Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to Disability Empowerment now mini series Dating with Disabilities Part two.
I'm your co host, Keith Mervi Ginsini along with my other co host, Lib Marone and Andrew Garja. Guys, welcome back to the show.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Hello. Thank you for having us again. It's such a pleasure to be back.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Here again for your listeners who are back again with us. We, we appreciate you so much. I think after that first episode, I was. I'm some of your listeners. Like, man, these people are crazy. But we appreciate you. You're back.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Let me chime in here. Please try to watch and listen to these episodes because if you're just tuning in, what I'm about to say isn't going to make any sense. But I have a bone to pick with you, Liv.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Right away, right off the bat. Okay.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Have a bone to pick with you. I find it so hilarious that during the last episode you said, I forgot Keith was heterosexual.
Given that you know two of the three women I've dated very well.
And if you come to Tucson, El Jonah to drink the very filtered pure water, I will happily introduce you to the third.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: That's true. I actually, I know two of your ex girlfriends, like, and we're good friends, too. Oh, my God, that's true.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Ex girlfriends. So you're a heartbreaker is what I'm hearing you.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Anyway, we'll go on from that.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Moving right along.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, right along.
The Disability After Dark and we don't have drinks. You're gonna have to get me chipheads to spill those beans.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Oh, come on, Keith. Pull out your office booze that you have there.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: But anyway, yeah, that's how we start part two of this miniseries. Me goofy off the question we had originally started off.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Can we just pause and talk about Keith's glasses for a minute? Because they're pretty cool.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: They are very cool.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: They're very like. They're very like what I like. I've never seen glasses with like a yellow, like, frame around the frame. So I'm kind of like, what are those? Those are really cool. And if I ever need glasses, I want those ones.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Some people collect watches. I collect Gladstone.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: I was actually going to say, Keith, are they different from last week? Because I could have sworn they were a different pair.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: I was like, they're so cool. And yellow. Like, what's going on there?
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I have blue and I have red.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: I love this. Keith, we have to get you a green and we need to get you. We need to get you all the colors of the rainbow.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I love that big joke I make. The large color they make. It's actually a white frame with orange circles.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: We have to get this for you. How do we.
Yeah, can we go fund it? Can we go fund for it? Can we go find a wheelchair for your eyes? How do we do that?
[00:04:07] Speaker C: I'm really good at fundraising. Just. Just saying. I'm super good at fundraising.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: I need to hire you live on another project then. No, I'll get.
I'll order them later this month because I have to collect them all. Like Pokemon, of course.
Dating profiles, apparently.
So the question we had wanted to start with or that I had wanted to start with with. I took a absurdly long time and live. If you want to ask my exes, they will confirm that again.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Heartbreaker, Heartbreaker. What?
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Took a very long time to get up the courage and the to donate.
So what are you doing?
[00:05:21] Speaker A: I feel like you could donate. You could say lots of things.
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Yeah, the end of this sentence is going to be bananas.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it took me a long time to get up the courage and hood spa to actually date someone with a disability.
And the pads.
Three relationships I've been in have all been with people with disabilities, specifically women with disabilities.
But I took like 15 to 20 years to get to a place where I was really comfortable enough and I didn't feel pigeonholed by, oh, that's all you're good for.
It's a type of segregation, which it's not.
But I wouldn't. Smart edged teenager.
And so it was.
Exactly.
And so how long did it take both of you?
Did you have a similar experience as I did where it was very slow burn proud sets or were you like, I only want to date people with disabilities or somewhere in between?
[00:07:18] Speaker A: I think dating with people with disabilities is great. I'd love to date more disabled people.
Like I said last week, my experience hasn't been the greatest with dating or sleeping with other disabled folks because of their internalized ableism. And my internalized ableism. My internalized ableism comes out because I'm like, well, if I did another wheelchair user like me, they can't lift me out of bed. They can't do things physically that I want to do. Which is full of what? Even though they see that now, like, that's full of ableism. There's tons of ableism around all of that. And if somebody said that to me, I'd be like, you go away.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Right?
Make it work.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Like, so I hear myself saying that. I'm like, oh, Andrew, what a fucking asshole. You are to say that. But a lot of the time when I.
Because in my experience, gay men are pretty selfish and gay men are very body, body, body bitchy is what I'll say. I don't know why that came out that way, but they're really concerned with body image.
And so there are even sometimes, and I'll be really blunt here, there's sometimes where I'll look at a certain body type and intellectually I know they're fine, it's fine. But that stupid lizard brain of mine will come out and I'll be like, oh, they don't look exactly perfect. But guess what? Neither the fuck do I.
