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   Someone told us that our dress was not pretty and our shoes were outdated.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!

Kissing: The New Black By Odeon Black

Kissing: The New Black

By Odeon Black

People with disabilities often think about making love, some think about having love made to them.  Yet, kissing always seems like a side dish in the love making scenarios.  Always an appetizer never the main course that’s what three different individuals told me, two women, one man.  They said that they really never thought about it-like they were preprogrammed to think about the end result only.  What is the normal end result? You ask. A mind-blowing orgasm!  In weather terms, the Tornado that brought Dorothy to Oz.  In party terminology, the cork popping off a champagne bottle and In Las Vegas lingo hit the Jackpot (hard).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the big “O”, whether you are a man or a woman.  I have had them and often the lady I am with has them.  However, many of us have forgotten the basics.  We forgot the time we longed for the “first kiss”, it was the most important event in our life.  I dare say it was the big “O” and the old steam train that makes so much noise in black & white movies.  If it was a small peck on the lips or a sloppy first French kiss, we felt it in our soul.  The first girl I remember kissing, smelled like bleach.  I still remember her, anytime I smell bleach.  However, I cannot remember her face, only her sweet kiss.  One minute.  Forever ingrained in my memory.

A kiss can also be a way of being erotic without having to “go all the way”, for someone with a disability this can really be a game-changer.  When our disability makes it difficult to have those “table toppling”, “wall smashing” and might I add dangerous, sex scenes we see in the movies, there is kissing.  Many, individuals use it as a form of prolonged foreplay, while others have reported actual orgasms from kissing.  Here are some great quotes I managed to find which help us redefine “the kiss”:
‘Twas not my lips you kissed
But my soul

~Judy Garland

“May I print a kiss on your lips?” I said,
And she nodded her full permission:
So we went to press and I rather guess
We printed a full edition.
~Joseph Lilientha

Kissing is like drinking salted water.  You drink, and your thirst increases.  ~Chinese Proverb

Her kisses left something to be desired… the rest of her.  ~Author Unknown
Kisses kept are wasted;
Love is to be tasted.
There are some you love, I know;
Be not loathe to tell them so.
Lips go dry and eyes grow wet
Waiting to be warmly met.
Keep them not in waiting yet;
Kisses kept are wasted.
~Edmund Vance Cooke

Amazing, what we have forgotten about the simple act of kissing.  The depth and complexity of kisses abound and we should try to find them.  We should close our eyes again and remember the first time, even if it smelled like bleach.  With that said I leave you with my own kiss poem, enjoy and happy smooching.
A kiss can this year be  a nicer find than gold,

As you place your lips on mine fireworks explode upon my soul.

I had forgotten how to kiss and thought of just one goal.

But finding my lost kiss was a wonder to behold.

Kiss me with your kisses and suck away my soul.

-Odeon Black