One of my most distinctive college memories is sitting with my entire class during Welcome Week, listening to administrators and student leaders talk about sexual consent.Among the usual lectures, a woman advised us that “disabled people cannot give consent.”Being a snarky eighteen-year-old with cerebral palsy, I brushed off this comment and later joked that my chances of getting a boyfriend or even being looked at by a guy were diminished.While I was saying this facetiously, I could not help but wonder how my disability would affect my social life and my sexuality.
A few days ago, this question resurfaced when I was walking back to my dorm.Two boys were walking in the opposite direction of me and one of them paused for a second to “check me out.”As we came within a few feet of each other and he could see my loft-strand crutch, his expression changed from an interested gaze to a pitying smile as if to say “You’d be hot if you weren’t disabled.” Suddenly, I was not attractive; I was just the “disabled girl.”
I am not alone in my experience with being seen as undesirable or unattractive because of my disability.In the TV biopic, The Brooke Ellison Story, college-aged Ellison constantly searches for love, and frequently wonders if anyone can love her because she is in a wheelchair.Later in the movie, her fears come to a head when her crush gets engaged to a (presumably) able-bodied woman.I am all too familiar with Ellison’s struggles.Somehow, a crutch, a wheelchair, and a stutter make my peers believe I have the mental capacity of a five-year-old.My peers display this by speaking slowly to me among other actions.
Not only is it frustrating, but it is demeaning.Sometimes, I feel as if I could be the most intelligent, successful, beautiful, and kindest woman in the world, yet I still would not be seen as attractive by my able-bodied peers.Maybe this stems from the aforementioned belief that disabled people cannot give sexual consent, thus rendering any advances (sexual or otherwise) as taking advantage.Noone in the right mind would want to take advantage of someone who cannot comprehend the situation, and as a result, men feel as though it would be wrong to even think about disabled women as potential love interests.While this is a sensible argument, one must realize that physical ability does not determine one’s mental capacity.Furthermore, a person can have a physical disability, such as cerebral palsy, and be capable of giving consent.
Another possibility is that able-bodied men do not find disabled women attractive.People with cerebral palsy in particular may have speech impediments or stutters and have tight or loose muscles that cause movements to be awkward to someone unfamiliar with the disability.While people may argue that modern society is past judging people by appearances, it is simply not true.A recent example of this is Donald Trump rating women on their attractiveness.According to Trump, “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.”It is evident that men still objectify women not only by a presidential candidate’s quotes, but also by the way college students talk to one another.I do not have to stray from my own college campus to hear a guy’s lewd remarks about the girl he spent the night with. My stutter and awkward movements disqualify me from being seen as conventionally beautiful by people who value women by the "perfection" of their bodies.
I admit that I do not have a perfect body and I am not a 10 in Trump’s book (nor would I ever want to be), but if those are the criteria for being attractive to my peers, then there is nothing I can do to make myself attractive.This is my body, and I can only change it to a certain degree, which does not extend to my disability.I do not see a point in wasting my efforts on trying to “prove” to able-bodied guys that I am as attractive as my able-bodied peers because I want someone to accept me, and if they only see my disability, then they will never accept me.I should not have to conform in order to be attractive.
