Attraction to disability
Encyclopedia
Attraction to disability is a sexualised interest of people in the appearance, sensation and experience of disability
. It may extend from normal human sexuality
into a type of sexual fetishism
. Sexologically
, the pathological end of the attraction tends to be seen as a paraphilia
, though also as an aspect of identity disorder
.
, classical Vietnamese legend, works by Bruegel the Elder
, de Brantôme, de Montaigne
, Pushkin
, Brecht, Bulgakov
, Dalí
, Hemingway
, Mayakovsky
, von Stroheim
, Helmut Newton
and Buñuel
, and roles by James Dean
. The attraction may be present in the Chinese foot binding
tradition.
This type of human sexual attraction has become more widely known over the past century through Interwar decadence
, the Sexual Revolution
, and the advent of the world-wide web. A number of artists have portrayed it: drama producer Andriy Zholdak produces plays with disabled people, sculptor Marc Quinn
makes statues of them, photographers Gerhard Aba, Petrina Hicks, Eric Kroll
, Ronald Parisi, Romain Slocombe and Yury Solomko portray them, directors produce films like Um crime delicado and Chinese balletomanes produce dance performances with them. The attraction also features regularly in Japanese anime
and manga
and has established a large, mostly apocrypha
l, online
presence.
The rare pathological attraction to disability has been studied by psychologists since the late 19th Century, with a relative resurgence of interest since the mid-1970s. Until the 1990s, it tended to be described mostly as acrotomophilia, at the expense of other disabilities, or of the wish by some to pretend or acquire disability. Bruno (1997) systematised the attraction as factitious disability disorder. A decade on, others argue that erotic target location error is at play, classifying the attraction as an identity disorder.
. Some devotees desire people with cognitive disabilities.
Desires to pretend to be disabled and acquire a disability are extensions of the pathological disorder. About half of all devotees occasionally pretend (43 per cent of Nattress [1996], sample of 50). Avowed "wannabes
" seem to number not more than five per cent of the devotee-wannabe population, though Nattress (1996) found 22 per cent of his sample of 50 had wanted to become disabled. Accordingly, Bruno (1997) puts those afflicted with versions of the paraphilia under the broad heading of Devotees, Pretenders, and Wannabes (DPWs), as used here.
Well over half of DPWs have felt this pathological attraction since childhood, as typical in paraphilias. The Amelotatist (see References) found that 75 per cent of its sample of 195 were aware of the attraction by age 15. Those attracted often cherish early memories of a sexuoerotic tragedy
(a "first sighting") involving an object of their future attention, often an older member of the opposite sex, as stereotypical in paraphilic etiology
. About a quarter report discovering the paraphilia in puberty, and a few in maturity.
In intensity, this pathological type of attraction ranges between optional and preferred in most DPWs. As its intensity grows, pretender and wannabe elements may emerge and increase. Thus, detailed enquiries as to what sensations there are or are not in the parts of the body affected by disability are regularly posed in DPW fora frequented by disabled people, suggesting an exhaustively detailed DPW curiosity as to the experience of disability. Avowed wannabes seem to feel their aspect of the attraction significantly more keenly than ordinary devotees, and for many it has exclusive intensity.
The aforesaid has given grounds for the attraction to disability to be represented as the continuum Bruno (1997) termed factitious disability disorder. At its less-intense devotee end, there is sexualised fascination with the existential aspects of disability and its appearance. In its middle pretending area, is strong desire to reproduce the sensations of disability. At its intense wannabe end, is an imperative to acquire a disability which may prompt self-harm.
The attraction does not appear to pose dangers to DPWs' partners or third parties.
DPWs have individual preferences: those desiring people with one disability may feel little or no attraction towards people with other disabilities. Alongside defining the preferred disability, preferences may define whether it is acquired or congenital, traumatic or caused by illness, elapsed periods since it was acquired, whether it involves physical scarring, and even trivia such as whether it affects the left or right side. How the disability is displayed is a preference area, with some DPWs having preferred clothing, props, behaviour, and even environments. The enormous variety of devotee preferences is shown by the large number of narrowly specialised devotee fora: groups dedicated to amputees with bandaged stumps, people in leg-braces, disabled brides, hook prosthesis users, leg amputees who use pylon prostheses, non-users of prostheses, people with one short leg, people with limbs in plaster casts, etc..
Individual preferences may be firm or flexible and may evolve with time but seem rarely to 'switch' from one type of disability to another. Individual DPWs' exact personal preferences are rarely, if ever, replicated in others.
A key feature of the attraction, preferences seem to serve two purposes. First, they fix the appearance and circumstances of the sexuoerotic tragedy, perpetuating and reinforcing its influence. Second, they act as an excuse which keeps inhibited devotees from pursuing relationships (see Behaviour), since narrow preferences are unlikely to be satisfied.
There are many indications that male and female DPWs may have differing overall preferences. Thus, the preference for women with one leg who walk with crutches appears most common among males, while preferences for men with one arm or are paralysed appear more common among females.
DPW preferences are overlaid over common attractiveness criteria. Male DPWs routinely rank disabled women by looks, while female DPWs routinely rank disabled men by charisma, with "looks" and "charisma" having mainstream meanings.
on the other (also see Behaviour below).
In 1976, Ampix, a company selling DPW pornography, had a clientele of about 300. A decade later, Fascination, a DPW community quarterly publication, had a circulation of under 1000. As the world-wide web began rolling-out a decade hence, DPWs in dedicated fora numbered under 10,000. By 2006, the world devotee community comprised up to 100,000 members of several hundred internet fora. Duplication/multiplication of memberships, dead memberships, and the probable 'grey zone' of under-motivated, merely curious or accidental forum members would indicate that there were anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 DPWs worldwide in 2006.
By sex, it is consistently reported that over 90 per cent of DPWs are male. Women attracted to disability may view their feelings as romantic rather than sex-centred, or be disheartened by male domination of the DPW scene.
By sexual orientation
, the share of homosexual and bisexual DPWs appears identical to that in the general population, implying a dominant heterosexual interest. There are indications, however, that some heterosexual DPWs may be attracted to members of their own sex with their preferred disability. This ambivalence may be more common among female DPWs. There are also indications that where the "first sighting" involved a person of the same sex, the future DPW may grow up homosexual.
By age, the acknowledgement of the attraction may occur from pre-puberty onwards, with today's DPWs discovering the subculture in their teens.
By educational and career attainment, The Amelotatist reported a high proportion of highly educated and successful people among its sample of 195. This was confirmed by Nattress (1996), all of whose 50 subjects had completed higher education and pursued careers. This may indicate greater than average DPW susceptibility to parental and peer pressures.
By geography, in 2006 DPW fora membership indicated one or fewer DPWs per million inhabitants in some countries, with a mean of 5 to 8 a million, and peaks of 30 to 50 a million. North America and Western Europe had most DPWs, followed by the former USSR, eastern China, Japan, Australia, Southern Africa and the rest of the world. Southern Asia and Africa appear to have none or extremely few DPWs. Differing levels of internet access are clearly at play, though the spread also reflects national, cultural, class, lifestyle and period factors, and parent-child and peer relationship paradigms.