So I find sometimes that my own ableism gets in the way. And I haven't really dated anybody with a disability. I'd love to. I'd love to try again. As somebody in their cough, cough 40s now, I'd like to try again because in my 20s I was a bit of a twat. But in my 40s, I'd love to. I'd love to try again. I can say that I've dated a lot of disabled folks, but I would be totally open to it.
[00:09:10] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It kind of happened to me by accident.
But the interesting thing too is I didn't really have to go on a journey about it emotionally or intellectually because I didn't meet disabled people in large groups until I was in my early 20s. Like, I, like I. I had never gone to a school for specifically disabled kids. I was always in ap.
I was always the only disabled person for it in the district. There was usually like one or one or two, maybe other, you know, cognitively disabled.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: I'm a Canadian. What's a P?
[00:09:48] Speaker C: AP is Advanced Placement. Sorry. So. So I have a little bit of intellectual superiority. I'm one of those people who like to compensate for my disability. I have to prove myself as the smartest person in a room at any given point.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: So a lot of people with CP have to do that and we need to, like, we, all of us need to shut up sometimes. I do it too.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: I'm so obnoxious. I'm so.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: I have to be the most important. I have to be the most.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: I'm so obnoxious. I have to be the mo. The. The most intelligent human that you've ever met in your intellig entire life.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Because, you know, well, people told us all our lives the brain damage makes you a little bit less smart. So you have to overcompensate and people look at Your jerky muscles and your weird movements and you're like, inexperienced and they think you're a dumb. Dumb. So we have been taught. Which is. Which is totally, like super intellectually ableist and a whole bunch. There's a whole.
[00:10:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Around that. But I understand totally why, why we're like that.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: That's definitely another. Another part of my life now is I don't often get the opportunity to interact with folks whose disabilities are vastly different from mine. Like, I'm physically disabled. I find myself usually in space with other physically disabled folks. I don't have a lot of opportunity to hang out with, you know, cognitively or intellectually disabled folks or people who are. Have significant mental illnesses that they consider to be disabilities. Like, I just don't travel in those spaces. It's not like a personal thing, but. But that actually is what happened to me as, as an adult. When I got to college, I went to Hofstra University here on Long Island. And Hofstra is very handicap accessible.
It's. It's so. It has a lot of.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Did you see handicap?
[00:11:39] Speaker C: I did. You can see that.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah. How do we feel about that? How do the three of us feel about that word?
[00:11:44] Speaker C: Yeah, you can see the real. Growing up in 90s.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: It's funny though, because, you know, in Canada and in the US we would never use that word. How dare we? Nobody can. No, not in the US In Canada, in the uk, we never use that word in the US When I go there, it's literally everywhere. And I find myself using it a lot there and not having any problem using it there. If I was to use it here in Toronto, people would be like, oh, that's such a whole.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: And honestly, if an able bodied person called me handicapped, I'd really. I would really have to clock how old they are. Like, I'd really have to be like, okay, I have.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: I have friends and family who are from the generation two or, you know, one or two generations before me. And I have to remember, like, this is the. When they were growing up, this is the language they use. It doesn't mean they're trying to do anything bad. It doesn't mean they're trying to say anything wrong. It's just how they were raised to understand disability, which doesn't make them bad people. And I think poor Liv hasn't answered the first question. So I live well. Shut up.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: So I didn't meet another disabled person until I got to college because Hofkere was really, really accessible for a lot of. So there were a Lot of wheelchair users at hafsa, including me at that time, because walking that campus was just not going to be feasible for me. So I didn't actually, like, start hanging out socially with other disabled adults until I was 20.
I wasn't super invested in dating at that time because I was just busy. I didn't know how, like, hectic my life was going to become when I got to college. So, like, I definitely could have, like, put more of a focus into dating, but I was like, man, I don't have time. So I didn't really make a decision about that. I just sort of got used to hanging out with disabled folks and, like, making room for not being the only disabled person in your immediate area and having to, like, hide and. And like, appear to be more closer to able bodies than I really was and, like, do all the, you know, dumb, shallow stuff that I do to. To fit in. So that was my 20s, so that didn't really figure into dating too much because I wasn't really, like, pressed. In my. In my early, late teens, early 20s, I did this thing where I was dating fetishists. I dated a couple of disability fetish guys thinking that that was going to make me feel, like, empowered and sexy, and it didn't.
You know, those are both one of those guys I'm actually still friends with. He's great.
But it definitely.
I did it because I was like, oh, that seems like an option.
Don't. Don't think about that as an option. If that happens into your. Your forest naturally, go with God. Try it out. But I, like, fully was like, oh, I'm going to get on a website and see what happens. When I was, like, 19, I was like, this is. This is. Oh, boy, I don't like this. So I did that for a little bit, which is the exact opposite of dating another disabled person. I was like, what happens if I turn myself into an object?
