Sex- its a topic we all usually come to discuss once in our lives. Whether we are thinking about it, having it, or staying away from it, sex happens. Historically, sex has been LGBTQ+ inclusive as there were not major laws or restrictions in place to prevent those of the same sex or gender from being together. However, things were much more discriminatory in terms of race or social class. In the early 19th and 20th centuries, sex became a sinful topic to discuss in the United States. You were immoral if you had sex outside of marriage or for nonprocreative purposes. Sex ceases to be intersectional, for the majority of the States.
In the 21st century, sex is widely discussed and accepted. People are not afraid to shy away from the topic, and they proudly accepted who they are. Not that this is the case for everyone, but for many people. The importance of today’s topics of sex is the core idea of intersectionality- that we make sex accessible to everyone, regardless of gender, sex, race, orientation, or ability. I chose to discuss this topic, as I discovered one of my new favorite websites that promotes sexual health and wellness, with safety and inclusivity in mind. The site is called Spectrum Boutique, and they provide sex toys and forums for people of all types with no judgement. The reason I love this site is because they do not just make the standard penis and vagina toys for cisgendered straight people- no, they make every single item you could imagine under the sun. They make items that are straight, curved, twisted, move, pop, sparkle, and glow in the dark. There are no standards, no gender labels, and no rules. They describe items as being best for people with x, y, or z sex organ, but they do not label as “for men” or “for women”. They have amazing blogs where you can explore various topics, sex related or not. My favorite part is that they also have items for people with disabilities. People seem to forget that people with disabilities are still sexual beings, who have sex. This website allows for people to find things that can assist them in making sex more enjoyable.
Our bodies are all made differently, and they all enjoy different things. Spectrum Boutique allows for the freedom to find something you’ll love, regardless of who you are or how you’re shaped. Sex is not taboo, it is a part of life.
It was an average day, nothing exceptional had occurred…yet. As I left work at around 7:30 pm I headed to the elevator to take me to my car on the 5th-floor parking lot. These elevators weren’t the most modern or even trustworthy, but 5 flights of stairs did not sound appealing to me. I hopped in while looking on my phone, I was the only one inside so didn’t even really bother looking up. I pressed my level 5 and refreshed my Instagram feed, but then the lights started to flicker. A flicker soon turned into back, and the whole elevator came to a halt. No floor sign, no lights, and pressing the buttons did nothing. For a second I count believe it, this had never happened to me. Alone in the small square, my anxiety shot up immediately.
I turned my flashlight up to try and call the emergency hotline, after a few loud beeps, and a ringing telephone, I was connected to a man in a call center. He asked what my emerges was and I told him, he asked if I needed immediate medical attention or had a disability and I responded, he asked if I needed anything before he contacted someone to come get me out, and I said “Just please hurry, I’m in here all alone and scared”. He assured me he would call me back in ten minutes. At that moment, that felt like forever. I sat down, the elevator continued to move, shake and change floors. I imagined it would just drop and I would die like in a movie.
The service was spotty, but I called my sister who always answers. She could barely make out what I was saying, but I told her I loved her and I would call her back as soon as I was out. It sounds dramatic but I didn’t know what was going to happen. With each bump, move, and flicker I got more and more afraid. This elevator I used countless times a week, and with people, had never felt so small. It was as if all my anxiety and anguish filled the square, and there was no room for anything else. I found it hard to breathe, which was just me being crazy, the air quality was fine.
I sat there, alone, in the dark for 13 minutes. Waiting for someone to rescue me, or for a light to turn back on and I could go about my day again. Even though the space felt so filled and I was busting at the seams, I also recognized how little I was in that corner. I was helpless and had no control over anything in that space, except making sure didn’t go ballistic.
After a few bumps, I could finally hear people outside, and very quickly the lights turned on and the door opened. A few businessmen were waiting outside, getting ready to get on. I was huddled in the corner looking very disheveled. I shot up without saying anything and stormed past them. “I wouldn’t use that” was all I dared to muddle to them. I climbed a few flights and went to my car to cry and unload the fear that was inside me.
The next day, I took the stairs, and I have every day after. On the bright side, my legs are looking quite good.
*This is MY take on Grind Culture. Completely just opinions I have formulated through watching a lot of my friends fall into “grinding”. This take DOES NOT apply to everyone.
“Grinding” is the idea of working really hard and pushing yourself either to your limits or way past them, in order to make more money or achieve a goal such as getting schoolwork done. It is common to hear “I’m on my grind” from college students or young adults that are consistently overworking themselves. These people are under the impression that this grind is benefitting them, I mean they’re getting their work knocked out, or they are getting a lot of money… But at what cost? Grinding implies that these people are often running off little sleep, lots of caffeine, not much food and absolutely no rest. This society has drilled into our brains that if we are doing anything that is not seen as productive i.e., making you money or getting you a degree, you are wasting your time.
As we finish the midterm season, we have two more weeks until Thanksgiving break and less than six weeks until finishing the fall semester. The countdown to being finished this semester has been ticking in my mind for a break.
