If love is blind
by The ZEN Bitch
I went to India a couple of weeks ago to join a training for trainers on sexuality and development issues. We were billeted in a condominium-type hotel that consisted of 2-bedroom flats, so between 2-4 people shared one flat, which had its own living and dining rooms and kitchen. We had no use for the kitchen, though, other than to make tea or drink water because all our meals were served at the hotel restaurant.
My flat-mate was an Indian guy who worked for a huge volunteer organization. He works with the disabled (or to be PC: differently-abled). He is also blind. When I first realized this, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I have to help him around and I’m going to hell if I don’t!’ Well, the bit about hell is probably an exaggeration–as I am wont to do sometimes–but you get my drift, right?
In a nutshell, I didn’t know how to act around him. My first instinct (or reflex or whatever) was to at least try to help him in every bit but another part of me told me not to so as not to offend him. He seemed mostly self-reliant and independent, anyway. I tried my best to act naturally around him, which for me meant that I let him be. This, however, made me a bit uncomfortable. It’s not that the other people in the training were more attentive to him; it was a kind of guilt, akin to survivor’s guilt–now that I’ve thought about it longer.
I wanted to do more for him, but I knew I could do enough. As the days wore on, however, as I got to know him better (as much as the few days allowed, anyway), I was able to cope with the (as it turned out) unfounded guilt that I was feeling. Realizing that we have a common friend in Bangladesh, we were able to chat about things that are not work-related. As I said, he was very reliant and independent. His computer even has a program that reads documents. However, if he needed help (like getting oriented to a room he enters for the first time), he was not above asking for it.
An exercise in the manual tackled disability and sexuality. It was an evocative exercise, a series of questions is asked and one has to put one’s self in the situation described by the questions, such as: imagining if you are blind, crippled, or mentally disabled, asking what one will do when one falls in love, etc.
One question asked, which was preferable, acquiring a disability later in life or having it since birth. I thought I preferred not to be disabled but if I were to choose, I’d rather have a congenital disability so I wouldn’t have to yearn for something I lost. I thought that acquiring a disability later in life is more traumatic psychologically, requiring more than physical adjustment. However, a colleague’s opposing opinion got me thinking as well. He said he’s prefer to acquire a disability later in life because he’d have been able to develop himself so that he’s better equipped to cope with this life-changing condition.
Imagine how difficult it must be for a disabled person to express her/ his sexuality. Most of the time, disabled people are not seen as sexual people. In the process of trying to help them achieve a good quality of life, the sexual aspect of this ‘quality life’ is often ignored. We are, for the most part, torn between accepting a disability and accepting the sexuality of a disabled person. And what of sexual variance? No doubt, disability adds a layer of complication to an already complicated life of a sexually variant person.
To drive the point deeper (ouch!), the clever organizers of the training saw it fit to show us a glimpse of a film that deals with the subject of sexuality and disability. The film is called ‘Sixth Happiness’ and based on the few precious minutes that we saw, it unflinchingly shows the sexuality of its protagonists. We immediately wanted to know where we can get the DVD and we were told that the DVD can be ordered here. I intend to do so in the near future.