As my legs writhe in pleasure, my boyfriend laughs and remains seated firmly on my face in his skin-tight boxer shorts. He’s been there for five minutes, and he shows no sign of moving. With every muffled groan, he readjusts slightly. I sometimes hear a note of panic in his voice when he asks if I can breathe. I can, of course; if I can’t, all I need to do is tap sharply on his leg and he’ll quickly dismount, freeing my face from the delicious musk of his days-old underwear.
We have a safeword – “zucchini”, a gloriously phallic vegetable, but a word unsexy enough that it stands out amongst our usual dirty talk – but we’ve never needed to use it. What I love about kink is that, done well, it demands care, consent and communication. In the warm afterglow of an orgasm, we share our dirtiest fantasies and make plans to act them out.
What I love about kink is that, done well, it demands care, consent and communication. Illustration by Eysar Vargas Two years ago, I honestly believed I would never experience this level of sexual pleasure again. Just a month before my 30th birthday, my joints began to flame with a new and unexpected pain, one which seemed to materialise out of nowhere. Every inch of my body would pulse with agony when I tried to do even the most mundane of tasks. Washing the dishes became an act of endurance. Debts piled up as I ordered takeout meals that I couldn’t afford, freelance commissions abandoned as I spent days in bed sinking into an ever-deepening depression.
As the pain mounted, I could see my once-active sex life slipping away. I didn’t have the energy or inclination to even masturbate, let alone have sex with my boyfriend. These fears only intensified after a year of medical admin finally saw me diagnosed with a long-term disability.
I intrinsically understood that ableism feeds us the stereotype that disabled people are sexless, a trope built to strengthen the paternalistic and patronising notion that we’re all child-like victims in need of rescue. Ironically, I had spent years writing in different capacities about sex and disability. I had interviewed the legendary Loree Erickson , who curated a care network filled with lovers, intimate partners and fuck buddies. I had fallen in love with the work of scholar and artist Johanna Hedva , whose How To Tell When We Will Die seamlessly intermingled essays on kink, ableism, doom and desire. More recently, I read the award-winning Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa , a gloriously caustic novel about a disabled woman who toys with the idea of paying her male carer to take her virginity. I intrinsically understood that ableism feeds us the stereotype that disabled people are sexless, a trope built to strengthen the paternalistic and patronising notion that we’re all child-like victims in need of rescue.
What I’ve learned over the last two years is that it doesn’t matter how much you think you know about a marginalised experience, how enlightened you think you are after years of reading. My diagnosis pierced something deep inside, unleashing a torrent of internalised ableism I had tried so hard to contain.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the past year of embedding myself deeper into kink communities has healed decades of sexual trauma. We discuss disability so often in a language of limitations and restrictions. Now, I think of my disability as I think of my queerness: as something that expands the horizons of possibility, something fluid and amorphous that shapeshifts and oozes past the established norms so deeply ingrained in our societies.
We discuss disability so often in a language of limitations and restrictions. Now, I think of my disability as I think of my queerness: as something that expands the horizons of possibility... Illustration by Eysar Vargas I had long pondered the fact that my kinkiest queer friends also tend to be the ones living with disabilities, and I’m starting to understand why: to be kinky is to be creative. Vanilla sex lives tend to feature a revolving door of the same acts and positions: hand jobs, blow jobs, penetration, missionary, doggy-style, maybe the odd 69er here and there. Obviously, this can also be tied to convenience. I still love the occasional blow job or mutual masturbation, and I’ve found ways to enjoy them that work with my pain. But kink is what occupies my mind. I write mental scripts that toy with submission and power play, which often involve me being trampled or smothered by my boyfriend. I scroll avidly through websites just like this one, dreaming up new and intricate ways to beautifully bind my flesh with thick, coarse rope. I fantasise about lube-slicked latex licked with sweat, the bright burn of a leather flogger as it slaps against my thighs...
I had long pondered the fact that my kinkiest queer friends also tend to be the ones living with disabilities, and I’m starting to understand why: to be kinky is to be creative. Sex had once seemed to me like a feat of athleticism, my years as a horny teenager spent flicking through articles detailing 101 novel sex positions, each one more logistically implausible than the last. I practiced my plank in the hopes of increasing my sexual stamina, contorting myself into various positions to please my partners. Now, some of my dirtiest fantasies barely involve moving my body at all – and that’s all thanks to kink.
I often think of how we define kink, the word’s dictionary definition: “a sharp twist or curve in something that is otherwise straight.” It’s the embodiment of queerness, a word deeply enmeshed in ideas of non-normativity, of alternative ways of being. There’s a complex web of ropes tying kink, queerness and disability, and they’re all rooted in a deviation from some sort of norm.
Illustration by Eysar Vargas Of course, none of this is linear. Unravelling decades of internalised ableism isn’t an easy or enjoyable process. There are still days I feel disappointed, frustrated or disgusted by my body, when I wake up drenched in my own piss or I’m forced to take a taxi because I can’t walk more than two blocks without being doubled over in agony. I definitely don’t always feel sexy, and some of the kink scenes I meticulously plan just never come to fruition because I’m deep in the midst of a flare-up on the day of the sex party.
There’s a complex web of ropes tying kink, queerness and disability, and they’re all rooted in a deviation from some sort of norm. Navigating life with a disability means being prepared for every eventuality, nurturing communities of care and asking for help when it’s needed. But there’s a sense of intimacy to be fostered here, too. After all, the best sex is rooted in trust. Kink communities understand this deeply. To commit to a scene means to put your body in someone else’s hands, to have faith that they’ll respect your boundaries and treat you with care. If your body doesn’t move in a certain way, there’s delicious anticipation in figuring out a new, kinkier alternative.
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