Kinky November Day 7 (Belated): Playing with Disabilities Book Review

[beta_vulgaris]

I picked this up on a trip to the Tool Shed in Milwaukee a couple of days ago.



Power Exchange Books: Playing with Disabilities ed. Robert J Rubel & Angela Stassinopoulos

I read this book in one sitting. It's a collection of short personal essays and a couple of pieces of fiction from BDSMers with a variety of disabilites, and it comes off as rather light. This series was originally a magazine, with the editor choosing eventually to publish in book form to give the work a bit more permanence.

The range of voices is well-chosen in this book, particularly in terms of disability, and centers the voices of people with disabilities over abled people (with one exception, when the husband of a person with DID/MPD discusses the needs of his wife's various alters and the way they work with her alters to have satisfying BDSM in their lives).

Much of the book is full of practical, personal-life advice aimed at kinksters. I felt that some wider context of disability activism and social movements could have helped this book, or at least placed it beyond the personal experience. The book is published in 2007 and consists of some reprints from the magazine, so the contents feel dated in some ways. I hesitate to fully criticize the individual authors for their work as each is so personal about their journey, that even when I read something that I might call out as inapporpriate if a person without disabilities said it, I felt that it was part of this individual's honest lived experience and perspective and I think there is great value in people having an in-group space to share their stories without feeling they must self-censor for the cause.

Some of the entries made me raise my eyebrow (the Deaf person who explicitly uses her lack of hearing to seduce people, and partners who threw her hearing aids across the room during scenes with little regard to their expense and without prior negotiation about removing them, but it's presented as a positive in that she found the vulnerability of that scene enhanced her enjoyment?). Others made me nod my head--the submissive who experiences panic attacks and the ways he and his Dommes have communicated about them and worked through them.

I think this series seems to have a strong focus on service and master/slave identities, which interested me particularly in terms of submissives and dominants incorporating changing ability status into their protocols.

In general this is a nice collection of personal experiences, none of which I found particularly brilliant in terms of writing, but all of which felt very honest to that person's place on their journey. For that reason I found it interesting, and there certainly were some pieces that gave good advice based in an individual's experience. I would have liked some stronger writing and analysis, but ultimately I think this book has enough honest integrity that I am glad it exists.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Do any of the pieces address chronic pain, and how/if playing with pain fits in to that life?

Or have you other recs?

[beta_vulgaris]

Ummmmm soooooort of? I can lend you the book if you want to check it out. Most of the ppl writing in this book who have chronic pain and/or fatigue were talking about service, so it was about whether they could complete the tasks their master or mistress set for them/adjusting their requirements based on their health. There was, frex, mention of a woman who sat next to her Dom instead of at his feet b/c of her inability to sit comfortably on the floor. Another piece talks about a woman who has a condition that inhibits her endorphin production, so sometimes impact play can be beneficial for her short term by really kickstarting endorphins that help with her general pain as well as her BDSM-inflicted bruising. Someone else likened their condition of having chronic pain as having another dominant in their relationship whose requirements must be accommodated by everyone else in the relationship. So, there were some useful point but I'm not 100% sure there's a satisfyingly complete or complex discussion of how one might integrate BDSM with one's life living with chronic pain.

[jesse_the_k]

Huh, thanks for the overview. Someone else likened their condition of having chronic pain as
having another dominant in their relationship whose requirements must be
accommodated by everyone else in the relationship. is really insightful, and I think is also true outside a BDSM context: rather than battling or struggling or suffering with disability, invite it for dinner!

[toft]

This was a really good post and I enjoyed reading it!

[beta_vulgaris]

Yay, thanks for saying so!

[anoneknewmoose]

This was a really interesting review ♥

[beta_vulgaris]

:) thanks!