Some wannabes report mistrusting their feelings and being unwilling to surrender to them. This guilt and fear from all sides, added to the customary guardedness of sexual minorities, form powerful inhibitors to DPWs' publicising their feelings and pursuing preferred partners. Claims to have overcome guilt and fear appear to bestow DPW community kudos.
Under different formulations, the question of whether — given an opportunity — a devotee or pretender would embark on a relationship with a disabled person, is posed occasionally in devotee fora. Answers indicate that inhibitions are so powerful in some devotees and pretenders that they exercise strict self-denial. They also indicate that many devotees and pretenders feel ill-equipped for relationships with disabled people, not only as regards the attendant family, social, career, etc. dimensions, but also as regards the prosaic realities of living with disabled partners. Those declaring willingness to pursue relationships often decry the lack of set etiquette for encounters between themselves and disabled people who may also be dealing with significant inhibitions.
Instead of relationships, some DPWs seek unencumbered and non-committing transactions with understanding or needy disabled people. This is evidenced by at least three devotee fora (2007) for disseminating and sharing information on disabled prostitutes, and a dozen 'disabled courtesan' websites (2006). Rather than being merely sexual, however, it seems that such transactions involve the disabled partners displaying a wide range of intrinsically 'disabled' behaviours, including dressing in specific clothing, play-acting specific routines, and optionally making public appearances with their escorts.
There are claims that female DPWs may be less inhibited and more direct about their attraction, and that they tend to form relationships with preferred partners more easily.
The statistical/probability dilemma is that the very small number of potential partners is further reduced once the usual criteria which apply in relationships are applied. Thus, a DPW seeking an ideal relationship must first find potential partners who have the preferred disability. Further, they must be available for a relationship. Still further, such potential partners must also be personally appealing to the DPW and vice versa. To these criteria are added practical/logistic considerations which reduce the availability of potential partners practically to nil.
The emotional dilemma is the inability of sexual satiety to satisfy broader emotional needs. The issue at play is the disparity of motivations: in a relationship, devotees seek to satisfy an unusual sexual drive, while their potential partners seek satisfaction for the usual range of human relationship needs.
DPWs sense these dilemmas and react to them in three basic ways which often form a sequence. Denial involves the stubborn belief that a partner is waiting and needs to be discovered, or the obstinate insistence on prolonging unsuccessful relationships with persons with the preferred body type. Resignation involves abandoning, or not embarking upon, the search for a partner. Accommodation involves three basic behaviours which ameliorate the perceived truth that the 'ideal' relationship is unattainable: fantasising with or without able-bodied partners, seeking purely sexual encounters, and (rarely) celibacy.
Relationships between DPWs and disabled people tend to be reported as being ordinary, the attraction being sated by the fact of the partner's disability. It appears that the attraction to disability is undisclosed in a proportion of DPW-disabled relationships. DPWs may press disabled partners to put their disabilities to the fore in intimate situations and exhibit them in social ones. Sexually, some DPWs have been reported to engage in active tactile observation as much as in intercourse.
That DPWs find it hard to satisfy both sexual and emotional needs is borne out in findings by both Nattress (1996) and Dixon (1983). They report that, despite reasonable success in obtaining sexual contact with disabled people, just 21 per cent of DPWs had had long-term relationships with disabled partners.
About half of DPWs fail to establish relationships with disabled people. 'Second-best' options for them are relationships with pretenders and wannabes. Practically all DPWs have experience of relationships with able-bodied partners. Such relationships are also reported to be ordinary despite the (mostly undisclosed) attraction to disability on the part of one partner.
Although it is not common knowledge within mainstream communities, the internet has revolutionized the process by which DPWs can meet each other while pursuing meaningful relationships. Some of these individuals, however, have expressed a level of concern when it comes to their first face to face encounters. While most of these encounters are completely safe, there are important guidelines to provide a sense of security to either party that may feel vulnerable.
Over the past decade, a number of DPWs have launched websites with images of their ideal partners, descriptions of fictional encounters with them, and DPW pornography (often produced in cooperation with disabled people). Online, DPWs exchange images of disabled people, descriptions of sightings and meetings of/with them, potted biographies of disabled people, techniques for attracting their attention, and opinions on acceptable DPW behaviour. There are attempts to condemn the objectification of disabled people. Wannabe fora are dominated by enquiries as to which doctors may be willing to inflict elective disability.
The DPW community has a growing English-based jargon which emerged in the 1930s. The label "devotee," adopted in the early 1980s due to the rhyme with "amputee" has entered research usage. "Wannabe" is another internal label, with a variety of other terms coined (thus, "sighting" for an encounter with a disabled person), borrowed or modified from the disabled world (thus, "sticks" instead of "crutches") or other sexual minorities (thus "devdar," a modification of "gaydar," denoting the supposed devotee ability to foretell "sightings" of people they desire, or "transabled," another term for wannabe and an alliterative modification of "transsexual").
, pretending tends to be viewed as unedifying by the high DPW community.
Some DPWs collect personal data on disabled people, follow and photograph them candidly, call them and write to them, contrive to encounter them, and seek them out at healthcare establishments and disability gatherings. This "potted palm syndrome" (practitioners are said to peep from behind parlour plants) is condemned within the DPW community. Where it spills over into stalking
, such behaviour may give grounds for prosecution. Over 85% of Nattress's sample of 50 DPWs stated that they would follow an unknown disabled person matching their preference. Over 57% stated that they would attempt to start a conversation with a randomly encountered disabled person who matched their preference.
The wholesale circulating of images of disabled people is a behaviour under attack from some sections of the DPW community. Most images are obtained candidly
, distribution (if commercial) does not benefit those depicted, and risks compromising them since the context is sexual. Alongside this, commercial images of disabled models are invariably "copywronged" by DPWs posting them on the internet for free use by others, thus depriving models of expected income. "Electronic surgery" ("ES"; retouching photographs of able-bodied people to make them look disabled) is also popular in some DPW circles. The resulting images are widely circulated on the DPW Web, jeopardizing the reputations of the original subjects. Images of people known to be dead continue in circulation.
People attracted to disability appear to have been obsessed with images for as long as the attraction has been known. Stories are told within the community of collectors who had succeeded in garnering tens of thousands of images in the pre-internet era. The DPW fascination with images lends considerable credulity to claims that the attraction to disability is voyeuristic and hence forms part of the sadomasochistic
continuum.
DPWs practicing intrusive, stalking
, and fetishist behaviour, and who peddle images, often plead a paucity of potential partners, of opportunities to approach such partners in a normal fashion, and the lack of established etiquette for such encounters.
There follows a listing of proffered explanations. A number of them are repeated (under different formulations) by all relevant sides.
considered devotees off-mainstream sadomasochists:
Psychology
views sadism and masochism as interchangeable, with voyeurism and exhibitionism as their respective aspects. Devotees’ observation-based behaviour and preference for display-minded partners seem to support explanations 2 to 4. Devotee pornography tends to display the appearance of disability across a range of activities, rather than focus on sexual situations.
Subsidiary observations include:
does not consider the attraction problematic unless exercising it infringes the rights of one of the parties and/or those of third parties. Explanations include:
with the disabled, subject to exclusion in most cultures, is among the motivations for the attraction. It may also indicate that admiration is at play in the attraction, inasmuch as the disabled perforce overcome inhibitions similar to those many DPWs face, as hinted above.
