Crip Sex

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ellery Russian sit down and talk about Crip Sex. This video is part of a blog post and has a transcript available at http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/video-crip-sex-crip-lust-and-the-lust-of-recognition/

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captions by Radical Access Mapping Project
http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/

[ MUSIC... ]

[ Leah ] I don't want to ever have sex with anyone, but another chronically ill or disabled person ever again.

Like, I'm just so into like the crip lust moment.

I'm just like, oh god, it's such a relief.

Loving and having really good sex
in a very broadly defined way

with another disabled or chronically ill person

where you're lusting towards each other
in a sexual fashion.

[ Ellery ] Leah and I have both been writing down all, a lot of our crip sex moments

[ Leah ] The first thing that comes to my mind

is when like, my lover at the time and me were at this like queer club night

and they like threw me up against the wall
and we were making out

and then we both lost our balance at the same time

and we totally fell over on to the ground

on to the ass of my best friend who had been hit by a car a year ago,

so then she fell over.

So, we're all on the floor in this writhing mass of disabled bodies

and it was really great. [ Laughing ]

[ E ] I've had a disability for 14 years
and I've dated a lot of people [ *both laughing* ].

I've been in...

well, I've had a lot of primary partners,

but none of them have lasted more than like 2 years or so.

And so, in between there's been a lot of like dating of different kinds of people,

I've dated a lot of different people with disabilities...

like... and really, really different disabilities than me.

Like, I've never...

well, ok, once I dated someone who was also an amputee.

And so when I think of crip sex, I think about things like sex...

The sex can sometimes be the same, it's really not that different;

and then sometimes it can be really, really different.

Like... you don't feel in your body
from here all the way down your entire body,

and you have a catheter and a leg bag with urine in it and that's in the bed with us.

Um, and, oh I kiss you in the elevator and oops,

the force of me kissing you knocks you over in your wheelchair,

and then you're on the ground and then we have to figure out how to transfer you back in to your wheelchair.

Like all that kind of stuff.

And then there's the parts where
I have like a new partner and they're not disabled,

because I've dated a lot of people who aren't disabled,

and, y'know, it's like
they don't know how my legs work

and I have to explain how my legs work
because my legs come off.

Um, and usually that's not a big deal.

It's only been like, I feel like I've only really dated one person who wasn't really comfortable with my disability, you know.

She was like um, *oh, hospitals, they just make me feel uncomfortable; I just don't like them.*

And I was like, wow, I've spent a lot of time in hospitals,

they're kind of my home away from home

just because I've had to spend so much time in them
for my own appointments and stuff.

And so, I was like, *that's cool,*

*I think we're just in a really different place.*

She also bicycled a lot

and like would go on like these 40 mile bike trips
and I just couldn't relate.

[ L ] You were really compatible [ joking ].

[ E ] yeah, we were incompatible [ laughing ].

But like, on the other hand, like...
I'm dating someone right now who bikes a lot,

but we've had really cool conversations about how that whole bicycling culture can be really alienating

and they're super awesome about it.

And like, they don't feel bad
when we drive around in my truck,

like a lot of people have car guilt.

And, I don't know, when you have a
mobility related disability,

you like kinda have to get over the car guilt.

And so, we totally make-out in my truck all the time,

and I have to say, it's pretty great. [ Laughs ].

[ L ] When I was 26, like I'd been celibate for a couple years

because I was dealing with being a sexual abuse survivor

and then like, I kinda re-broke my virginity

with this like totally awesome queer man of color
who was really perverted,

who had severe RSI [ *repetitive strain injury* ]

who was this total, like, black, science fiction, polyamorous geek, porn-maker,

with like injury stuff
and whose primary partner had fibromyalgia too.

So, not only was I fucking this amazing hot
QPOC [ *queer person of colour* ] pervert in leather pants,

but I was like, *oh my hips just went out!*,
and he was like, *yeah, no problem.*

*Great. Let's just move positions.*

Y'know, and then there's the stuff
that's just like the hard stuff we go through,

and then also just the really weird stuff
that we don't get to talk about.

Y'know, like, what happens when you lose control
of your bowels during sex? [ Laughing ]

Or like, you know, all kinds of stuff, right?
Like, what's it really like?

[ L ] I think we were talking about the healing of recognition,

or like, the erotics of recognition?

[ E ] We talked about the lust of recognition.

[ L ] The lust of recognition! Yes!

Like, I don't know, when it's just like,
I think it's like any identity stuff,

Like, I mean, the first time I fucked someone else
who was South Asian, and I was like,

and I mean I know it's corny to talk about "going home", but like, I felt that.

And there was something really healing about that.

And like, when I was lovers with David and I was like,

oh I never have to worry about you being freaked out
about me needing to take a break

because I'm an incest survivor,

or me needing to like, negotiate my body in different ways.

Y'know? You don't freak out over that
because you're really...

you've dated a lot of crips, you are a crip,

your primary partner has a whole bunch
of chronic illnesses.

And you're just like, *right, yeah, bodies, work it out.*

And how amazing that was

and like, how that crip knowledge was so tied to that persons', like, awareness around consent,

Y'know? In the middle of being a big pervert who's into a lot of pretty intense SM.

