Becoming Disabled - Manuel F.
Description:
This cup represents me taking for granted my abilities. I can make my cup of tea and drink it without help from anyone. My presentation is about becoming disabled and losing my ability to look after myself. Including making myself presentable to find love and romance.
Significance:
Making a cup of tea is a simple act for a person without mobility limitations. I imagine how much easier life would be for a person with shaking hands who was able to make a cup of tea. I have chosen this artifact because I know people who have lived successful life with promising careers and become paralyzed due to illness or accident and depend on people to take care of them twenty-four hours a day. Disability is not attractive. However, we all need to feel attractive to others because we need that special human touch. We need to be loved. When a person becomes disabled, it is extremely hard to find love and form sexual relationships. As an able person finding a person to love me is easier than it would be if I were disabled and unable to look after myself. If all my abilities are removed from me instantly, I fear I will depend on others to help me survive. Society assumes disabled people do not have any sexual attractiveness and need to feel loved.
Positionality:
I am interested in disability because I feel the world is not accommodating to people with mobility limitations. I read on today’s news that, according to Clark (2022), a wheelchair user was found dead in his apartment in government housing. The apartment was not fitted with a lift or a ramp he could use. He had to push himself up the stairs and drug his wheelchair with him whenever he wanted to get out of his apartment. I feel that due to accidents or illness and old age, we need a more accommodating and accessible world. Berne (2015) comments that we are currently disabled due to our abilities, age, skin colour, sexuality, gender, and class.
Similarly, Silverberg (2011) suggests because the world is designed for able-body people, therefore places barriers on the less able-bodied.
We need to recognize our privilege or disadvantage and be aware of the lens from which we view disability. According to Claire (2003), disability is not only physical but also disabled by society when we do not conform to societal normality.
Impact:
The gem I am taking away from this unit is that disabled person does not want abled people to feel sorry for them. And that we should look at the abilities of people with disabilities, not their disabilities.
The world needs to change and be designed for all of us to be able to participate in society equally. The world is designed to accommodate abled-bodied people, which needs to change. The world needs to be accessible to everyone, including people with less able bodies. In today’s paper, a report by Clark (2022) reported a disabled person found dead in his apartment. He’s apartment had stairs he pushed himself up every day, drugging his wheelchair with him.
I have learned that people with disabilities have sexual desires like abled people.
I have learned that it is hard to talk about sexual topics with other members in a class environment because society has taught us that it is bad to acknowledge our sexual views and sexual desires.
I have learned that people with disabilities want to feel loved and beautiful like everyone else. Also, disabled people are sexual beings with desires and sexual fantasies.
Wish List:
I wish viewers to consider a world where people with disabilities do not feel disabled because the world will be accommodating to each person’s needs. I want to live in a world where a disabled person is seen as a person with needs and desires like everyone else. A person with the desire to look attractive.
A person with disabilities needs to be held and touched and loved. A person with disabilities has sexual needs, like you and me.
A person with disabilities does not have any privacy in their lives, and a person with disabilities does not have the luxury of trying sexy clothes and seeing themselves in the mirror. A person with disabilities is not able to make decisions on how their money is spent, are not able to have a boy or girlfriend without having approval from others.
Technology advancements are not catering for a person with disabilities. For example, the latest mobile phones with touch screens are not good for someone whose hands are unsteady or for someone blind.
When a person with a disability wants to go out for dinner, the person needs to plan for things such as transport for the disabled, building access and toilets for the disabled. We are privileged to live with an able body. We take the car and go for a night out.
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One Comment
Manuel,
I enjoyed reading your virtual exhibit and I think your artifact did an outstanding job exemplifying how one task for an abled person can be so simple, yet the same task for someone with a disability can be so difficult. It adds to my realization that I take for granted completing daily tasks with ease. Additionally, the fact that I’m only realizing these concepts at large right now speaks upon the lack of discussion when it comes to disability. Furthermore, there is an extreme lack of conversation regarding the intersection of disability and sexuality. Sexuality is a part of everyday life (Giersten et al., 2021). Therefore, you’re very correct saying that a person with disability has the same sexual needs as all of us. I hope for a future of sex within social work practice and a society who contributes positive conversation on these topics.
Bree Minor