Current explanations and claims include:
Voyeurism/exhibitionism/sadomasochism and fetishism are certainly present in DPWs, but far from the forefront and not to the exclusion of a very broad range of other, and predominant, motivations. The latter are a diffuse blend of sexualised compassion, protectiveness, and maudlin empathy with the poignancy of stigma and disability. There is anecdotal evidence that some DPWs exhibit mild introversion and alienation. If true, this would tend to make them more likely to empathise with the experience of disabled exclusion and stigma, or to admire the perceived heroism of disabled people in overcoming exclusion and stigma, hence prompting them to seek disabled partners.
The DPW claim that the desire is an augmentation of widely shared attractiveness criteria is amply borne out by widespread public erotisation of commonplace physical distinctions ranging from dimples and gappy teeth, through moles and freckles, to spectacles, dental braces, and limbs in casts. The fact that 'freak shows' featuring disabled performers were popular fairground attractions until after the Second World War hints that a significant number of ordinary people harbour curiosity about unorthodox appearance and modi operandi, at least some of which can be assumed to be tinged with sex. The undying popularity of elective physical modification such as body part piercing, tattooing, and sundry cosmetic interventions (surgical or not), exhibits at least some drives in common with wannabeism. The attraction to disability appears to be the extreme tip of a 'pyramid' of commonplace, less common, and minority attractions to unorthodox physique, and the desire to have such physique oneself. For the most part, these attractions are not paraphilic.
Another DPW claim — that the attraction visits different people for different reasons — also appears reasonable in view of the sheer number and diversity of proffered explanations (most with their 'lobbies'), coupled with the extremely small number of DPWs and the DPW community's palpable heterogeneity.
The DPW community rejects scientific enquiry into the attraction because it may throw an unhealthy shadow over it and because it feels science can bring no real insight. It is minded to move towards coalescing as a lifestyle grouping like the gay community
; today, scientific enquiry into the latter is viewed as unnecessary and discriminatory. Similarly to the gay community, which rejected the term "homosexuality" in favour of "gayness," devotees reject terms like "amelotasis" in favour of internal ones like "devotee/ism." Words like "fetish" or "paraphilia" appear to raise loud devotee hackles, probably due to very widespread ignorance and/or alarm of/at their meanings and implications. DPWs energetically dispute sadomasochistic explanations, claiming that to them the disabled are not less able and inferior, but hyper-able and superior ("godlike"; this dovetails with the element of admiration mentioned above). Teratophilic and coprophilic explanations are vigorously rejected as fanciful and offensive.
Disabled people have been welcomed into the DPW community since its emergence. The community feels that public acceptance of the rights and equality of disabled people would benefit its members, not least by removing blocks and inhibitors to their self-expression. In social attitudes, some DPWs appear to sense a paradoxical parallel between their position and that of disabled people. They also feel that borderline behaviour by some of their number would be curtailed or obviated by social acceptance of the attraction. Hence, their community expresses unreserved support for the disability movement.
s' are themselves disabled women. This may be interpreted as approval, but also as economic opportunism.
The disability movement is many times larger than the DPW community and the latter rarely comes to its attention. The movement perforce backs the DPW stance that the disabled ought not to be branded unattractive and asexual, but by the same token resists suggestions that they ought to welcome the attentions of a sexual minority. If it has any real stance on DPWs, the movement is generally negative, seeing them as unacceptably needy and fetishistic. Despite early hopes that DPWs were welcome allies in the battle against lookism
, the movement has found that they do not offer any escape from the tyranny of visual norms; they merely pile bizarre standards atop mainstream ones. In addition, the 'hero adulation' and protectiveness elements of the attraction are ideologically most unwelcome to the movement. More insiduously, DPWs are seen as entryist
. Thus, 'visibility' is a disability movement issue on which DPWs are attempting to influence views. Cosmesis
is widely available to the disabled. Some welcome this as hiding physical differences and aiding integration; others claim it perpetuates a visual norm implying that disability is ugly; DPWs promote the latter side.
As far as informal remedies go, it may be claimed that the 'disabled courtesans' mentioned above offer a form of 'treatment' by offering an 'escape valve' to those DPWs who have the means and need to enact the purely physical imperatives of their desires. It may also be claimed that the DPW/disabled people gatherings mentioned above offer a loose form of 'group treatment' to DPWs who have the means and feel the need to attend.
Reported medical treatments centre on psychotherapy for distressed individuals presenting for treatment. Thus, Riddle (1988, 1988 [2]) suggests that the aim in a psychotherapeutic encounter should be to make devotees "learn to love themselves," while Bruno (1997) elaborates by advocating the pre-planned thought stopping, substitution of appropriate behaviors and introspection methods.
In the case of wannabes suffering distress through erotic target location error, Lawrence (2006) moots the possibility of testosterone-lowering medication in parallel with that of elective limb removal through surgical intervention.
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
. It may extend from normal human sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
into a type of sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
. Sexologically
Sexology
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behavior, and function. The term does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sex, such as political analysis or social criticism....
, the pathological end of the attraction tends to be seen as a paraphilia
Paraphilia
Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...
, though also as an aspect of identity disorder
Disorder
Disorder may refer to :* Chaos, unpredictability and in the metaphysical sense, it is the opposite of law and order* Civil disorder, one or more forms of disturbance caused by a group of people...
.
History
Allusions to this type of attraction are found in, inter alia, HerodotusHerodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, classical Vietnamese legend, works by Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes . He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but he is also the one generally meant when the context does...
, de Brantôme, de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
, Pushkin
Aleksandr Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
, Brecht, Bulgakov
Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
, Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
, von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
, Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton, born Helmut Neustädter was a German-Australian photographer. He was a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications."-Early life:Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara...
and Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, and roles by James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
. The attraction may be present in the Chinese foot binding
Foot binding
Foot binding was the custom of binding the feet of young girls painfully tight to prevent further growth. The practice probably originated among court dancers in the early Song dynasty, but spread to upper class families and eventually became common among all classes. The tiny narrow feet were...
tradition.
This type of human sexual attraction has become more widely known over the past century through Interwar decadence
Decadence
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...
, the Sexual Revolution
Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the 1960s into the 1980s...
, and the advent of the world-wide web. A number of artists have portrayed it: drama producer Andriy Zholdak produces plays with disabled people, sculptor Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...
makes statues of them, photographers Gerhard Aba, Petrina Hicks, Eric Kroll
Eric Kroll
Eric Kroll is a fetish photographer and editor living in San Francisco, California.-Work:Eric Kroll has published some collections , composed introductions for influential works such as the compiled two-volume "Bizarre" collection and some Taschen folios...
, Ronald Parisi, Romain Slocombe and Yury Solomko portray them, directors produce films like Um crime delicado and Chinese balletomanes produce dance performances with them. The attraction also features regularly in Japanese anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
and manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
and has established a large, mostly apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l, online
ONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....
presence.
The rare pathological attraction to disability has been studied by psychologists since the late 19th Century, with a relative resurgence of interest since the mid-1970s. Until the 1990s, it tended to be described mostly as acrotomophilia, at the expense of other disabilities, or of the wish by some to pretend or acquire disability. Bruno (1997) systematised the attraction as factitious disability disorder. A decade on, others argue that erotic target location error is at play, classifying the attraction as an identity disorder.
