Bisexuality and attraction to disabled people

[hjfundus]

Fellow bis! I saw there was an old thread about being bi and dev but wanted to make a fresh thread to talk about it more.

I used to think I was bi from about the age of 12, but had a sudden realization that my first attraction to devness was to someone of a similar gender when I was around 3 years old. And this realisation blew my mind. Because even though it was not something sexual at the time, that was devness there at 3 years old which would develop into something more sexual at around puberty.

So I have been wondering if my devness "allowed" me to be bisexual? Seeing devness on anyone allowed me to be attracted to them regardless of their gender? It was the devness rather than the gender that was more important? Or if I have just been bi since I was a young child and I just didn't see this early attraction as being (bi)sexual. It's kind of muddy and gray and hard to decipher.
 
Also porn is an interesting one. I have a preference for guys in wheelchairs but so much porn online, or "good" devvy videos, are with women, so I'm like "Yeah sure, this will do..." and don't really discriminate. It can still get me off.

But I would LOVE to hear other bi people's experiences on this. ♥♥♥

(Edit: Even though I intended this to be for bisexual people, I think it would also be nice to compare with monosexual people's experiences - so if you are gay or straight, I am interested to hear about your relation to disability on different genders. Especially comparing when you were a child to now)

[prrrowr]

Oct 3, 2023 6:41:54 GMT -5 hjfundus said:

Fellow bis! I saw there was an old thread about being bi and dev but wanted to make a fresh thread to talk about it more.

I used to think I was bi from about the age of 12, but had a sudden realization that my first attraction to devness was to someone of a similar gender when I was around 3 years old. And this realisation blew my mind. Because even though it was not something sexual at the time, that was devness there at 3 years old which would develop into something more sexual at around puberty.

So I have been wondering if my devness "allowed" me to be bisexual? Seeing devness on anyone allowed me to be attracted to them regardless of their gender? It was the devness rather than the gender that was more important? Or if I have just been bi since I was a young child and I just didn't see this early attraction as being (bi)sexual. It's kind of muddy and gray and hard to decipher.
 
Also porn is an interesting one. I have a preference for guys in wheelchairs but so much porn online, or "good" devvy videos, are with women, so I'm like "Yeah sure, this will do..." and don't really discriminate. It can still get me off.

But I would LOVE to hear other bi people's experiences on this. ♥♥♥

Hi!  My personal opinion is that sexuality is a spectrum, or several spectra.  I'm bi, but I lean toward mostly being attracted to guys.  I am attracted to some women, but in fewer numbers.  I'm also devotee bi - I'm attracted to some AB people, and some disabled people.  Not all disabilities turn me on, only some.  Not all AB people turn me on either, only some.
I doubt your devotee sexuality "allowed" you to be attracted to both men and women; I think you would be anyway, without the dev feelings.  There are many bi people out there who aren't devs, so I don't think being a dev is like a gateway to being bi, ha.
I think they are two separate things, or two aspects of sexuality.
Also, I think attraction can change as you move through life.  I used to think one kind of person was attractive, and now I don't, but I find different things attractive (in terms of personality and physical traits like appearance.)  So maybe you hadn't explored any bisexual parts of yourself when you were young, or maybe they weren't even there, but developed as you got older?  Case in point - Glennon Doyle.  She openly talks about how she isn't attracted to women, but she is very attracted to this one specific woman; Abby Wambach.  When she was young, Glennon never even considered the possibility of being with a woman.  Years later, she divorced her husband, and fell in instant, head over heels, looked across the room and BAM, love with Abby.

[hjfundus]

Oct 4, 2023 23:54:29 GMT -5 prrrowr said:

Hi!  My personal opinion is that sexuality is a spectrum, or several spectra.  I'm bi, but I lean toward mostly being attracted to guys.  I am attracted to some women, but in fewer numbers.  I'm also devotee bi - I'm attracted to some AB people, and some disabled people.  Not all disabilities turn me on, only some.  Not all AB people turn me on either, only some.