[00:14:50] Speaker A: I did fetishes once. It was really weird.
[00:14:53] Speaker C: What was that like for you? How did that go?
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Long story long.
He. I met him on. I met him on the apps and we.
I literally went down to the mall to pick him up and he came back to my house and he put me on the bed. And I thought he was going to come right with me on the bed and we were going to fuck. And I turn around on the bed and I'm ready to go, and I'm, like, horned up and ready to do the thing. And he was, like, touching my wheelchair and making out with it. And I was like, okay, this Is.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Holy shit for me.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: I need to end this immediately. Thank you so much. Goodbye.
[00:15:30] Speaker C: I feel like I need to stage the room I'm in right now. Oh my God, that's so upsetting. Okay.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it was, it was a lot. It was a lot.
[00:15:40] Speaker C: That's a lot. I. I'm grateful that, that the guy that. Well, one guy that I, I dated for a little bit for. At that time, he was an. But he was kind of a garden variety sis dude. Not like it wasn't anything to do with what he was into. And then the other one is still a friend of mine and he's cool and I like teaching him about queer stuff. He's. He's a CIS straight dude and I like getting to be his. His queer ex girlfriend who gets to teach him about weird stuff. But I did like my, my late teens, my early 20s, I fell in love with that woman who I mentioned in the previous episode and realized that I was at that time bisexual now. You know, closer to pansexual and queer. And, and that really opened things up. And then it didn't. It kind of became like a non starter because there's so much crossover between the queer communities and the disabled communities that like my next four partners were disabled not and not. Not from any like choice of whatever. I just like met some cool people and then we started dating and they all happened to be disabled. And you know, and it just, it works out well for me because I can really turn off my own internalized ableism when. When advocating for other people.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Wow. So, like, how do you. How can I. How what? How? How.
[00:16:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll. I'll like, I'll install something in my brain and we'll do like a. We'll do like a data transfer. But y real. I get rid of all.
I get rid of all of my. When I'm advocating for somebody else. So I'll never forget I went on this one date with my ex and my ex had just started using a cane and I use crutches and we get to the matre d of the. Of the restaurant and it's so clear that the maitre d does not know which of us to address because he's trying to do that thing when you're with somebody as a visibly disabled person and then they address whoever you're with. And he's trying to do it and he's looking at the two of us and the man can't speak. He's like, he's like looking between the two of us, like just absolutely Just no idea what to say.
So. So I enjoy stuff like that because, you know, at that point my partner at that time had like just become visibly disabled and. And was noticing that like they were getting more ableist feedback when they were out in public with me than when they were by themselves. And then they were like, you know, because you know how it is when we travel in packs. You know, they able. They. They have a tendency to really freak out over that.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: The crib of convoy that we are.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: The triple convoy. Yeah, exactly.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, when there's more than one of us in a small space, it tends to freak out the abled a little bit. So I like. I actually really like dating this other. Other disabled people because it really gives me an opportunity to like stuff that I think about myself and say to myself regarding my own capabilities and needs. I would just never say any of that to anybody. I would. I would never treat anybody as badly as I treat myself.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: So it's good.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: It actually works out.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah. It was really interesting that my large three girlfriends, of which that's a entire decade of my life.
Wow.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not the interesting part.
It goes back to what I said earlier, that there was a very long slow burn process of getting to that point where I could actually man up and date someone with a disability.
I mean, what you live.
It wasn't planned. You just dated several partners that happened to have a disability and that was fine.
Looking back on where I was then and where I am now and who I've actually dated, it's a really.
I wonder why it took me so damn long.
Because I know why.
Oh, here we go.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: I know why. Well, no, it's not you. Nothing to do with you. You're great. Well, because society basically has told us we were not supposed to date and we're supposed to.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. No.
And I mean, I've had mentors tell me your.
Or you shouldn't date people with disabilities.
You're too good for that.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Or you should only date people with disabilities.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I've heard. You should only. Yeah, I've gotten.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: I don't know why.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: So you. You either did one of those.
To some variation of that spectrum, that continuum of and when you're trying to figure yourself out.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: I haven't yet. I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:21:16] Speaker C: Never. Never. Yeah. No.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: When I'm trying to figure out if I could actually date someone with a disability.
When until I was in my 30s, my early 30s, I resisted studying my own Disability.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: When I'm in that period it's, it's just really looking back at everything. It's just amusing that it took so long to eventually get to where I was suppose to be all along. I think there's also a third aspiration of if a person with a disability dates and later married and have had some family with their non disabled partner builds this assumption that they've made it that they've forged over the.
Which I think is line of could this really happen? And it absolutely does. Yeah.