Nature
In the paraphilia, the attracted ("devotees") are specifically aroused by disabled people, simply because of their disability. The disability may be minor like missing fingers, profound like blindness and (stereotypically) amputation, or quadriplegiaQuadriplegia
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is paralysis caused by illness or injury to a human that results in the partial or total loss of use of all their limbs and torso; paraplegia is similar but does not affect the arms...
. Some devotees desire people with cognitive disabilities.
Desires to pretend to be disabled and acquire a disability are extensions of the pathological disorder. About half of all devotees occasionally pretend (43 per cent of Nattress [1996], sample of 50). Avowed "wannabes
Body integrity identity disorder
Body Integrity Identity Disorder , formerly known as Amputee Identity Disorder, is a psychological disorder wherein sufferers feel they would be happier living as an amputee...
" seem to number not more than five per cent of the devotee-wannabe population, though Nattress (1996) found 22 per cent of his sample of 50 had wanted to become disabled. Accordingly, Bruno (1997) puts those afflicted with versions of the paraphilia under the broad heading of Devotees, Pretenders, and Wannabes (DPWs), as used here.
Well over half of DPWs have felt this pathological attraction since childhood, as typical in paraphilias. The Amelotatist (see References) found that 75 per cent of its sample of 195 were aware of the attraction by age 15. Those attracted often cherish early memories of a sexuoerotic tragedy
Sexuoerotic tragedy
Sexuoerotic tragedy is a sexological term denoting an intense, memorable and influential event which is instrumental in altering a future adult's perception of what is sexually arousing and what is not ....
(a "first sighting") involving an object of their future attention, often an older member of the opposite sex, as stereotypical in paraphilic etiology
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
. About a quarter report discovering the paraphilia in puberty, and a few in maturity.
In intensity, this pathological type of attraction ranges between optional and preferred in most DPWs. As its intensity grows, pretender and wannabe elements may emerge and increase. Thus, detailed enquiries as to what sensations there are or are not in the parts of the body affected by disability are regularly posed in DPW fora frequented by disabled people, suggesting an exhaustively detailed DPW curiosity as to the experience of disability. Avowed wannabes seem to feel their aspect of the attraction significantly more keenly than ordinary devotees, and for many it has exclusive intensity.
The aforesaid has given grounds for the attraction to disability to be represented as the continuum Bruno (1997) termed factitious disability disorder. At its less-intense devotee end, there is sexualised fascination with the existential aspects of disability and its appearance. In its middle pretending area, is strong desire to reproduce the sensations of disability. At its intense wannabe end, is an imperative to acquire a disability which may prompt self-harm.
The attraction does not appear to pose dangers to DPWs' partners or third parties.
Preferences
DPWs' erotic ideals are conventionally attractive people who happen to be disabled. They are at ease with their disability and, rather than resenting it, do little to conceal it. Their attractiveness grows in direct proportion with the extent to which they parade their differences in contravention of social norms.DPWs have individual preferences: those desiring people with one disability may feel little or no attraction towards people with other disabilities. Alongside defining the preferred disability, preferences may define whether it is acquired or congenital, traumatic or caused by illness, elapsed periods since it was acquired, whether it involves physical scarring, and even trivia such as whether it affects the left or right side. How the disability is displayed is a preference area, with some DPWs having preferred clothing, props, behaviour, and even environments. The enormous variety of devotee preferences is shown by the large number of narrowly specialised devotee fora: groups dedicated to amputees with bandaged stumps, people in leg-braces, disabled brides, hook prosthesis users, leg amputees who use pylon prostheses, non-users of prostheses, people with one short leg, people with limbs in plaster casts, etc..
Individual preferences may be firm or flexible and may evolve with time but seem rarely to 'switch' from one type of disability to another. Individual DPWs' exact personal preferences are rarely, if ever, replicated in others.
A key feature of the attraction, preferences seem to serve two purposes. First, they fix the appearance and circumstances of the sexuoerotic tragedy, perpetuating and reinforcing its influence. Second, they act as an excuse which keeps inhibited devotees from pursuing relationships (see Behaviour), since narrow preferences are unlikely to be satisfied.
There are many indications that male and female DPWs may have differing overall preferences. Thus, the preference for women with one leg who walk with crutches appears most common among males, while preferences for men with one arm or are paralysed appear more common among females.
DPW preferences are overlaid over common attractiveness criteria. Male DPWs routinely rank disabled women by looks, while female DPWs routinely rank disabled men by charisma, with "looks" and "charisma" having mainstream meanings.
Population
A distinction has to be drawn between people who feel some sex-tinged fascination with disability on the one hand, and aware members of the DPW subcultureSubculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
on the other (also see Behaviour below).
In 1976, Ampix, a company selling DPW pornography, had a clientele of about 300. A decade later, Fascination, a DPW community quarterly publication, had a circulation of under 1000. As the world-wide web began rolling-out a decade hence, DPWs in dedicated fora numbered under 10,000. By 2006, the world devotee community comprised up to 100,000 members of several hundred internet fora. Duplication/multiplication of memberships, dead memberships, and the probable 'grey zone' of under-motivated, merely curious or accidental forum members would indicate that there were anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 DPWs worldwide in 2006.
By sex, it is consistently reported that over 90 per cent of DPWs are male. Women attracted to disability may view their feelings as romantic rather than sex-centred, or be disheartened by male domination of the DPW scene.
By sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, the share of homosexual and bisexual DPWs appears identical to that in the general population, implying a dominant heterosexual interest. There are indications, however, that some heterosexual DPWs may be attracted to members of their own sex with their preferred disability. This ambivalence may be more common among female DPWs. There are also indications that where the "first sighting" involved a person of the same sex, the future DPW may grow up homosexual.
By age, the acknowledgement of the attraction may occur from pre-puberty onwards, with today's DPWs discovering the subculture in their teens.
By educational and career attainment, The Amelotatist reported a high proportion of highly educated and successful people among its sample of 195. This was confirmed by Nattress (1996), all of whose 50 subjects had completed higher education and pursued careers. This may indicate greater than average DPW susceptibility to parental and peer pressures.
By geography, in 2006 DPW fora membership indicated one or fewer DPWs per million inhabitants in some countries, with a mean of 5 to 8 a million, and peaks of 30 to 50 a million. North America and Western Europe had most DPWs, followed by the former USSR, eastern China, Japan, Australia, Southern Africa and the rest of the world. Southern Asia and Africa appear to have none or extremely few DPWs. Differing levels of internet access are clearly at play, though the spread also reflects national, cultural, class, lifestyle and period factors, and parent-child and peer relationship paradigms.
Behaviour
DPWs appear to fall into two groups: most think they are unique; while some assume the attraction is universal and are disappointed to find it confined to very few others.Inhibitors to DPW behaviour
Many DPWs feel intense guilt and shame at deriving pleasure from others' misfortunes and fear parental, family, peer, and public reprimand. They sense the stigmatic-eligibilic paradox and fear ridicule for desiring people whom convention brands. They also fear censure from the very people they desire.Some wannabes report mistrusting their feelings and being unwilling to surrender to them. This guilt and fear from all sides, added to the customary guardedness of sexual minorities, form powerful inhibitors to DPWs' publicising their feelings and pursuing preferred partners. Claims to have overcome guilt and fear appear to bestow DPW community kudos.
