love
- Impairment, embodiment and corporeality
- Psycho-emotional disablism
- Barriers to sexual expression
- Youth
- Parenting
- Learning disability and sex/uality
- Mental health, distress and intimacy
- Intersections of personal assistance, residential and social care, and intimacy
- Sex work and sex industries
- Sexual, emotional and intimate-partner violence
- BDSM, kink, and fetish
- Online and cyber sexuality
- Sexual drugs, enhancements and technologies
- Human rights law and disabled sexualities
- Researching sex/uality: data collection, methodology and analysis
- Theoretical contributions: Critical Disability Studies, Feminist disability studies; Queer Theory; Crip Theory; Posthuman and DisHuman studies.
Contributions that reflect on any of these themes are invited from academic and non-academic researchers, scholars, activists, and artists. These themes are indicative only, and we will consider proposals that fall outside them so long as these relate to the overall conference stream. We welcome offers of traditional academic papers (20 minutes max) and also welcome proposals and presentations in alternative and/or creative formats (e.g. film, animation, poetry). Submissions should be made through easychair and please specify you wish to be considered for this stream.
If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Kirsty: [email protected].
Please see here for the Mad Studies stream and here for the main conference call for papers.
Kirsty Liddiard is on Sisters of Frida’s Steering Group. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate within the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth, at the University of Sheffield, working on a transdisciplinary research project entitled Transforming Disability, Culture and Childhood: Local, Global and Transdisciplinary Responses. Prior to this post, she was the inaugural Ethel Louise Armstrong Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Disability Studies, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.