[00:23:10] Speaker C: It's a status symbol but I think.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: That, but I think that status symbol is because I've had friends who've. Who've been in enjoyable relationships and gotten divorced and that didn't work out and it had nothing to do necessarily with their disability.
Just the relationship didn't go and sometimes.
[00:23:28] Speaker C: People just aren't right for each other.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: And I think we give able bodied people sometimes in our fantasies of what a relationship should look like we put able bodiedness. We as the disabled person puts able bodiedness on a pedestal and is like this able bodied person is going to fix all my problems. If I can beg this able bodied person I've somehow done it. Which is such a detriment to the really cool deserving disabled folks that are out there who would probably make our lives considerably better than if we were chasing after able body people.
[00:24:05] Speaker C: Yeah. I feel safer with other disabled people too. I feel, I feel like emotionally I feel like I don't have to do as much like oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oh my God. You know what I mean?
When you're with another disabled person it's just like you're.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: When I'm with another cripple you can be as crippled as you need to be.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Yeah. You can just be yourself and be weird. And it's not to say that like it always works out because there are moments where your disability and their disability are kind of diametrically opposed.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Opposed to each other. Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:37] Speaker C: Need wise and like what the other person can provide and like okay, we're just not. That's not gonna. I can't do that for you and you can't do that for me. Whatever that is in this context. But I honestly after I did my first couple of relationships with other disabled people I was like I don't ever want to apologize for being tired ever again. I, I just don't want to because I, I would.
Yeah.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Every day.
Like just before I saw you to do this recording I was napping.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: I Was like, all right, well, yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm. Yeah. I, I just don't ever, I don't ever want to apologize for, for being exhausted ever again after, after like three or four relationships. I'm just not having to do that. I'm like, okay, we' to doing that ever, regardless of who I'm with. We're just not doing that anymore.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: Well, to continue this vein and to continue my own story, where I was to where I am now.
Yeah, that commonality, that safety wasn't something I ever thought of as a huge benefit of dating someone with disability, even if it wasn't the same disability.
Had a mentor or several of my friends back then told me that.
[00:26:23] Speaker C: Or.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Even suggested that I, I think that alone would have broken through my resistance of.
Because back then I wanted that status symbol. I want, oh yeah, boom.
That I could actually make it in overcome.
But again, I didn't expect that almost ready made and emotional intimacy that I wouldn't naturally get with a non disabled partner. And so I wish someone had clued me in to that long ago. I think you would have taken me less than half the time it took me. And I, I sort of feel really foolish that he took me so damn long.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: I wouldn't, I mean everything, I get it from both sides because like, everything in its right time and everything happens when it's supposed to happen and.
But I, I definitely feel the same way about my queerness and my, and my gender. I like, like, that was very late for me. I, I came out when I was 24 and it was very much one of those, like all of my friends being like, yeah, welcome back from Narnia, honey. Like, everybody in my life, my parents.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Everybody was like, listen, Narnia was my go to like comfort series when I was a kid.
Narnia was. Listen, first of all, how fucking queer was Narnia? Even though they were talking about basically religion, it was so queer.
[00:28:31] Speaker C: The fawns, I. Come on, man.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: The fawn, the queen was a fucking drag queen. Like, she was feeding him candy, basically ecstasy. They're basically in a queer club. What? What?
[00:28:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Fantasy is just, it's just gay. It just is. I'm sorry, I can't, I can't close it. That's why J.K. rowling is so mad.
That's why JK Rowling is so pissed off because she's just in a genre that is just inherently queer and she's, she's just losing her mind all the time because she just doesn't want to admit that. That's what she.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: I can't. I have so many feelings. Okay. Not to go off on a side quest, but I need to go on the side quest for a minute. Okay. John Lithgow.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Oh, can we not even. I can't.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: I don't. I can't. My brain doesn't know.
I don't know what to do with that.
It hurts my soul.
[00:29:22] Speaker C: I know.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: In a way that I can't explain.
[00:29:26] Speaker C: I know. I love him so much. No, my other. My Other big celebrity crush to bring it back to, you know, dating and sexuality is Ray Fines. I've loved him since I was 8 years old. And that older one, that. That man is fully a turf. Like, that man. I. I haven't read the interviews.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Is he.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:29:44] Speaker C: I kind of am kind of like, la, la, la, la, la.
My way through it. And, like, I couldn't quote him because I just refused to go down that rabbit hole because I'm just like, I need to live somehow. I need to, like, like, exist in the world and not know this. But I'm pretty sure he's one of those, like, J.K. rowling has a point. Cast members like Helen Carter.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:30:05] Speaker C: This hurts so painful. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something, Keith. Oh. As far as, like, you know, I really felt like I was mad at myself for not discovering that I was queer earlier because I was just like, man, I wasted so much time just, like, thinking I had to do stuff that I didn't have to do and, like, not that, you know, header that straight people and CIS people have to do stuff that they don't want to do. I think that they're just. When you're queer, your. Your kind of mind opens to what you're.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: You know what she's saying? Keith, come join us.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: Come join us.