Y'know, I mean, it was amazing.

Y'know, it was really, really amazing.

I felt so lucky; I was so lucky.

[ E ] Going back to this idea that we were talking about earlier today about the lust of recognition.

So that was like, you know, I identify a lot
with people who use a wheelchair sometimes

and also walk with a cane or crutches sometimes
because that's my experience.

And so, like, y'know, and so that's like,
not every day looks the same in terms of how you get around,

and I just realize, y'know, I really relate to that,

obviously, because that's what happens for me.

Um, but, you know, like...

y'know...
you see this person around,

you think they're cute, they have a cane,

there's something hot about that.

And then, like, y'know,
they're pretty nice and they're very cute

and then, like, some other time like you notice they have a brace, or like... something

and y'know, and then you get to know them and you realize like you're really attracted to the...

I mean, for me, anyways.

I realize I'm really attracted to the fact that like,
they're walking with a cane AND they're cute.

And then you know there's this process I go through:

like, am I fetishizing their cane?

Um. And, but, and so...I've kind of been writing about that on and off the last couple of years.

Cuz it's like... is it a fetish?

Or is it that I recognize myself in the cane,

and there's that lust of recognition?

Like, that, there's something really charged for me,

where I just crush out.

I'm just crushed out; it's hot.

And I just, I don't know, I feel drawn like a magnet to the person.

Y'know, they have to be an awesome person
that's also cute in other ways,

it's not just the cane [ *Leah laughing* ],

but there's something....

It's like this extra electric charge
that's like there for me and it's very real.

And y'know, I don't need to sleep always
with people who have disabilities,

I think that a lot of those experiences
have been really powerful,

but not always lasting, um,
and I need to be fed in so many other ways too.

And so, a lot of my primary relationships have not been with other people with disabilities.

I feel comfortable with that,

but I've also dated so many other people with disabilities, I think I've needed this.

And who's to say
what the rest of my life will look like,

but um yeah, there's something about that lust of recognition, that connection.

I don't know, there's something...

and I think it's good to check in with myself,

like am I fetishizing them?

but I don't really have a lot of like
guilt or weirdness around that,

because I don't necessarily think that I am.

[ L ] I wouldn't waste your time.

[ E ] Yeah.

[ L ] So when you were like, *"what's crip sex, Leah?"*

And I was like, well, I think it's crips lusting for other crips. Yes, that.

And I think what youre were just saying, Ellery,

makes me think that I think it's any form of sex that involves someone who is disabled.

So, like, I've had crip sex that was shitty,

That was like me being a disabled person
having sex with a partner who didn't get it.

Y'know, like, who was just...One of my long-term partners was white, working class, gender queer...

actually was raised rural poor,

and y'know, we bonded over class, because I grew up like working class, lower middle class;

a lot of working class.

And we both identified as being people who were less than middle class

in movements that were very middle class.

And y'know, I really got where she was coming from,

because she was like, *yeah, y'know, we don't admit disability!*

*we just tough it out, 'cause we don't have that option!*

And I was like, totally, yeah.

My mom had polio
and they didn't have money for health care,

so her doctor that she saw -true story- was like, *here's a bicycle, ride it out.*

And my mom [ *Ellery laughing *]... no, seriously.

[ E ] Wow.

[ L ] Yeah. And my mom y'know worked two or three jobs the whole time that I knew her,

and it was only when I was older that I was like,

oh she can't really walk that far, without being in a lot of pain, but she would never identify as disabled.

Anyway, so back to my girlfriend:

Like, I got that she was like,
*Whatever! We just tough it out! No problem!*

I mean, she had worked construction and she'd be like,

*Yeah I got a nail gun through my finger, I just kept going!* [ Laughing ].

Yeah, that was a fascinating relationship.

But, um, y'know, the sex that I had with that person
was crip sex because I was in it,

but it wasn't necessarily crip-accepting sex
and that's what a lot of us have too.

I guess Im trying to spin something off of what you said about like expanding your idea of sex.

Y'know, and like, I don't know,
I mean I get what youre saying that like...

when Audre Lorde is like, *the uses of the erotic*..

and I'm like, ok, but sometimes y'know, Audre,
you like to cum too, right?

Like It wasn't just like, *I feel really turned on about liberation and shit*. [ Laughing ]

But like, so that's real, but at the same time I do think that there's a lot about that's important

about just expanding our concepts of sexuality

and I think that crips have to do that so much anyway
when our bodies are different.

One thing that we're trying to do with this project
of writing Crip Sex Stories is like...

...I don't know, I kind of think of it as like: the good, the bad, the ugly and the real, y'know?

Because I feel like there's the good stuff,

that's like the secrets of like,

wow, y'know, the ways that we find
to have really amazing hot sex in our bodies

is incredible and like the kind of like
cross-crip solidarity through fucking.

Like, maybe you're fucking someone who has
your exact disability;

maybe they have a different one?

But like even though you don't have the same experience,

you're giving each other love and appreciation

and you're like, wow you're really fucking hot

and I'm gonna figure out how to
make you feel pleasure in your body

and I'm gonna respect your body

and you're gonna do the same thing, awesome.

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