Who Killed Tyler Clementi?

By Javier Robles

America is becoming the country we use to point fingers at, a place were intolerance of others is commonplace. Where we do not think twice about using someone’s sexuality or sexual preference for our own comic relief. We put people like Rush Limbaugh on a pedestal and go out of our way to make a point of showing what we don’t like about other people. As the polarization of these “United States” continues so will tragedies like the suicide of Tyler Clementi a freshman at Rutgers University. Tyler was outed as being gay after his roommate Dharan Ravi, and Ravis friend Molly Wei, taped him and another man engaging in sexual acts. Rhavi and Wei face invasion of privacy charges, and may also be charged with bias intimidation. Tyler, however, will never see justice served as his body was found floating on the Hudson, September 29th, according to the Wall Street Journal. The 18 year old’s last message to the world posted September 22nd, on Facebook, read, that he was going to jump off the George Washington Bridge.

This young man saw no other way out but one, suicide, why? Because many times we learn from our parents, clergy, media, family and “Friends” that being gay is bad. It is not “normal” and in the religious case, “it is a sin against God”. We as a society tolerate intolerance. We sit back in the house of the lord while a person of this Earth riles on about the sin of being homosexual. We tolerate the imposition of laws and lawmakers who believe they can legislate sexuality, morality and personal choice. In fact, we leave the television and radio on while the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan educate our toddlers about hate and fear mongering. These same people also lambaste certain television shows as too violent, sexual or “non-American”. There is an indifference towards those not in the mainstream, the gays, disabled, immigrants, and poor. Yet, we tolerate!

It is this tolerance for ignorance and intolerance for people different from us that should have the spotlight shined on it. Do not get me wrong, the two perpetrators in this incident Ravi and Wei, deserve what ever is coming to them. However, we deserve a collective blame. Parents, who allow their child to believe it is all right to dislike others, simply because “they are not like us”. Pastors, who preach love in one, breathe only to stigmatize and hate in the other one. Politicians, so afraid of their base or blinded by their “family values”, that they cannot open their mouth against legislation or laws that continue to oppress our men and women in uniform. Media, that promotes hate like a sporting event, that actually pay commentators to profess their dislike of (according to them) those so morally corrupt that they cannot possibly be “Real Americans”.

It is our tolerance of anti gay, racist, anti disabled and lack of empathy for the poor in this country; that make, a bright young man like Tyler, think the only solution to his sexuality is death. That is a low-point in our Countries history. Just like the murders of Mathew Sheppard in Texas, Frank Rodde’s in Chicago, and Jorge Steve Lopez Mercado in Puerto Rico; were all committed by others, we just supplied the ammunition.

For more information on organizations and websites providing services and positive messages on gay issues visit:

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
http://www.thetaskforce.org/

Gay Men’s Health Crisis
http://www.gmhc.org/

GLBT National Help Center
http://www.glnh.org/

To Talk to a Live Person

GLBT National Hotline
1-888-843-4564

GLBT Youth National Hotline
1-800-246-7743

Love You. Love Me!

By Odeon Black

Sexuality abounds in the media, from scantily clad Calvin Klein models who seemed malnourish, to hundreds of bikini wearing women running towards a man spraying cologne on himself.   They are all beautiful, sexual, and sexy, they ooze pheromones and more to the point they sell products.  These ads are made so that you don’t want to look away, made to keep you enticed until your sold.  But what are you buying? A product or an image of what is perfect?  The truth is many times we don’t know what we are being sold.  But often it makes us feel like we bought the underline message, they are pretty and we are not.

We look in the mirror and see deficiencies, which are compounded by everyday negative comments and messages we receive from those around us.  Bombarded by stares of public and private disapproval we forget the day we stopped feeling beautiful.  The day a simple dress made her feel like a princess, or when a pair of shoes put him “on top of the world”.  To many of us with disabilities those memories are a distant fog.  It is sexuality, denied! It is beauty unreachable! Most of all, it is self-inflicted.  Like cutting into your skin every time you get depressed, until you no longer feel the knife, but the scars are clearly visible.

I have met them.  I hear their self-disgust and see every cut in their eyes.  Society, What has thou done?   They talk to me of feeling un-loved, hating their bodies, their looks and the hand they were dealt.  The screams of pain have been real and imagined, but the suffering is constant.  The new dress has lost it’s magic, and those shoes no longer shine.

Why?  Because we grew-up, watched too much television, and actually became the person most displeased by our looks.  We devalued our contributions and our sexuality and forgot what made us beautiful.   Someone told us that our dress was not pretty and our shoes were outdated.  They crammed their negative views into our special pleasures, and we let them.  To this day we cry because we miss them, because we let them.

My theme of sexuality and disability is usually spicy and upbeat and so we will end on an upbeat note.  First, it is time to take back what is yours, your beauty, sexiness, positivity and your ability to look in the mirror.  Time to love the imperfections, which have, become knives to your soul. It is truly time to tell the negative influences, including, media, mind and “friends”, to keep their comments to themselves.  So, make a date with yourself.  Do your favorite things, and fall in love all over again with the little girl who lit up a room with her smile.  Reach deep into the well of darkness and pullout your favorite shoes and wear them.  If by chance you run into someone who tells you how ugly your shoes or dress may be, tell him or her, Fuck You!

Where did I leave my vibrator?

By Odeon Black
Please note this article contains adult content and language.