Recently, I’ve been feeling tremendously stressed out and tired. I have been having trouble getting to my classes on time, feeling engaged, and keeping up with my load. I have been facing a bit of a roadblock with what I want to write about for this post. After getting through half of the week (Wednesday as I write this), I realize that my roadblock for the post stems from two causes: trying to outdo my previous posts and burnout.
First, let me just say that TikTok is a great platform for people to speak out on what seems like small moments in their lives but are ultimately extremely impactful: few other platforms expect you to produce 60-second vignettes of information with little further context, but TikTok allows and almost requires the person behind the camera to get to the point very quickly.
To summarize the video that does not have captions (not all creators in all countries have access to that feature yet): This person is deaf and was raised in a hearing community. They started a new job, and were surprised and overwhelmed when they walked in on their first day and everyone in the office was wearing clear, see-through masks, meaning they would be able to lip read. Their first reaction was to feel gratitude for what felt like a gesture of kindness and welcome, and that they feel seen as a person.
I want to take what this person almost said and bring it a step further. This creator felt gratitude, felt welcomed, and felt seen, and they felt these things because their workplace had done what could be argued they are legally required to do in order for them to be functional in their job. While clear masks may not be spelled out as an accommodation in the ADA, it definitely became necessary during COVID-19 for the deaf community in order for them to be safe, but also to participate in society. Providing clear masks to what is presumably an office would not be considered undue hardship as it would be only slightly more expensive than providing ordinary masks to the workforce. An office with a mask mandate is most likely providing their employees with masks, so an office with a mask mandate and a deaf employee would then be legally required to provide clear masks to their workforce.
I will reiterate: This person felt gratitude because their employer did what they were legally required to do to accommodate their disability and did it promptly so the accommodation was in place when they started their first day of work.
As a member of the disabled community this tells me that the bar is on the ground. It may even be buried, and we are then overwhelmingly grateful when someone unburies the bar and hands it to us. It may still be covered in dirt and we may have a new worm friend but it’s been so long since some of us have seen the bar that we accept it as-is.
Can we even conceptualize what it would look like if every disabled person was given their accommodations on their first day of work? What would it look like if in an interview we could just hand a list to our potential employer and it wasn’t a factor in the hiring decision but simply part of their resume? What if everyone was required to submit a list of accommodations and workplace preferences as a part of their application, and it was simply accepted as standard and a best practice in hiring? What if these were accepted as necessary and automatic requirements as long as they fell under ADA guidelines and did not cause undue hardship to the employer, and thus every employer automatically provided them?
Let’s take this thought experiment one step further. What comes next? What does disability acceptance look like in a world where each individual’s needs were met to the furthest extent possible?
This may take some creative thinking on our part, but I think it’s possible to imagine. I personally can imagine an office where wheelchairs were equally as common as chairs. I can imagine that one person may be at a treadmill desk (there’s always at least one fitness enthusiast in an office) and another desk may be empty most of the time, as its owner largely worked from home. I can imagine that transcription of recorded virtual meetings would be as automatic as meeting notes, and that it would be an expectation that the office would rotate through who took on that job just like we do note-takers. I can imagine that this office would throw out traditional concepts of what a work day would look like, and what work production would look like, and that each individual would be allowed to work and produce work in a way that best suited their personality, lifestyle, neurodivergences and sleep schedules.
These ideas, though, still linger within the realm of accommodation. Is it possible to get even more outlandish in our conceptualization of disability in the workplace?
I can imagine a workplace where a disabled person has been promoted several times. I can imagine a workplace where when someone schedules a happy hour, they take into consideration locations that would be functional and welcoming for every member of the team, which may mean having drinks at a quiet restaurant instead of a loud, difficult-to-navigate bar. I can imagine that at the desk of the person who works from home, there is a prank hidden in the drawer for that person to find from a coworker who is thinking of them whether they’re physically there or not, and doesn’t care how long it takes them to find it. (Who doesn’t enjoy the long game?) I can imagine a scenario where every team member is appreciated for their social contributions to the team, and that for some people that may mean not eating lunch in the cafeteria, but may look like them tracking everyone’s birthdays and sending out celebratory emails to everyone. I can imagine that people with disabilities are treated like people and are accepted in all contexts of the word and are welcomed not only on the surface of being able to do their work adequately, but are welcomed as a human being joining a collective enterprise.
When the bar for disability accommodation is buried underground, acceptance and equity for disability is buried along with it.
I cannot wait until I get to the point where I am not thinking about my body so much. I frequently enough think about how it looks in clothing, without clothing, around other people, how it fits in spaces, and even how it moves.
I love fashion and streetwear, and you know nowadays you can’t be on social media without seeing all the different styles and outfits people be rocking. I’m trying to get like that so bad. Not to be like other people, but to be able to wear the clothes that I think are tuff and to authentically express myself in the clothes and styling of my choosing. It really sucks that my options are very limited as not only a plus-size person but a plus-size female who wears and wants to rock men’s clothing. I can’t count on my hands the number of times I’ve seen some tuff clothes that I want and have the money to buy, but they didn’t sell it in my size. I just don’t have enough fingers. This dilemma has been one of the highlights of my life. I’m left with the options of either loosing weight, waiting on the clothing industry to up the sizes, or make my own clothes tailored to me. I want to lose weight regardless, but I shouldn’t have to to wear the clothes I want. They should be more accommodating of differently sized bodies.
