Homeless people
We'll be talking about paraplegics, amputees, people with spina bifida, the blind, and, most importantly, gay people; are you ready to shed a few tears? Well, you won't: "Many disabled people are gay," he explains. Priscilla Berardi, coordinator of Arcigay's "Homodisabili" research", "they have satisfying life paths, especially if they are visible or have a partner. We have met people who live well, even with difficulties that would seem extreme: from multiple sclerosis to serious motor disabilities. Some have relied on internal psychotherapy or groups of gay Catholics who have welcomed them humanely, without pity, in a relationship of equals.".
""My disability is mild: I have phocomelic disease and it's not very noticeable," he confirms. Martino Tommasino, twenty-nine-year-old webmaster of the site www.culturagay.it. "I don't have the same impact in the club as a gym-goer, but I don't feel left out either. As for difficulties, I have trouble picking up girls... but that's another story.".
""Economically we have some advantages in the form of checks and aid," he expands. Franco, a 45-year-old hemiplegic – [email protected] – "But a gay person, in the imagination, is beautiful, young, and perfect: the gay world is not for the disabled.".
''Gay disability, until recently so invisible, has come out into the open, expressing a long series of difficulties, but also and above all concrete requests to the community.
“"For those with invisible disabilities (prostheses, hearing impairment, visual impairment, congenital defects, etc.), the first challenge facing gay people with disabilities," Berardi continues, "is coming out twice: as both gay and disabled. Sometimes, very welcoming families become an insurmountable obstacle to visible homosexuality; many are closeted at work, and some, after disclosing their disability to other gay people, are rejected. Sexuality is experienced later: those who can, frequent darkrooms or battuages, others turn to paid sex, and everyone prefers relationships with people they meet online or, for those who are self-sufficient or can be accompanied, in clubs. The premises are an emergency: most of them are inaccessible, so much so that the range of people a disabled person has access to is often limited. Many complain about having short-term partners, but it seems to me a general trend, also true for the rest of humanity. Some feel limited in bed, while others, in relationships, discover imaginative ways to have satisfying sex. The internet and chat rooms are helpful, but one young man best expressed the point of view of gay disabled people: "Let's get out of the chat rooms and let's see each other in the real world.".
From the research, which will continue (for contacts [email protected] or 348.5167091) and that does not exhaust the topic, the need to come out into the open emerges unanimously, from those for whom the absence of a limb becomes 'an insurmountable mountain' to those who, completely paralyzed from birth, live proudly gay.
In a country slow to accept any diversity, the only visible components, however, are the deaf, with the “silent triangle”, active since 1993. The site recommends abbreviations for communicating via text message, requests that gay conferences and conventions have a sign language translator, and offers simple “rules of conduct”: at the cinema, only go to the original screening with subtitles, then go to the disco: the deaf can feel the bass vibrations.
The blind timidly emerge from the darkness on the Internet. Alexis, the founder of the site www.gaynonvedenti.it, In a 2006 interview, he said: "In everyday life, I don't have any major problems. Perhaps the problems arise from gay people themselves, who don't consider me 'normal' and tend to reject me. There are people who don't even know the meaning of the word 'handicap' and get scared in chat rooms.".
Blind people are asking for gay websites that can be read by text readers (devices that "read" texts with a synthetic voice) and audiobooks (the Babele bookstore in Milan has a few titles in its catalog). Volunteer audiobook readers are advised, but gay associations could also lend a voice. The field is exhausted. Handicap in Rome ([email protected]), a group that is slowly becoming structured and planning a campaign with informational brochures. Dozens of other situations are missing, and there's complete darkness regarding mental disabilities, but disability associations are only a palliative: "Disabled people ask to be part of generic associations. Why should they only meet among themselves? Coming out means being among everyone," explains Priscilla Berardi. But in the meantime, with gay meeting places mostly unreachable, what can be done? Many use websites for generic, non-exclusive messaging services like the French www.andigay.com or the Danish www.handicapdating.dk.
“Why should I hang out in a ghetto?”, asks Marco, a 25-year-old paraplegic. In Italian, those sites don't even exist, except for a sparsely attended discussion forum that occasionally hosts similar messages: "28 years old, dystrophy, looking for love and sex," "I'm deaf and dumb, but I can speak and listen well... I'm looking for gay men, love and sex, but it's not mandatory to find a gay man with a disability; I'm also looking for normal people," "I'm a 35-year-old man with a physical disability but who's reasonably independent. I'm looking for a nice, outgoing man between 25 and 30, free for New Year's Eve, to keep me company."
Chats offer some more possibilities, but also difficulties, as Franco summarizes: “In chat, the disabled person generally does not openly declare himself as such, but taking advantage of the virtual environment he is satisfied with having some more or less erotic conversations, or talking to someone who presents himself as an attractive person, which is difficult in the real world… There are many exceptions, mostly represented by men who want to try to have sex with a disabled person or by people who do not believe they are capable of having a relationship with a normal person, such as the belief of being ugly, common to many gays… But be careful of those who rob disabled gays”. “Then there are", he concludes, "the devotee, that is, those able-bodied people who feel an attraction, sometimes morbid, for disabled people. They are divided by specific interests: there are devotees attracted to amputations (the majority), those attracted to paraplegics (in wheelchairs), and those interested in disabled people of any kind. In many cases, the devotee is not attracted to the person themselves but by their disability, or by their disability aids.
The debate about "devotees" is ongoing: "They're people who are looking for sex with a disabled person and then that's it," says one online witness. However, Max replies: "I'm gay and a devotee. A few months ago, I met an amputee. He knows everything about me, but he doesn't consider me a devotee, and I don't consider him an amputee. We are just two people like many others and now he and my partner and we love each other”"On the Internet, there is a newsgroup for Italian devotees, "a hidden corner where devotees and disabled people can finally meet without problems, where devotees can exchange information and disabled people can get to know devotees as people." It has 312 members and two gay messages: "35 years old, gay, devotee. I'm looking for friendship and something else with an amputee boy. I have so much love to give. See you soon." A "gay, Genoese, amputee, 44 years old" responds tersely, looking for "new friends: write to me and I'll reply.".
“Fortunately," Martino Tommasino explains, "I’ve never had to deal with devotees. I’m suspicious of people who seek out a certain physical trait; it seems like an obsession, a fetish.” But even Brad Pitt, a bodybuilder, or Tazio are… “Pitt is our aesthetic ideal of beauty, for someone to seek amputation is strange… it’s a bit perverse,' Martino concludes.
The "devotee" phenomenon, despite the flood of discussions it generates, needs to be scaled down. On the gay pornography market, a useful indicator of the statistical diffusion of our polymorphous pleasures, there is only one dated film, Stump, which features an amputee. Still from pornography, however, the message from the world of disabled people comes back clearly. A straight Spanish porn film featuring a paraplegic actor has been hailed by many in their forums as a new Genesis: "Finally, we too are showing who we are.".
Disability demands visibility, first and foremost; gay disability demands double visibility. Is the gay community ready to take up the challenge? "Arcigay," concludes Raffaele Lelleri, health director of Arcigay, "is moving in two directions. The first is to bring gay people with disabilities together, among themselves and with associations, to help them escape invisibility and loneliness. We will then work on the visibility of disability in the community and in general associations aimed at the disabled, which do not contemplate the 'option of homosexuality.' Disabled people will be present and highly visible at the Gay Pride and the Arcigay congress and a magazine, ""H Speaking”" will finally dedicate a special issue to them. The first census of architectural barriers will then begin in Arcigay offices and recreational clubs." The challenge has been accepted.