Under different formulations, the question of whether — given an opportunity — a devotee or pretender would embark on a relationship with a disabled person, is posed occasionally in devotee fora. Answers indicate that inhibitions are so powerful in some devotees and pretenders that they exercise strict self-denial. They also indicate that many devotees and pretenders feel ill-equipped for relationships with disabled people, not only as regards the attendant family, social, career, etc. dimensions, but also as regards the prosaic realities of living with disabled partners. Those declaring willingness to pursue relationships often decry the lack of set etiquette for encounters between themselves and disabled people who may also be dealing with significant inhibitions.
Instead of relationships, some DPWs seek unencumbered and non-committing transactions with understanding or needy disabled people. This is evidenced by at least three devotee fora (2007) for disseminating and sharing information on disabled prostitutes, and a dozen 'disabled courtesan' websites (2006). Rather than being merely sexual, however, it seems that such transactions involve the disabled partners displaying a wide range of intrinsically 'disabled' behaviours, including dressing in specific clothing, play-acting specific routines, and optionally making public appearances with their escorts.
There are claims that female DPWs may be less inhibited and more direct about their attraction, and that they tend to form relationships with preferred partners more easily.
Central DPW dilemmas
The defining dilemmas DPWs face is that their ideally desired relationship is highly unlikely to materialise, and if it does, that it is unlikely to be successful.The statistical/probability dilemma is that the very small number of potential partners is further reduced once the usual criteria which apply in relationships are applied. Thus, a DPW seeking an ideal relationship must first find potential partners who have the preferred disability. Further, they must be available for a relationship. Still further, such potential partners must also be personally appealing to the DPW and vice versa. To these criteria are added practical/logistic considerations which reduce the availability of potential partners practically to nil.
The emotional dilemma is the inability of sexual satiety to satisfy broader emotional needs. The issue at play is the disparity of motivations: in a relationship, devotees seek to satisfy an unusual sexual drive, while their potential partners seek satisfaction for the usual range of human relationship needs.
DPWs sense these dilemmas and react to them in three basic ways which often form a sequence. Denial involves the stubborn belief that a partner is waiting and needs to be discovered, or the obstinate insistence on prolonging unsuccessful relationships with persons with the preferred body type. Resignation involves abandoning, or not embarking upon, the search for a partner. Accommodation involves three basic behaviours which ameliorate the perceived truth that the 'ideal' relationship is unattainable: fantasising with or without able-bodied partners, seeking purely sexual encounters, and (rarely) celibacy.
In relationships
The Amelotatist found that 55 per cent of a sample of 195 DPWs had dated disabled people, 40 per cent had been sexually intimate with disabled partners, and 5 per cent had current disabled spouses. Nattress (1993) found that 41 per cent of a sample of 50 DPWs had, or were in, relationships with disabled partners.Relationships between DPWs and disabled people tend to be reported as being ordinary, the attraction being sated by the fact of the partner's disability. It appears that the attraction to disability is undisclosed in a proportion of DPW-disabled relationships. DPWs may press disabled partners to put their disabilities to the fore in intimate situations and exhibit them in social ones. Sexually, some DPWs have been reported to engage in active tactile observation as much as in intercourse.
That DPWs find it hard to satisfy both sexual and emotional needs is borne out in findings by both Nattress (1996) and Dixon (1983). They report that, despite reasonable success in obtaining sexual contact with disabled people, just 21 per cent of DPWs had had long-term relationships with disabled partners.
About half of DPWs fail to establish relationships with disabled people. 'Second-best' options for them are relationships with pretenders and wannabes. Practically all DPWs have experience of relationships with able-bodied partners. Such relationships are also reported to be ordinary despite the (mostly undisclosed) attraction to disability on the part of one partner.
Although it is not common knowledge within mainstream communities, the internet has revolutionized the process by which DPWs can meet each other while pursuing meaningful relationships. Some of these individuals, however, have expressed a level of concern when it comes to their first face to face encounters. While most of these encounters are completely safe, there are important guidelines to provide a sense of security to either party that may feel vulnerable.
Outside relationships
Many DPWs redirect their desires into creative pursuits. A number of them occupy positions offering professional contact with the disabled. Others are members of disabled people's social and/or political fora. Collecting disability-linked objects is a pastime for some DPWs.Over the past decade, a number of DPWs have launched websites with images of their ideal partners, descriptions of fictional encounters with them, and DPW pornography (often produced in cooperation with disabled people). Online, DPWs exchange images of disabled people, descriptions of sightings and meetings of/with them, potted biographies of disabled people, techniques for attracting their attention, and opinions on acceptable DPW behaviour. There are attempts to condemn the objectification of disabled people. Wannabe fora are dominated by enquiries as to which doctors may be willing to inflict elective disability.
The DPW community has a growing English-based jargon which emerged in the 1930s. The label "devotee," adopted in the early 1980s due to the rhyme with "amputee" has entered research usage. "Wannabe" is another internal label, with a variety of other terms coined (thus, "sighting" for an encounter with a disabled person), borrowed or modified from the disabled world (thus, "sticks" instead of "crutches") or other sexual minorities (thus "devdar," a modification of "gaydar," denoting the supposed devotee ability to foretell "sightings" of people they desire, or "transabled," another term for wannabe and an alliterative modification of "transsexual").
Borderline
As stated above, many DPWs derive pleasure by pretending to have a disability. Others may persuade some non-disabled partners to pretend. There was overwhelming evidence that males in the devotee chatrooms which sprang up during the 1990s pretended to be disabled women en masse. This confirms a widespread proneness to pretending first mooted in The Amelotatist, as well as the continuum between devotees, pretenders, and wannabes. Being a premeditated confidence trickConfidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
, pretending tends to be viewed as unedifying by the high DPW community.
Some DPWs collect personal data on disabled people, follow and photograph them candidly, call them and write to them, contrive to encounter them, and seek them out at healthcare establishments and disability gatherings. This "potted palm syndrome" (practitioners are said to peep from behind parlour plants) is condemned within the DPW community. Where it spills over into stalking
Stalking
Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...
, such behaviour may give grounds for prosecution. Over 85% of Nattress's sample of 50 DPWs stated that they would follow an unknown disabled person matching their preference. Over 57% stated that they would attempt to start a conversation with a randomly encountered disabled person who matched their preference.
The wholesale circulating of images of disabled people is a behaviour under attack from some sections of the DPW community. Most images are obtained candidly
Candid photography
Candid photography is photography that focuses on spontaneity rather than technique, on the immersion of a camera within events rather than focusing on setting up a staged situation or on preparing a lengthy camera setup.-Description:...
, distribution (if commercial) does not benefit those depicted, and risks compromising them since the context is sexual. Alongside this, commercial images of disabled models are invariably "copywronged" by DPWs posting them on the internet for free use by others, thus depriving models of expected income. "Electronic surgery" ("ES"; retouching photographs of able-bodied people to make them look disabled) is also popular in some DPW circles. The resulting images are widely circulated on the DPW Web, jeopardizing the reputations of the original subjects. Images of people known to be dead continue in circulation.