Yes.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Welcome to this. Welcome to the dark side, Keith.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Come on, come on, come on.
[00:30:48] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. Before the end of this podcast, I want to know. I want to know.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: It'll be a great time.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. There's cookies, there's rainbows. It's great.
Yeah. No, by the end of this series, I do want to know who Keith's man crushes.
Deeply invested.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Wow.
That means 10 of 12 epics.
[00:31:12] Speaker C: Listen, we got time.
We got time.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: We can make some seasons. I'm all right with that. Season two. All right, all right.
[00:31:19] Speaker C: You think about it. You let me know. I. Yeah, I'm one of those, like, those. Those. That stereotype of the bisexual where, like, I just don't believe in straight people. I Like, meet a straight person and I'm like, oh, you'll find someone. I'm like, I'm like.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: And I mean a straight person. I think I'll turn you, don't worry.
[00:31:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like, oh, how cute. It's like so retro.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: I'm a vampire.
[00:31:38] Speaker C: It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
So, yeah, so I definitely feel that, that sense of like, yeah, on the one hand, lay everything in its right time, yada yada. But also I wasted a lot of time just thinking I was a straight person. I really just, it was so.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: I used to pretend to have a crush on Nev Campbell. Do you remember Nev Campbell?
[00:32:00] Speaker C: I mean, good choice.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: I mean, she's still a hottie. She's Canadian. I adore her.
Scream is great. I mean, there are many.
I have many issues with the screen franchise, but I love her in it. Good. Like, so she's my girl. Okay. When I was like 13 or 14 in high school, we had to go to wood shop. Okay. And I can't do anything. I'm. I am literally.
[00:32:23] Speaker C: You're just sitting there. It's like gym class.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: I'm useless. But I had to go. And so I was there and I made a keychain.
You can like twist plastic and make some cheap keychain.
[00:32:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I remember this occupational therapist really wanted me to do this. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: And I remember like making a keychain and putting a picture of Nev campbell from like 1997 in it. Being like, look, guys, it's proof that I'm straight.
[00:32:49] Speaker C: Look, look, I'm pick Nev Campbell because Nev Nev has such a queer vibe to me. I know. That's why I said I'd be like, yeah, for sure. Like, I love that you picked like a kind of bisexual lady.
It's great.
It's so good.
I'm wondering Heath, like, you, you're, you know, you were saying that you, you felt you wanted the status symbol of dating an able bodied person and you wanted like to feel like you had made it. Do you feel like that is has to do with like how your disability presents itself? Because I know that, you know, you, you walk well. You are, you know.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:31] Speaker C: Like.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: No, rub it in, guys.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: I call, I call my disability Cerebral Palsy Light.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: Yeah. You have diet.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Well.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: You're a doctor of some kind.
You don't know I have a disability until you hear my voice.
[00:34:05] Speaker C: Right? And did you dated an able body person? Like people wouldn't be able to clock you, like like, maybe, like. Okay, that'll, you know, smoke screen, like.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yeah, but see, huge. The thing, though, people usually think either I'm drunk, which is odd because if we ever go out drinking, alcohol normalizes the tension.
[00:34:37] Speaker C: Yeah, no, for sure. It's why I started smoking hot. It's why I started smoking hot.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: So either I'm drunk, I'm on drugs, or I'm not all there.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: So.
Oh, you'll start telling people you have water on the brain, Keith. Which is literally what CPA just be like, listening. The water on the brain.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: I'm gonna put that in a poem, Andrew. I'm gonna go home and write a poem about that immediately.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: It's like, amazing.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Thing I would say is that I feel personally that I straddle a very fine.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Are you straddling? What? Excuse me?
[00:35:21] Speaker C: You can't say that.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: You cannot say that around the host of disability. You cannot say the word straddle around me because I will grab it and I'll run with it. And if there's either. No. So tell me again.
[00:35:32] Speaker C: He's regretting inviting us so much. He's like, I didn't know that the queers were gonna invade my podcast, make it weird. That's. Now it's weird.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Joe. I walk a very fine line between two worlds.
The non disabled and the disabled world.
And unfortunately, I am too much.
Not enough of either. Yeah, too much of his. The other two actually fit in.
[00:36:16] Speaker C: You're not going to get claimed by either side. Really?
Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Yes. And it's also why I left the group that we all know each other from, because it. At that time, it was like I. I would.
