I'm producing a YouTube series that's broadly about accessible healthcare, though mostly looking at sexual health, with a blindness focus. I already made a video showing how to take a confidential pregnancy test as a blind person, because this was a personal struggle I had and I wanted to share information with the community. Upcoming videos will explain various forms of contraception, accessing sexual healthcare services and talking about sex toys.
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however, related to that I'm answering the questions that usually come from sighted people about our sexuality. I've been asked a lot of these things over the years, such as how we know if someone is attractive, how we date etc. I was hoping some of you might be willing to share questions you've been asked, or possible concerns you had when you started dating.
je977 points2y ago
People seem weirdly interested in how blind gay men have sex, you could always cover that one if you like.
CatchTheseWords1 points2y ago
I'm probably not the right person to cover that, I don't want to speak for a community, but I'd love to colab with someone on this for sure.
rp-turtle5 points2y ago
An odd underlying assumption I face from sighted people is that they think that, as a result of dating me, they will need to become my care taker. Also, people question my sexual orientation because I’m blind. For example, “how do you know your gay if your blind?” Overall, the biggest challenge or question I would say my face as a blind person on the sexuality front is the automatic desexualization of blind people. Because we have a disability, many people automatically assume we don’t have a sexual component to ourselves. I hope this was relevant. I think your series is a great idea
CatchTheseWords3 points2y ago
Thanks, all of this is so true. I absolutely want to address the desexualisation of blind and other disabled people. It's a huge problem, especially because we're actually at higher risk of being victims of abuse or violence. But people don't believe that.
rp-turtle1 points2y ago
No problem. I agree. When I try to illustrate that point to people, I tell them to imagine themselves in a potentially risky sexual situation such as a hook up with A complete stranger. Now imagine you can’t see. I am careful to not limit the sexual liberation of blind people as well though too. It’s a difficult balance. You want to point out the fact that blindness is a complicating variable that does expose people to a greater risk of experiencing sexual violence while also simultaneously not portraying all blind people as sexually inapt or helpless. I would love to help with your project if I can because I find the intersection Aliti of disability and sexuality very fascinating. Feel free to pm me if you’re interested.
CatchTheseWords1 points2y ago
I'm definitely interested and I agree, it's a struggle for sure. I tend to focus my work re violence around improving the services provided by the police and also domestic and sexual abuse support services. So that if a blind person does ask for help, they'll be believed.
80percentaccurate5 points2y ago
Sexual health and Sex Ed are topics that are rarely covered in school for students who are visually impaired the same way that they are for sighted peers. It would be nice to have a resource teens could refer to to learn about things like how to manage periods and condom use with descriptions that make is accessible compared to the diagrams shown in most Sex Ed classes.
foxx--tails3 points2y ago
I think this is super amazing for you to do! Sexuality is such a vital part of what makes us human and many times blind or visually impaired people are seen as asexual. Thank you for putting in the time to do this. As a visually impaired but not completely blind person I feel like my disability is often invisible to those around me. When I first start dating a person or just getting to know the people I hook up there is often disbelief or shock around the fact that I am visually impaired. I feel like I have to prove my disability or even make jokes about it for the person to understand. I would love if you talked about how to bring up disability in a relationship (sexual or not). And how to walk the line of “I’m an independent person you don’t have to baby me” but also “sometimes I’ll need your help to do certain things”
Winnmark3 points2y ago
It might be good to point out that, for people in the disabled community-not just the blind subsection-dating can be scary because, I mean, who's going to want to date a disabled fellow?
If you're trying to, I guess, educate people on disability, sexuality, and dating, in the context of the intersection thereof, I feel like this might be valuable information. Right, there's a bit more emotion that goes into dating when you're disabled, as opposed to if you're normal.
Totally a side note, though I think this is holistically unsuitable for your project here, the intersection of dating, sexuality, religion, and disability has been quite a fascinating one for me to explore. This isn't up your alley, but I thought you might find that fact amusing.
CatchTheseWords2 points2y ago
Thank you, this is so important. And there's a lot of truth to it. I've even worried about this myself, why try and get close to a sighted person. Obviously they won't want a blind person like me. And I know that line of thinking is destructive because there are sighted people who just don't care. But I also know on the flip side there's some truth to it. It's balancing that knowledge so you don't shut yourself out from something that could be great whilst also protecting yourself. I guess none of this is easy.
noaimpara2 points2y ago
I’d be super interested to watch that! Questions I’ve been asked are quite common : how do you masturbate, how do you know you like someone (and in the same vein - how do you know you’re a lesbian?), how do you feel sexual attractions, can you enjoy porn etc etc. That’s all I can think about rn. I haven’t formally started dating yet (even though I’m 20) and I have so many damn questions. I’m just a ball of confusion.
grinchnight141 points2y ago
As a guy, masturbating is real easy, and I know how to get porn lol. And I don't go for the porn where they describe things like the descriptive audio for the movies, that's not sexy to me. I mean maybe if Scarlett Johansson' narrating it, then that could be a different story lol.
CatchTheseWords1 points2y ago
Thanks these are great questions.
Ant54771 points2y ago
Great topic, would you be interested in coming on my channel and possibly sharing this bit of information, I would be glad to have you on, if you consider, check out my link and get back with me Https://www.youtube.com/c/3rdeyevisions
msimmons0241 points2y ago
My friend has done some videos on this kind of stuff. Here’s the most recent
https://youtu.be/TlUgotxUQdY
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Laser_Lens_41 points2y ago
Most of my experience with this sort of thing is with sexual orientation and gender identity. I get asked stuff like how I know I'm a girl or how I know I'm gay. I have the advantage of limited sight, so I looked at pictures, and I knew what I liked. Nowadays, I read a lot of fiction. The quality is...mixed, but hey I'll take what I can get with no remaining useable sight. Refining my preferences has taken some trial and error out in the real world. Without getting into too much detail, I know I'm gay because I like girls and I'm simply not attracted to men. They're fine. Nothing wrong with guys. I just don't fancy them. As for how I know that I'm a girl well... it's not really a secret that I'm trans. It took years of self-reflection, soul-seeking, and a push from a friend to get me on the right path. On my journey to realizing I liked girls, I also realized I rather like being a girl myself, and I'm well on my way now to fulfilling that.
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Oh yeah, I know stuff about sex toys too and frequent Bad Dragon. Toys are lots of fun.
Sarinon1 points2y ago
Hey, I used to be a volunteer kink educator so I have a bit of a different take on this, but love the idea and wanted to contribute. My role was around general kink education but I often littered it with personal anecdotes which would often prompt further questions - I'd be happy to discuss if you'd like.
CatchTheseWords1 points2y ago
Hey, can you send me a message with some more info about this? Definitely interested.
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