People attracted to disability appear to have been obsessed with images for as long as the attraction has been known. Stories are told within the community of collectors who had succeeded in garnering tens of thousands of images in the pre-internet era. The DPW fascination with images lends considerable credulity to claims that the attraction to disability is voyeuristic and hence forms part of the sadomasochistic
Sadism and masochism
Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
continuum.
DPWs practicing intrusive, stalking
Stalking
Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...
, and fetishist behaviour, and who peddle images, often plead a paucity of potential partners, of opportunities to approach such partners in a normal fashion, and the lack of established etiquette for such encounters.
Explanations
The established view of the attraction is that it is part of the paraphilic spectrum. Research since 2000 focusing on amputee wannabes has produced evidence that at least in some cases the condition is an aspect of identity disorder. Research is hampered by the aforementioned secretiveness of DPWs. It is likely to remain so in view of the widespread DPW conviction that sexological, journalistic or other enquiries into them can only bring disbenefits.There follows a listing of proffered explanations. A number of them are repeated (under different formulations) by all relevant sides.
Psychiatric
Early psychiatryPsychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
considered devotees off-mainstream sadomasochists:
- Suppressed homosexualityHomosexualityHomosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. This first explanation (by Krafft-Ebing in his 1886 Psychopathia SexualisPsychopathia SexualisPsychopathia Sexualis may refer to:* Psychopathia Sexualis, an 1886 book about human sexuality by Richard von Krafft-Ebing* Psychopathia Sexualis , an 1843 moral psychology book about human sexuality by Heinrich Kaan...
) assumed that amputation stumps resembled phalli and were thus seen as a safe alternative by latent homosexuals. This was in line with the contemporaneous linking of much sexual oddity with homosexuality, and with the author's intent of linking the "antipathic instinct" (homosexuality) with all "perversions"; - SadismSadism and masochismSadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
deriving satisfaction from disabled people's perceived lower status; - Masochism deriving satisfaction by self-denigration through association with stigmatised partners; wannabes are masochists wishing to acquire permanent physical stigmaSocial stigmaSocial stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
; - VoyeurismVoyeurismIn clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....
gratified by the unusual behaviour and appearance of disabled people. Willing disabled partners are exhibitionistsExhibitionismExhibitionism refers to a desire or compulsion to expose parts of one's body – specifically the genitals or buttocks of a man or woman, or the breasts of a woman – in a public or semi-public circumstance, in crowds or groups of friends or acquaintances, or to strangers...
capitalising on their unusual physique. Wannabes are also would-be exhibitionists seeking satisfaction in the reaction of other people;
Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
views sadism and masochism as interchangeable, with voyeurism and exhibitionism as their respective aspects. Devotees’ observation-based behaviour and preference for display-minded partners seem to support explanations 2 to 4. Devotee pornography tends to display the appearance of disability across a range of activities, rather than focus on sexual situations.
Subsidiary observations include:
- Teratophilia because of the desire for deformed people;
- Classical fetishismFetishismA fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others...
, since the focus of desire is shifted from a person to parts of a body and/or objects. Physical stigma without the rest of the person, as well as disability aids do feature to a significant extent in DPW pornography; - Suppressed coprophiliaCoprophiliaCoprophilia , also called scatophilia or scat, is the paraphilia involving sexual pleasure from feces...
, since amputation stumps may be interpreted as resembling stools. This early hypothesis is in line with the linking of sexual behaviour to toilet training.
Sexological
Contemporary sexologySexology
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behavior, and function. The term does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sex, such as political analysis or social criticism....
does not consider the attraction problematic unless exercising it infringes the rights of one of the parties and/or those of third parties. Explanations include:
- ImprintingImprinting (psychology)Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior...
or the influence of influential events on behaviour. Encountering visibly disabled people in childhood awakes strong emotions which may give rise to quasi-logical reasoning and a desire for people with the type of trauma encountered. Care received during hospital stays may awaken a wish to become disabled (as a way of ensuring continuous care), later projected onto others. Freud is credited with discovering conditioningClassical conditioningClassical conditioning is a form of conditioning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov...
("imprinting" in sexology) in the context of fetishism; - Implied parental approval: if, on encountering someone disabled, a future DPW’s parents express admiration, the child may conclude that disability inspires regard, later ranking it among sexual preferences. This is among explanations mentioned by Dr John Money in Lovemaps;
- Flight from pressure: strict parenting and/or onerous peer environments may cause the future devotee to seek respite in sickness and disability. With time, the wish to become disabled is ‘projectedPsychological projectionPsychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people...
’ onto others. The analogy with Munchausen SyndromeMunchausen syndromeMünchausen syndrome is a psychiatric factitious disorder wherein those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention or sympathy to themselves. It is also sometimes known as hospital addiction syndrome or hospital hopper syndrome...
(simulating or inducing illness as a route to compassion and benefits) here is reasonably clear in wannabes. In them, projection has failed, leaving them to see themselves as more attractive if disabled. The fact that most DPWs feel the attraction since childhood also backs the above explanations. There are also suggestions that there are more DPWs in America, Europe, and the Far East due to specific parent/peer-driven achievement models there. This is another explanation mentioned in Lovemaps; - Inferiority complexInferiority complexAn inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person...
causing projectionPsychological projectionPsychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people...
: DPWs may have been made to feel inferior in childhood and may project their ambitions onto disabled people, who perforce have to overcome many barriers; - 'DarwinismDarwinismDarwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
': DPWs see disabled people as proven in natural selection, having cheated death and overcome adversity; - The unknown: children experience fascination with and fear of, the unknown, when encountering a disabled person. As adolescents, they may experience similar emotions when first approaching the opposite sex. This fascination with alienness may become associated with arousal over time through classical conditioningClassical conditioningClassical conditioning is a form of conditioning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov...
. Eventually, arousal will be triggered by the emotion; - 'The missing phallus': when exposed to the nude female body, some men are fascinated by the fact that 'the penis is missing' and there is an alternative and sexual organ (in fact, one reminiscent of a wound) in its place. This feeling of surprise may become a part of sexual attraction. The sight of a missing limb may evoke a similar feeling. Similar to 6 above, this explanation was proposed by Dr Anne Hooper in 1978;
- Attention seekingAttention seekingEnjoying the attention of others is quite socially acceptable. In some instances, however, the need for attention can lead to difficulties. The term attention seeking is generally reserved for such situations where excessive and "inappropriate attention seeking" is seen.-Styles:The following...
and envyEnvyEnvy is best defined as a resentful emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."...
: since disabled people tend to draw more than average attention, children observing them may conclude that one has to be disabled to enjoy attention. In puberty, disability would be included in their attractiveness criteria. - Erotic target location error: the desire of some male transvestites and transsexuals to assume the appearance of their sexual ideal was transposed by analogy to amputee wannabes by First (2005) who backs his claim with research by himself and others since 2000. Since the condition of some wannabes appears not to be primarily sexual (except by association), the explanation defines the attraction to disability as an identity disorder. It is put forward within the narrow context of amputee wannabes and the author does not address the DPW continuum discussed above. Interestingly, the wannabe community has always defined itself in terms very similar to those First and Lawrence (2006) use, with the indigenous label "transabled" gaining ground by 2005 at the expense of "wannabe."