Where did I leave my vibrator?  Well as it happened, my vibrator was eventually found, but I will get to that later.  First, let me give you the back-story.  My girlfriend (we will call her Becky) and I had always liked traveling.  We would travel any chance we got.  It was so great to get away from the dull drum of every day existence.  To go someplace where no one knows your name, or cares.  You are just a visitor or tourist, there to have fun.  My disability would often get lost in the dancing, sun, drinks and my favorite, sex.  This was and continues to be an escape, a place to simply be a sexual gimp with a hard-on for life.

One of our exciting trips took us to the Bahamas, fabulous beaches, great drinks, and so many foods made with conch.  There was deep fried conch, stewed, sautéed, boiled and the ever-popular sandwich.  The hotel was filled with tourist, clean and surprisingly wheelchair accessible; given it was over 10 years ago. Becky and I could not wait to check-in and get to our room, flying always frustrated us, but also made us very horny.
If you think flying with a power chair is hard now you should have flown 10 or 15 years ago.

We check-in to the hotel and race to the room, the door swings open and the clothes drop like heavy raindrops in a storm.  She tears off my t-shirt, and I rip the three buttons that hold her skimpy shirt together, off with my teeth.  The smell of sea salt wafting in through the window and the scent of sweat fills the room.  Then we remember, we brought a new sex toy; a 7 inch pink vibrator.  It was an average size I suppose, made of silicone and took two AA batteries.  We also, brought a bottle of lube and of course condoms to our mini-soirée.  She unwrapped the vibe and we worked it until the batteries died.  I held it in my mouth, my splint, and she held it in every position imaginable.  All our hotel neighbors heard was, “Oh my God, I love this Vibe”, “that’s my vibe”, “nothing better than your tongue and the vibe”.  Yes, four days and three nights of lube filled, condom smacking, pink vibrations.

Well, on the last day we pack and are ready to go; but we cannot find the pink vibe. We must have searched the whole entire room.  We came to the conclusion that maybe the maid took it or accidentally fell in the garbage can.  We had to go or miss the plane. We left wondering where it was?   We arrived at the airport and rushed to security.  They had a system where they run your carry-on baggage and suitcases through the X-ray machines, while one stands there.

We wait for our bags to go through, as the line behind us gets longer.  The Security officer, in standard white shirt, shorts an official Bahamian hat, begins his review.  One carry-on goes through, and then another, and finally the suitcase has a turn. As it is starting to come out the other end the officer stop the conveyer belt, and backs up the suitcase, he yells to the other guard.  “There is a long metal object in here!” at the same time Becky remembers where she put the vibrator.  She packed it in the suitcase first,  “so she would not forget it”.  She leans close to me and says,  “oh my god, I hate that vibe”, that’s not my vibe”, “how embarrassing”.

Now everybody is looking at us.  We have become microbes under a microscope of possible wrongdoing, passenger curiosity and Security guard indiscretions.  Yikes!
The guard slowly but methodically un-zippered the suitcase as two others watched, Becky, turned a beet red as they lifted the flap and felt around for the “long metal object.”  Yes.  His expression said it all when his hands clutched what could only feel like a worn down silicone cock.  As he “pulled-it-out”, the other guards simultaneously looked up at the young girl and her “friend” in the wheelchair.  Becky looked mortified, horrified, she was not into the “vibe”, right now.  I shrugged.

The guards quickly threw the vibe back, zipped the suitcase and yelled, next!  I was so glad we were not next.

Sex Travels By Odeon Black

This blog is not about going to Indonesia, Thailand or some other exotic land to get your “rocks off”.  It is about getting them off where ever you are!  It is about the ease of “mental masturbation” like you want it.  No holds bar. So take a trip with me.  Clothing optional.

Sometimes when I close my eyes I can picture the perfect sex.  The kind that makes you want to “stay in the moment” and never leave.  Sometimes it involves the ultimate surrender, one that only a quadriplegic can provide, where my vulnerability is part of the sexual game she and I play.  She knows I cannot move, but ties my hands anyway.  She knows I will be where she left me, but commands me not to move.  She believes that I will follow her every command and understands the sexuality of my stillness.  She feels the sexual energy where she makes it, where she allows it to be – like the monks of a thousand years, her understanding is enlightened by the fact that she believes.     It is what it is, for it can be nothing else unless we make it so.  I could be a prisoner of her lust because she treats me like her other lovers.  She does not lessen my ability to be bound.

In another instance, I close my eyes and see myself in the middle of a crowded bus towards Frisco Bay, my wheelchair pressing into the folded-up seat and the heat just rises.  It is an unusually hot day for the Bay and even hotter for me, as I pretend not to notice her.  She stands so close.    Human bodies pushing upon each other in their summer wear, pressing in a careless manner and acting like they don’t realize it.  She realizes it!  Her bohemian blue and green skirt tightens as other passengers push her towards the side of my wheelchair.   I pretend not to notice, but can feel myself getting a mental hard-on to challenge the Washington Monument.  There are small beads of sweat on her neckline and they run down to meet her white tee.  Her hard nipples reveal no bra and she catches me peering at her.  She stares back, and with her fingers, brings back her dark straight hair.  I do not look away.  Then, as if we rode the bus together, she leans over and starts whispering in my ear.  Her voice is soft and her breath is warm like Redwoods in July.   She smells like incense and sex.  Her words are deliberate and meant to evoke the animal instinct in men and women.  They pour into my ear down to the tip of my dick and they dare me not to cum.

I understand how good sex is in the flesh.  However, I am captivated by the places I can go by just closing my eyes.  The scents and the taste I can have without ever leaving my space.  I fall in love and make love with people I will never meet.  I am the thought that flowed into a river of passion because I wanted it.  Where do you go when your eyes are closed?