Thanks for your reply. Blessed is the spectrum/are the spectra ♥ It's just i've seen other people on this forum say they were fascinated by PWD from a very young age regardless of gender and it would be interesting to see if they also are bi. But maybe you're right. For monosexual people, maybe it just stays as a fascination for them for the gender they are not attracted to sexually, but for the gender they are attracted to, it turns into something sexual.

I doubt your devotee sexuality "allowed" you to be attracted to both men and women; I think you would be anyway, without the dev feelings. There are many bi people out there who aren't devs, so I don't think being a dev is like a gateway to being bi, ha.

I think they are two separate things, or two aspects of sexuality.
Also, I think attraction can change as you move through life. I used to think one kind of person was attractive, and now I don't, but I find different things attractive (in terms of personality and physical traits like appearance.) So maybe you hadn't explored any bisexual parts of yourself when you were young, or maybe they weren't even there, but developed as you got older?

Maybe I am remembering incorrectly or projecting my current feelings onto the first attraction that I mentioned and maybe it wasn't more than just fascination.  

[triquid]

Hey! Wonderful to spot a fellow queer on the boards! (Queer as in lgbtq+, not as in slur!) Technically I'm not bi, but I hope my experience can give some insight.

This is an interesting perspective. I lean the same way as you do – when it comes to pwd content, it's specifically the disability that gets my attention, not the person's gender, but I do also lean towards men in this respect. I can get off seeing women with disabilities just as well.

However, growing up I think I most likely would have turned out queer (=non-straight) anyway, whether I was a devotee or not. I develop romantic relationships with people regardless of gender (or ability for that matter), and the physical attraction aspect usually plays a lesser part in it.

Call me an old queer (lovingly, hehe), but I've gotten past the point of trying to decipher what tag to specifically put on my orientation, or asking "how did I turn out that way." It's probably through maturing and some form of radical self-acceptance that I stopped asking "why am I like this (queer)?" or "How did I turn this way?" or "What set it all off?" In the end, I think these questions were a way for me to pick at why I couldn't be cis and straight, i.e. "normal." I used to be very preoccupied by it.

I've concluded that there's really no way to know why, and to problematise it would be setting myself up as "different" against a norm that never encompassed the full diversity of human experience. Quoting Dr. Devon Price, my queerness doesn't need a reason because it's not a problem to solve.

Nowadays I don't define my sexual orientation, because I know it's nuanced and in a constant state of flux, and determined by so so so many other factors than gender. Gender for me must be one of the least affecting aspects in my attraction. But, if an outsider were to put a tag on it, they'd call me pansexual.

However I think it's crucial that we allow everyone to define their own sexuality in a way that makes most sense to them. I don't see any reason why your devness couldn't be a deciding factor in why you were more open to exploring your bisexuality.

For me, like for prrowr, devness and sexual orientation are a bit separate things, so I don't think this would be the case for me personally.

[myrrh]

I wonder if there's any utility in thinking of dev attraction as its own dimension, similar to romantic attraction or sexual attraction. It's not too unusual to see a person specify different preferences (more weight toward one end of the spectrum) when speaking about those two kinds of attraction. This seems to be a fairly new thing to speak openly about, so I can't comment if this is a trend or a more durable evolution of discourse around sexuality.

Personally, I've noticed I tend to be sexually attracted to more disabled women than men, but my taste in ABs is broader for men. When I was last dating, I was more actively romantically interested in women but was open to anything. This has fluctuated a lot over time... Trying to analyze it seems like an effort in futility because tomorrow will be different, and I've also found reliance on labels can inhibit change.

OP, it's really funny you mention the gender imbalance in videos though, because I've had the opposite experience. I really like amateur stuff and have no interest in acquired disabilities, and 95% of the videos in that subset seem to be some bloke alone in his room. It actually took me a while to figure out how significant my attraction to disabled women was, because what I was seeing was so heavily skewed toward men. It wasn't until I started noticing my attraction to disabled women IRL that it clicked. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