By DPWs
The DPW community constantly debates the origins of the attraction ("the Why?"). The Amelotatist, reporting a poll of 195 devotees was a community contribution and the first synthesis of explanations. A 2005 straw poll in two DPW fora revealed that in childhood many respondents (often first or only children) felt alienated from peers, forming solitary interests in, inter alia, transportation or collecting. This may indicate that empathyEmpathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
with the disabled, subject to exclusion in most cultures, is among the motivations for the attraction. It may also indicate that admiration is at play in the attraction, inasmuch as the disabled perforce overcome inhibitions similar to those many DPWs face, as hinted above.
Current explanations and claims include:
- The attraction is a mere addition to the physical attractiveness criteria which everyone has for potential partners;
- Everyone wishes to have a distinguished partner, and disabled people stand out as unique amid a physically standard population;
- Disabled people perform a number of actions in original ways which capture onlookers, rather like ballerinas capture audiences;
- The attraction is a sexualised extension of protective compassion for misfortune, fascination with uniqueness, and hero-worship;
- Each DPW may have become one for a variety of personal motivations rarely replicated in others;
- The attraction is not primarily sexual, since it involves an overall curiosity about the broad existential aspects of disability rather than its narrow sexual aspects. There is indeed overwhelming evidence that, rather than being sex-centred, the attraction is 'sex-diffused.' Dedicated pornography caters to people erotically intoxicated with the appearance, spectacle, and perception of the entire disabled experience, rather than merely with nudity or sex;
- The attraction is an expression and extension of infantile non-conformity, being a counterpoint to the mainstream attitude to disability and sex. The attraction (or approving awareness of it) features in non-conformist avant-garde artists' work. Another argument in favour of this explanation is that DPWs, who may be more than averagely successful (see The Amelotatist in Population above) and hence analytical, are able to sense the flaws in the conventional attitude to disability at a formative age and react against them by cultivating an opposing attraction;
- Empathy: some DPWs (wannabes in particular) clearly experience body imageBody imageBody image refers to a person's perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his masterpiece The Image and Appearance of the Human Body...
issues, which disabled people also encounter; - Religious, occult, and esoteric explanations are that the attraction is programmed into some people by a higher power in order to provide a pool of potential partners for the disabled; that it is sent by a higher force to test or build DPWs' characters through exposing them to practically insurmountable deficit; that it is evidence of past lives in which the wannabe occupied a disabled body and the devotee had a disabled partner; that it focuses on the supposedly intriguing juncture where the physical body is severed but the astral bodyAstral bodyThe astral body is a subtle body posited by many religious philosophers, intermediate between the intelligent soul and the physical body, composed of a subtle material. The concept ultimately derives from the philosophy of Plato: it is related to an astral plane, which consists of the planetary...
continues (disabled people are claimed to have healthy aurasAura (paranormal)In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object . The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular power or holiness. Sometimes, however, it is said that all living things and all objects...
).
Summary
Assertions that the attraction is a paraphilia are borne out by numerous aspects of it, including the early sexuoerotic tragedy and the DPW proneness to other paraphilias. The attraction's complexity and breadth, however, do appear to reach across into states which are not classifiable as paraphilic, as well as to spill over into the area of identity disorders (at least for some wannabes).Voyeurism/exhibitionism/sadomasochism and fetishism are certainly present in DPWs, but far from the forefront and not to the exclusion of a very broad range of other, and predominant, motivations. The latter are a diffuse blend of sexualised compassion, protectiveness, and maudlin empathy with the poignancy of stigma and disability. There is anecdotal evidence that some DPWs exhibit mild introversion and alienation. If true, this would tend to make them more likely to empathise with the experience of disabled exclusion and stigma, or to admire the perceived heroism of disabled people in overcoming exclusion and stigma, hence prompting them to seek disabled partners.
The DPW claim that the desire is an augmentation of widely shared attractiveness criteria is amply borne out by widespread public erotisation of commonplace physical distinctions ranging from dimples and gappy teeth, through moles and freckles, to spectacles, dental braces, and limbs in casts. The fact that 'freak shows' featuring disabled performers were popular fairground attractions until after the Second World War hints that a significant number of ordinary people harbour curiosity about unorthodox appearance and modi operandi, at least some of which can be assumed to be tinged with sex. The undying popularity of elective physical modification such as body part piercing, tattooing, and sundry cosmetic interventions (surgical or not), exhibits at least some drives in common with wannabeism. The attraction to disability appears to be the extreme tip of a 'pyramid' of commonplace, less common, and minority attractions to unorthodox physique, and the desire to have such physique oneself. For the most part, these attractions are not paraphilic.
Another DPW claim — that the attraction visits different people for different reasons — also appears reasonable in view of the sheer number and diversity of proffered explanations (most with their 'lobbies'), coupled with the extremely small number of DPWs and the DPW community's palpable heterogeneity.
DPWs
DPWs assert that the attraction appears deviant only from the untenable position that disabled people are intrinsically unattractive or asexual. Since devotees' desired relationships are voluntary and equal in principle, and since the disability has already been sustained, they point out that issues of deriving pleasure from others' misfortune have no place in debates on the attraction. While disclaiming paraphilic explanations, they stress that their preferred relationships are 'because of,' rather than 'despite,' disability, thus unwittingly restating the stigmatic-eligibilic paradox.The DPW community rejects scientific enquiry into the attraction because it may throw an unhealthy shadow over it and because it feels science can bring no real insight. It is minded to move towards coalescing as a lifestyle grouping like the gay community
Gay community
The gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...
; today, scientific enquiry into the latter is viewed as unnecessary and discriminatory. Similarly to the gay community, which rejected the term "homosexuality" in favour of "gayness," devotees reject terms like "amelotasis" in favour of internal ones like "devotee/ism." Words like "fetish" or "paraphilia" appear to raise loud devotee hackles, probably due to very widespread ignorance and/or alarm of/at their meanings and implications. DPWs energetically dispute sadomasochistic explanations, claiming that to them the disabled are not less able and inferior, but hyper-able and superior ("godlike"; this dovetails with the element of admiration mentioned above). Teratophilic and coprophilic explanations are vigorously rejected as fanciful and offensive.
Disabled people have been welcomed into the DPW community since its emergence. The community feels that public acceptance of the rights and equality of disabled people would benefit its members, not least by removing blocks and inhibitors to their self-expression. In social attitudes, some DPWs appear to sense a paradoxical parallel between their position and that of disabled people. They also feel that borderline behaviour by some of their number would be curtailed or obviated by social acceptance of the attraction. Hence, their community expresses unreserved support for the disability movement.
Disabled people
Despite the explosion of the DPW Web, many disabled people remain unaware of the attraction. Those newly introduced to it often report initial alarm and deep shock. Subsequent reactions (often after further research) appear to involve deep introspection and an eventual revision of attitudes. While some aspects of the attraction remain unacceptable and disquieting to disabled people, others appear welcome and liberating. If DPW forum membership is a sign of approval, by mid-2006 there was one disabled member for ten or more DPWs: a proportion somewhat lower than a decade earlier. Nevertheless, in 30 years, up to 500 disabled people have offered images of themselves for sale to devotees, several dozen of them even becoming 'devotee courtesans.' Often, their 'impresarioImpresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
s' are themselves disabled women. This may be interpreted as approval, but also as economic opportunism.