When it comes to thinking about my body, sometimes it’s a question of am I just overthinking. In some cases, maybe, but in others, I am forced to. Like when going out to a restaurant with people and we are sitting in a booth, it’s how much additional space am I taking up compared to the others. Can we all fit? Sometimes there has to be an arrangement of smaller bodies sitting with bigger bodies for it to work. When choosing where to sit in the commons, it can never be those silver metal chairs because they are too constricting, and my ass and thighs won’t fit. When I’m going somewhere with my friends in a car and 3 people have to be in the back, I’m probably going to have to sit up front so there is more space available in the back. I guess these things can’t be helped because that’s just the way body and space work, but it sucks. If there is one thing on this campus that I really really strongly and heavily dislike, is a hill/incline. Not only do I be tired as shit going up them hills trying to catch my breath, but the part of walking on a hill that is supposed to be less taxing, even requires some work sometimes. When I’m walking up a hill, one thing that keeps me going is the fact that it won’t be as hard walking down. Those hills with the steep inclines/declines can really kick rocks. If any of y’all live on campus and know that hill that starts in lot 8 by the library and goes all the way up to the apartment community center, y’all can visualize what I’m talking about. I don’t know about y’all body, but when I’m going down that hill, my body is having a full-on fight with gravity. I really have to try to control my body on trying to pace the hill and not go down too fast. This is one of the times I feel the most disconnected from my body because gravity, momentum, and the decline have more influence over my body than my mind does.
All my life, I’ve been fighting through mental illnesses since far before I was aware of it. The first battle was learning how to function with bipolar disorder and depression. Then I jumped right to dealing with my eating disorder. Trichotillomania was next. When I finally had everything sorted out this summer, I felt myself sighing in relief. It was hard, but I could live now. Sure, it’s still extremely difficult, but at least I have a little bit more of a handle on life than I ever had.
All my life, I’ve been fighting through mental illnesses since far before I was aware of it. The first battle was learning how to function with bipolar disorder and depression. Then I jumped right to dealing with my eating disorder. Trichotillomania was next. When I finally had everything sorted out this summer, I felt myself sighing in relief. It was hard, but I could live now. Sure, it’s still extremely difficult, but at least I have a little bit more of a handle on life than I ever had.
Somedays it feels like sickness. Bill if I’m gonna write you another letter I’ll never send I think I should get a grade for it.
Two summers ago you would have too much and yell at me with this big smile on your face. I’d get to laugh, shake my head and tell our friends I knew you’d love me, I knew we’d be the best of friends. And I was right. That autumn our friends went back to school but our classes were still online. We slowed down drinking and got real close. I loved how you listened to people, you’d get real quiet and nod your head when someone spoke. When I brought new friends over, you and I would listen to them all night long. I was just mimicking you, trying to listen like you, but when my friends left you’d tell me they were geniuses. The same way you think everyone’s a genius for something. I would drive home after a night out, curl into bed and text my partner to tell them I loved them, and then I’d text you to say thanks for listening. I told you once, that you reminded me of a science teacher we’d had way back when, who really saw people.
Is it cliche for me to say that I’m an old soul? One thing I always wish is that I lived in the 80s or 90s. Besides the crack epidemic and the extensivity of racism at the time, the generational time period was what I had an interest in. Even though I enjoy the time I live and am thankful for the improvements since that time, sometimes I feel like the culture of the 80s and 90s is not replicable. It was the beginning and the foundation of the African-American culture we see today. That was when rap was born, rhythm and blues were born, and fashion was born. Of course Lil Baby makes good music, but he can never compare to the hip hop artists from back in the day like Biggie, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac. Their music has a different vibe, it gives me a feeling that I cannot feel while listening to Summer Walker, Nicki Minaj, or Ariana Grande. Rhythm and Blues from the 70s and 80s hits even more different. I feel like I’m in another dimension when I listen to songs like Strawberry Letter 23 by the Brothers Johnson, or Footsteps in the Dark by the Isley Brothers. They give me such a serene and eccentric feeling. I feel that maybe the reason why I tend to favor the older versions of these genres rather than newer ones is that back then it was just starting, and it was original. Music now is not bad, but it has been reinventing and recycling itself for decades and decades. I remember when the black 90s sitcom Moesha came out on Netlfix during quarantine. I watched all six seasons in less than a week. it wasn’t even just the excitement of the plot that kept my attention, but the fantasy of being a teenager in the 90s. I was obsessed with the idea and the music I heard, the fashion I saw, and the all-around atmosphere of the show. The tales and stories I hear and read and watch make me envious of 90s teenagers, and make me wonder how my life would be if I grew up in that time. However, I am always glad to have been born in the era I was born in. I just wish I could’ve experienced the 80s and 90s.
Unruly Bodies 