Where did I say that? The man is in the UK, I'm-happily in Canada, how can I
know where his speech was held? I must as admit , I found it difficult to
read, follow ,too much UK base jargon.
Maria
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Davis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: Social Model of disability... & Dis. Rights aspects of
Sexuality
> Maria: Please provide details on the Row speech being held in "an
> inaccessible venue". That would seem to confirm what he and the
> speech's sponsor are all about. I believe you're the only one in this
> thread, to mention this? (Once again, spatial barriers fall to the
> bottom of the list of what most DS folks in a discussion on the
> list-serv, consider worth mentioning. Amazing.)
>
> --
>
> And will someone please give us Low's "ad-libs", as spoken? I take it,
> the text we have seen is not a transcript, but the copy one handed out
> in advance?
>
> --
>
> seauality and rights
>
> Glenn: If rights is "a start", then you have erased the prior phrase
> "the issue is not one of rights,..." I would disagree that the area of
> sexuality proves that "the issue is not one of rights, but (only of)
> values.."
>
> Example 1: I have presented a slide lecture "Getting Into the Space of
> LGBT Community - When You Can't get Into the Room" at the conference on
> LGBTQ Popular Culture at New York University, in October 1999. Though
> the research behind it is far from complete, I documented an estimate
> that half of the spaces in New York City i which LGBT identities are
> often discovered, confirmed, formed, maintained, supported, etc. -- are
> ones with barriers. Many of these are semi-public commercial spaces
> aimed towreds LGBT customers, (most are not gay owned), in which the
> patrons have no control over the barriers (other than to avoid the ones
> with built barriers, or to boycott).
>
> These quasi-public spaces not only are specifically ones in which sexual
> partners are often found, but also part of sex is -- getting information
> about sex, sexuality, updated health info, trends (like learning skills
> of safer sex), one's peers, etc., and the social context of it. And
> sometimes the spaces and milieus in which that info is to be gained, are
> the ones a PWD (I think this would apply often to heterosexual PWDs,
> too) can NOT get into, due to an environmental or social barrier.
>
> Example 2: Recently it was said that some unnamed US PWD publications
> refused to run an ad for a sex aid designed for men with certain
> disabilities, because the photo showed a man with a disability and his
> partner, in a pose, not at all showing sex, but just hinting at
> sexuality. (One wonders if they would have run the ad, minus the photo?
> Or if the manufacturer tried to do that; or if they were happy with the
> "denial" publicity by itself?) There is also some history of society
> even withholding otherwise somewhat "standard" sex ed. from some PWD's,
> I used slides in my lecture (verbally described), quickly showing dozens
> of physical barriers, because otherwise even sighted people "see but
> don't see" these barriers, and would not believe how common they are.
>
> Example 3: A counselor in a residential institution for people with
> certain severe cognitive disabilities, told me that when the
> conservative Mayor of New York closed down most of the porn theatres,
> this had a big impact on the gay men in this institution. They were not
> entirely free due to homophobia, to have these relationships in the
> institution, so for an alternative space, free of stigma and
> consequences, they would go on dates to certain porno theatres, ones in
> which the norms were that people could sit in the balcony and discreetly
> do it in the dark while watching the movie.
>
> When many of those places closed in the mid-90's due to the new
> discriminatory zoning (in which such places had to be big distances away
> from churches, schools, residences, etc., so that very few areas were
> left on the zoning map where they could be), and due to the
> Disney-fication of Times Square for affluent tourists (read Samuel
> Delaney's memoir of that area and it's former sexuality, "Times Square
> Red, Times Square Blue", and Marshall Berman's upcoming book on it),
> suddenly these disabled gay men had no place to go, and these
> relationshis wre in difficulty. That is a "rights" aspect of PWD
> sexuality.
>
> Example 4: When New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis (a community-based
> AIDS service-providing org. - equivalent I guess of Terrence Higgins
> Trust in London) held annual parties to thank volunteers and "AIDS Walk"
> fundraisers, in the inaccessible and otherwise highly favored dance club
> Webster Hall, that IS a rights issue that bears directly on sexuality.
> (My activist friend and I apparently influenced them to move it to an
> accessible venue; though they're not admitting it.)
>
> Example 5: There is also the issue of discriminatory admissions to
> night clubs, highly sexual sites, in which the "Doorman" picks a
> minority of people on the line, whom he considers the "best looking",
> for admission, and all others are not allowed in. This is a larger
> "body image / status" kind of discrimination, but how many people with
> visible disabilities do you think fit those favored body images?
> Approximately none.
>
> One famous dance club in New York actually carried this to such extremes
> -- they forced non-members wanting to get in, to line up on the sidewalk
> on a weeknight that the club was closed, like an audition (you had to
> dress as you would to go dancing; meaning you rushed home after work,
> changed, and then rushed to this outdoor "cattle call") to be subjected
> to this demeaning selection process.... and if among the lucky few
> selected, they'd give you a slip of paper to bring back on the night
> they were open..... because they apparently didn't want the one's they'd
> reject, to even be on the street outside of the club, when it was open.
> A recent book on this defunct club, the Paradise Garage, actually
> briefly defends this club's severe body-image discrimination, and the
> highly-developed ways of carrying it out, in favor of those few
> euphemistically described in the book as having "personal style" (those
> locked out, were not deemed worthy of any description; apparently
> perceived as non-persons), as part of what the author calls "a time
> honored tradition" in private membership clubs.... (this, amazingly, in
> the context of much self-congratulatory discussion claiming the club's
> members, who all had to be recommended by existing members via a secret
> application process, were relatively diverse in other respects).
>
> --
>
> So, sure, sexuality is an area that shows that values are an important
> part of what DL (and DS, tagging along) needs to work on changing.
> Including not only access to sexual opportunity itself, but to the
> general sexual information flowing around society, that can lead to
> sexual development and opportunities.
>
> But if you look into it, and no doubt there are plenty of examples
> beyond the 5 above -- sexuality for PWD's is NOT an area that is
> entirely outside of rights considerations, and so in no way do sexuality
> concerns invalidate the social model as an explanation of much of what
> happens in our lives, even within the area of sexuality. No reason to
> use "values" problems to deny "rights" problems.
>
> Jim
>
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