The disability movement is many times larger than the DPW community and the latter rarely comes to its attention. The movement perforce backs the DPW stance that the disabled ought not to be branded unattractive and asexual, but by the same token resists suggestions that they ought to welcome the attentions of a sexual minority. If it has any real stance on DPWs, the movement is generally negative, seeing them as unacceptably needy and fetishistic. Despite early hopes that DPWs were welcome allies in the battle against lookism
Lookism
Lookism is a term used to refer to discrimination against or prejudice towards others based on their appearance. The term was first coined within the Fat acceptance movement...
, the movement has found that they do not offer any escape from the tyranny of visual norms; they merely pile bizarre standards atop mainstream ones. In addition, the 'hero adulation' and protectiveness elements of the attraction are ideologically most unwelcome to the movement. More insiduously, DPWs are seen as entryist
Entryism
Entryism is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
. Thus, 'visibility' is a disability movement issue on which DPWs are attempting to influence views. Cosmesis
Cosmesis
Cosmesis is the preservation, restoration, or bestowing of bodily beauty. In the medical context, it usually refers to the surgical correction of a disfiguring defect, or the cosmetic improvements made by a surgeon following incisions...
is widely available to the disabled. Some welcome this as hiding physical differences and aiding integration; others claim it perpetuates a visual norm implying that disability is ugly; DPWs promote the latter side.
Treatment
The attraction to disability has not occasioned public concern, even in the more extreme forms which have come to light since the 1990s. It has also failed to occasion genuine concern among disabled people. Most DPWs appear not to find the attraction burdensome and to resist treatment as threatening the entire fabric of their sexuality, as well as stigmatising them. The sole reported exceptions involve wannabes presenting to medical professionals to request treatment. Researchers are non-judgmental; the two exceptions are Riddle (1988, 1988 [2]) who believes the attraction opens new opportunities to disabled people, and Bruno (1997), who feels the attraction holds scant promise for DPWs and disabled people.As far as informal remedies go, it may be claimed that the 'disabled courtesans' mentioned above offer a form of 'treatment' by offering an 'escape valve' to those DPWs who have the means and need to enact the purely physical imperatives of their desires. It may also be claimed that the DPW/disabled people gatherings mentioned above offer a loose form of 'group treatment' to DPWs who have the means and feel the need to attend.
Reported medical treatments centre on psychotherapy for distressed individuals presenting for treatment. Thus, Riddle (1988, 1988 [2]) suggests that the aim in a psychotherapeutic encounter should be to make devotees "learn to love themselves," while Bruno (1997) elaborates by advocating the pre-planned thought stopping, substitution of appropriate behaviors and introspection methods.
In the case of wannabes suffering distress through erotic target location error, Lawrence (2006) moots the possibility of testosterone-lowering medication in parallel with that of elective limb removal through surgical intervention.
External links
- http://devguide.org/home.shtml a portal site to the devotee web
- http://www.mancophilie.de a site whose disabled owner is researching a thesis on devoteeism
- http://www.outsiders.org.uk/ Owens, Tuppy, et alia, Inside, The Outsiders Club, London, Spring 2006 et passim
- http://www.overground.be/ Overground, the website which pioneered online discussion of the phenomenon in the early/mid 1990s
- http://sites.google.com/site/abasioinfo/Home Abasiophilia Information site
See also
- abasiophiliaAbasiophiliaAbasiophilia is a psychosexual attraction to people with impaired mobility, especially those who use orthopaedic appliances such as leg braces, orthopedic casts, or wheelchairs...
— the fascination for disabled people who use leg-braces or other orthopaedic appliances - agalmatophilia — the desire for mannequins or for statue-like immobility, feigned or caused by illness or paralysis
- amputee fetishismAmputee fetishismAcrotomophilia , refers to a paraphilia in which an individual expresses strong sexual interest in amputees...
— the desire for partners with missing limbs (also known as "acrotomophilia") - apotemnophiliaApotemnophiliaApotemnophilia is a neurological disorder in which otherwise sane and rational individuals express a strong and specific desire for the amputation of a healthy limb or limbs. It is due to hypothesized damage to the right parietal lobe, as the disorder has features in common with somatoparaphrenia...
— the desire to acquire a disability ("wannabeism," "transability") - body dysmorphic disorderBody dysmorphic disorderBody Dysmorphic Disorder is a type of mental illness, a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is exclusively concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of his or her physical features...
— the pathological dislike of one's own physique for subjective reasons - body imageBody imageBody image refers to a person's perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his masterpiece The Image and Appearance of the Human Body...
— the perception and subjective ranking of one's own appearance - body modificationBody modificationBody modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
— the deliberate altering of physique for non-medical reasons - disability pretenderDisability pretendersA disability pretender is someone who behaves as if he or she is disabled.Pretenders may be the "missing link" between devotees and wannabes, proving an assumed continuum between those merely attracted to people with disabilities and those actively wishing to become disabled...
— one who behaves as if disabled and/or alters their appearance so as to suggest they are disabled - eyeglass fetishism — the desire for partners who wear spectacles
- foot bindingFoot bindingFoot binding was the custom of binding the feet of young girls painfully tight to prevent further growth. The practice probably originated among court dancers in the early Song dynasty, but spread to upper class families and eventually became common among all classes. The tiny narrow feet were...
— a recently discontinued ancient Chinese custom - handicap fetishism — another term for the broad range of attractions to disability
- legbrace fetishism — the desire for partners who use leg braces; an aspect of abasiophilia
- medical fetishismMedical fetishismMedical fetishism refers to a collection of sexual fetishes for objects, practices, environments, and situations of a medical or clinical nature....
— a sexualised interest in observing medical practice and receiving medical treatment - Munchhausen's syndromeMunchausen syndromeMünchausen syndrome is a psychiatric factitious disorder wherein those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention or sympathy to themselves. It is also sometimes known as hospital addiction syndrome or hospital hopper syndrome...
— a psychological disorder whose sufferers feign illness and/or cause themselves self-harmSelf-harmSelf-harm or deliberate self-harm includes self-injury and self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions. These terms are used in the more recent literature in an attempt to reach a more neutral terminology... - pornography addictionPornography addictionPornography addiction, or more broadly overuse of pornography, is excessive pornography use that interferes with daily life.There is no diagnosis of pornography addiction in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , and as with the broader proposed diagnosis of sexual...
— the excessive or exclusive reliance on pornography to attain sexual arousal (also known as "pictophilia") - robot fetishismRobot fetishismRobot fetishism is a fetishistic attraction to humanoid robots; also to people acting like robots or people dressed in robot costumes. A less common fantasy involves transformation into a robot...
— the desire for people dressed to appear like robots and acting as robots - sexology topics — a complete listing
- teratophilia — the desire for deformed or monstrous people
- transformation fetish — the desire for people who undergo physical transformation (mostly an aspect of pornography fetishism) or body modificationBody modificationBody modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
- voyeurismVoyeurismIn clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....
— the excessive or exclusive reliance on observing other people to attain sexual arousal