And nothing against that group of the people who wanted. I've met some great people from that group, but at that time, I was just too overwhelmed.
Not with my able body privilege.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: But my.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: My internalized ableism of.
I get why it took me 30 years to study my own disability.
And it was one of the first graduate papers I wrote. I'll send it to you too.
[00:37:29] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I want to read it for sure, please.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: Because I had so little of the actual definition of the disability.
What people think that cerebral palsy it.
That for many a year, I could.
I felt like I couldn't own it.
I mean, yeah, it would. Like. I wasn't on crutches. I wasn't in a wheelchair.
It was.
And you don't have to be on crutches or being wheelchair to have cp.
You don't.
It's very variety.
More variety than a lot of people Know, but like, people think every person with a disability is confined to a wheelchair.
[00:38:46] Speaker C: I love that shit. Wheelchair bound. It's my fifth.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: I love wheelchair bound.
We're lazy.
We are mut.
We don't want a relationship.
We all.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: We don't have sex. This is Andrew's wheelhouse.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: I a lot. Okay.
[00:39:06] Speaker C: You a lot. Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Which is just like so on my personal journey. But what judge that.
That I had, I frankly little bit afraid of what this next term is gonna do to my cohorts.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: What are you gonna say? Oh, no, what are the words?
[00:39:36] Speaker B: I felt like I had to sort of ping pong myself from my disability to the able bodied world and back and forth.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's totally fair. That's code switching in other, in other contests. That's, you know, that's code switching. And I think, yeah, that's a familiar experience. You know, maybe not with disability, but with other things. You know, there are lots of people who feel like they have to be a certain version of themselves in a certain context, you know, and.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Yeah, like, talk to any person of color in America right now.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Any person of color in the workplace, they'll tell you. That's where I learned about it.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:18] Speaker C: Yeah. I had something else I wanted to say, and now it's gone. Andrew, you had a bunch of stuff.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: I was gonna talk about wheelchair bound just because, like, and I know why we, I know how we feel about that term when everybody, people use it against us, but I feel sometimes I am wheelchair bound. No, for sure, I can't soak, you know, And I, I, as I get older, when I was 20, I'd be like, how dare you say that? You.
But now at 40, I'm like, listen, were you trying to hurt me? Were you trying to say something mean?
Were you trying to learn? Can I. Is it. Is this a tangible moment?
[00:40:51] Speaker C: It also depends on who it is too. It also depends on the context. It also depends for me that that's also, for me, that's the cure narrative. I, I say all the right things about your narrative in public and like in, in activism spaces. And I'm like, and nobody who doesn't want to change should be forcibly changed.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: But straight up, if we're being honest right now, I. Somebody could come to me and be like, okay, 50 chance that this injection will cure you. 50% chance that it will kill you. And I'd be like, let's roll those dice, see what happens.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: But listen now, if the hot dude that. Whose dick I'm Sucking said wheelchair bound. And he was still hot after he said wheelchair bound, I would probably still suck his dick.
[00:41:34] Speaker C: Right. It's like, I'll wait until after the orgasm, and then we'll.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll close that out afterwards. It's all right.
[00:41:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I. I had a moment recently where I went to go and feature at a poetry reading.
And. And there was. There was another feature. And it was.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: The.
[00:41:50] Speaker C: The audience for this poetry reading was. Was a lot of much older people, which is the thing that happens on Long Island. Our poetry scene is thriving, but it's not, like, hip and young. It's skews of a certain age bracket. And so I get. I. I get up and do my set, which is all, you know, pissed off. Purple pumps. My co. Feature gets up and does her set, which is about her childhood sexual assault. You know, not to go into detail.
It's a heavy. It's a heavy time. It's a heavy. It's a heavy reading.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:20] Speaker C: And. And so she and I are talking after. After the reading on, like, doing a Q and A, and. And she says to me, you're making me realize that we're all disabled in. In. In some way or other. And I had to have this moment of like, okay, I know. And the room bursts into applause, and I'm just like, okay.
In another setting, I would put the mic down and be like, let's go.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Over why that's a problem.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Why that's a problem. Let's go over why that's a problem.
And then I was like, you know what? This woman just, like, opened her chest and showed you her heart for the last 45 minutes. Like. Like, okay, yeah, I get what you mean. Like, I understand you're trying to be empathetic, but there are limits to it.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: And again, if that. The same thing came from a hot dude whose dick I was about to suck, I would probably say, I don't love that, but you have a nice dick.
[00:43:13] Speaker C: Let's really. It's like, I'll get off first. I'll get off in the next four minutes. It's fine. We'll worry about it.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: Remember the Broad City episode where Atlant. Elena and Abby go to the.
