As others have said, context matters. Acting in a movie or play, fine. To raise awareness is not offensive in and of itself. However, offense can come when you simulate blindness, and draw the wrong conclusions.

As an example, let's take someone who has never warn ice skates, ever. They want to experience what it's like to play hockey. So, without any training, or even any advice from anyone who has ever played hockey before, they strap on some skates, and head out onto the ice. Of course, they fall down within the first thirty seconds! Then, they decide, "Oh my goodness! Skating is impossible! Anyone who can skate for more than 30 seconds without falling over is a superhuman hero! Nobody who isn't a hero could ever learn to skate, let alone play hockey!" Anyone who regularly plays hockey, of course, would disagree. They probably find skating without falling over to, in fact, be the easiest part of the game.

Similarly, a lot of people who simulate blindness, to "see what it's like", do exactly the same thing as our example above, putting on a blindfold for the first time, instead of skates. They do it without any training, any plan, or any good advice. They do it for a few minutes, and decide because they can't manage at all, it must be the hardest thing ever. They think that they "know what it's like", now. But people who live with blindness, like the professional hockey player lives with skates, are used to it. The things someone simulating blindness found impossible are probably the things we find pretty easy. They probably didn't even get far enough to experience what actual blind people think of as the real challenges.

I only find it offensive when they do it incorrectly. Simulating is correctly would be great because it would raise awareness and give insight to our lives.

That really depends on the context in which blindness is being "simulated," I think.

When I was a kid, I got *loads* of the usual crap about my vision ("Hey, thisperson is blind! Ha ha! Can you see? Can you see? Can you see? Ha ha, now I'm thisperson looking for a pencil I dropped because I'm retaaaarded!" That sort of thing, clearly, is offensive as hell. I don't get nearly as much of that sort of thing as an adult, though I suppose that's partly because I'm lucky enough not to have dealings with the president of the United States...

However, I have no problem with people restricting their vision temporarily in order to get a sense of what it's like for me. I've even half-jokingly suggested that someone tape a toilet paper tube to their left eye to restrict its field, and put something nearly but not quite fully opaque over their right eye to impede its ability to see much more than light and a bit of color, if they really want to get a perhaps oversimplified sense of what my vision is really like. I assume there are also sighted actors who portray blind or visually impaired people, and that's not a problem for me as long as it's done in a spirit of honesty.

I've heard there are people who fetishize a particular disability and pretend to have it. I guess I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, ok, people are curious and fascinated, and there's nothing wrong with that...but on the other hand...Really? Of all the things someone could emulate, it's my visual impairment? It just seems a bit restrictive.

tl;dr -- It depends on the motivation for the simulation.

edit: clarity

Every individual is different so some may be offended and others not. My boyfriend is blind and here is what he has said about it. He thinks it is counter-productive and can be dangerous for a sighted person to simulate blindness. It can also give people the wrong impression of what it is like to be blind, therefore scaring them into thinking blind people are as helpless as they felt while blindfolded. The thing is, living an independent life as a blind person takes practice. There are schools you can live at for months at a time to learn how to cook, travel, and live as a blind person. At his training program, they had a wood shop class where they made grandfather clocks and cooking class where they had to prepare a meal for 30 people. It took training and practice to get there. If a sighted person puts on a blindfold for 15 minutes and tries to cook a meal, they might think, wow this is dangerous! And now, they have the idea that it is dangerous for blind people to cook. That is where is gets offensive. When a sighted person thinks a blind person isn't capable of something just because they couldn't do it without any training and practice.

For me, it is sometimes part of my job when I am educating others. Just recently, I was working with a group of new doctors, and we had them put on simluators/blindfolds while teaching them different skills such as sighted guide or pouring water. I also sometimes use simulators with family members when they have trouble grasping why their family member is having trouble seeing. I find it is a lot easier to understand then

I echo everyone else here. If done to educate, fine, but actually take the time to learn something from the experience.

Varies on a case by case basis. A great example of what not to do is the foundation fighting blindness's "how eye see it" campaign. That just got super cringey

I guess I mis-interpreted the question. I read it as, for example, when Eddie Murphy imitated Stevie Wonder: Head tilted up, swiveling, always seeming to be listening for orientation cues.

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