Go to that stupid. That guy she sleeps with, the guy who has the pretty pink dick, and then she has to go to his.
What's it called? His improv show, and it's really bad. And she was like.
She's like, oh, my God, you're horrible. But all right. Okay.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: I've had two of three Friends, really good friends.
Straight up, tell me you're not disabled, right?
[00:43:55] Speaker C: And it's like, okay, I know.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Cerebral apology.
[00:43:59] Speaker C: And I like, like, you want to check the chart?
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Like, don't know how to take that. I mean, it's like, it's that a compliment?
[00:44:14] Speaker C: They think it is. They think it is. And it's like, and, and there's definitely a moment in my life when I thought I would have thought it was too. Like, if somebody.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: My favorite is when people say, like, oh, I don't know how I could live.
[00:44:28] Speaker C: That's my favorite. That's my favorite. I would kill myself if I were you.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And it's just like, it's funny. I, A guy that I was gonna sleep with said that to me, and I was like, well, that's my line. That's the line right there.
[00:44:44] Speaker C: There's no way you're getting it up after that.
It's just an absolute vibe killer. You're just like, all right, all right. Thanks for that. Appreciate it. Yeah, no, it's, Yeah, I, I don't think that we talk enough about, about interability. Jealousy, though, in, in, in disability spaces, man. It's like, I, I, I remember when Special came out. I don't know if you guys watch the show on Netflix.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: I did. I'm friends, I'm friends with Ryan.
[00:45:10] Speaker C: He's cool. Ryan is so cool. I, I made it through one episode and I was just like, this is not, I can't identify with this at all.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: It's for a very specific type of queer person.
[00:45:21] Speaker C: It's for a very specific character's proximity to able bodiedness. I was like, wait, you can lie about having a disability and people will believe you? Like, if I tried to lie about being disabled, everybody I knew would be like, like, are you kidding me?
[00:45:36] Speaker A: Like, what I love about that series in, in season two. And I got to, I got to watch a special. Like, pre, pre. They. The, this, the Netflix emailed me and said, which is so weird. I never have gotten an email from Netflix in my life. They emailed me out of the blue. Were like, would you like a free, A free watch of the show?
[00:45:55] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: Talk about it on the podcast. I was like, yeah, sure, sure. What Great. Yeah, like to watch them all before it all came out. And what I love about season two is that he listened and he made sure to, like, include more disabled people who were like, basically telling his character, you're an idiot. Try again.
[00:46:15] Speaker C: Like, right, like, and again, it was not. I, you know, I actually hope I Get to meet him at some point. I'd like to, I'd like to like cross pollinate and, and, and get to talk to him about his artistic practices and stuff. I'd be curious like about his point of view.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: I got to act next to him. When I did Queer as Folks, it was, it was. He is a really sweet, just real, a really nice dude who, who tried something at a time when nobody else was doing that and he was like, let me just try it.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: Yeah, that was my deal. That was my deal. Because of course, you know when, when something like that comes out, like every able bodied person, you know, just comes out of the woodwork and asks you what you think about it, right? Like, like, you gotta, you gotta like weigh in.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Oh, I wrote multiple articles for multiple outlets. When that show first came out, I remember the cbc, which is like our big Canadian radio over here, called me at 7am One morning. I was like, can you tell us what you think about? And I was like, guys, it's seven in the morning.
[00:47:07] Speaker C: It's seven in the morning. I'm not.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: Why do I have to talk about this right now?
[00:47:10] Speaker C: No, I love that you at least got paid for it. I was just answering people's DMs. It was, it was special. And then the next time it happened was Witcher in the, for, in, for in the first season.
So the Witcher has an early, early subplot which, where a main character is disabled and then through the use of magic, like in universe magic, she becomes not disabled, you know, through. I love that magic. And, and every able bodied person I knew just popped out of the woodwork and was like, how do you feel about this? I was like, listen, I'm a bad example because of the thing that I just said about like, well, 50% this might cure you. 50% this might kill you. But if a genie waved a wand and was like, hey, let's just give it a go, I'd be like, yeah, sure, I like those.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: The way that I want to be able bodied is to fuck you. And then if I have to be disabled right after, if I could, if I could you as an able body person and then be disabled right after I come, I'm okay with. That's great.
[00:48:04] Speaker C: This is me when people ask me that, people ask me, what would you do if you woke up and you were able bodied? I'm like, well, first I would put on a skirt and twirl a bunch. I would do a lot of, I would do a bunch of twirling.
Like I Was in a tampon ad in a field. Like, I would do.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: I would. I would jerk off a lot to understand, like, what it is like to jerk off properly with, like, proper.
[00:48:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Proper hand motion.
[00:48:29] Speaker C: Immediately go to a bar and try to a stranger. That would be. That would just be warm. That. That's it. It would twirling and then it would.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Be twirling and strangers.
[00:48:37] Speaker C: That would be it. That'd be it.
And then I would be fine.
That's my, like, Quasimodo. Like, I'll have spent one day out there.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Can totally understand Andrews a lot better, but wow.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: You know what it is for me? The reason that that's what it is for me is because for so long, and I don't know how much I'm still carrying this. I'd like to say that I'm, like, over it, but you never really know.
For me, sex was so much about being chosen.
Like, oh, yeah, somebody else picked you out of everybody that they could.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Jim. Lads being picked. Lads. The dodge ball for T ball. Yeah. Soccer team. Yeah, exactly.
[00:49:31] Speaker C: Sex for me was not even really about sex. And romantic relationships for me were not even really about.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: I totally. I totally relate to that.
[00:49:39] Speaker C: It was just like, oh, I want to get.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: Still not about. It's still not about the sexual. I could care less where you come, how you come.
I don't really care about that. I don't care if I come, but if you're willing to spend time with me outside of. Oh, that guy in a wheelchair is really a guy in a wheelchair. Like, give me more. Like, actually get to know who I am. That's way more important to me than what we do in the bedroom.
[00:50:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: I'm on the outlier here. I'm way too much of a hopeless romantic.
And if you don't.
[00:50:14] Speaker C: I love that for you, though, you.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: Can ask my exit about that. They'll confirm what I just said. No, I mean, I love it, too.
It's like I. I made this joke that I'm still real proud of, that God.
God would have an easier time taking my cerebral palsy out of my body than he would have taken my romantic part out of me. And, boy, do I hope I get to use that in a message sometime.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: I would just like to be able to thrust myself into a person. Can we bring it back to sex for a minute? Not take away from what you're saying. Keith.
Sorry. Keith. Finish.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: So the bed line I did in one of my med Sidjids at church is that I flipped the R word around and I said, if the word retard had any connection to me, there had to be an alternative definition to it. And that definition, folks, would be extremely accomplished and drop dead gorgeous.
And people burst out laughing because they did not expect it at all. And I'm like, that's just who I am.
That was my mic drop moment. But, Andrew, go ahead.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: I. I just want to end saying because. Because my attendant person is going to be here in three minutes, I'm gonna.
[00:52:32] Speaker C: Quickly say, drop us, Take us home, Andrew, if I could.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: I just want to know what it's like to thrust my hips properly. I can't do that.
[00:52:39] Speaker C: So, like, that's true.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: I can't do that. So when I have sexual experiences with a dude, I'm always like, yo, I can't thrust, so you're gonna have to, like, do that for yourself. And then, you know, and I feel like I've let them down somehow because I'm like, what? I could at least thrust. I could do this.
[00:52:56] Speaker C: Andrew, are you, Are you a verse or are you a top or are you a bottom? Like, what's your, what's your side?
[00:53:01] Speaker A: Really?
[00:53:02] Speaker C: Your side?
[00:53:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm very much like, let's make out. Hand jobs are great. Making that sign, like, kissing is my thing. I don't really need all that stuff. That doesn't necessarily appeal to me, but.
[00:53:15] Speaker C: I know because I feel like I'm boxing myself into a corner because the older I get, the more I'm like, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top. Like, I, I, I just want to be in control of the entire situation. Like, my boyfriend is also a top, and it's going to be a problem. Like, it hasn't yet presented a problem. It will present a problem because we both are just like, no, I want to be in charge. Like, it's. Yeah.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: For next week, let's talk about the funniest thing we. We've ever done in bed.
[00:53:39] Speaker C: Gonna be limited. I've got such limited experience. I'm gonna have to, like, make. Coming up.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: Okay. And make a story. So you're a poet?
[00:53:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm a writer. I get paid to do this. Yeah, it's fine.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Yeah. Cool. I don't. I guess I'm ending. I don't know how. I don't know what to.
[00:53:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Keith, do you have, like, a sign out that you. That you can do for us or are we just gonna, like.
[00:54:00] Speaker B: So that was part two, folks.
We'll be back in probably another week with another. A big show. I want to thank my co host Liv Morone and Andrew Gerzeh for their humor and for humoring mine.
And Liv, please come to Jonah.
[00:54:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I want to taste the water.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: Water meet the X. You don't know she how we do things. She we loop it back to the beginning. Hope you had fun, folks.
[00:54:45] Speaker A: Thank you so much, everybody. It was a pleasure to be here.
[00:54:47] Speaker C: Thanks you guys.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: You have been listening to Disability Empowerment Now. I've I would like to thank my guests, you, the listener and the Disability Empowerment now team that made this episode possible.
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