Is devness really such a rare thing?

[linda]

It is being said over and over again that devness was so rare. I‘ve wondered many times about that. I just don’t think so.

When I came out as a dev to some good friends earlier this year, I had one saying that he too finds women in wheelchairs attractive. I wouldn’t necessarily say that he is a dev, but what makes one a dev? Another question of its own... Another friend has been married to a woman who was born without arms due to thalidomide. I never suspected him to be a dev, it just didn’t cross my mind since I was not a self-aware dev back then when we got to know each other and since it’s not my own attraction. Funny how the brain works there... Anyways, when we met again after I had realized my devness and talked openly about it, it turned out that he is a dev. And he also claimed that his wife was having many admirers who were explicitly interested in her because of the disability.

There is this German dating site for PWDs. There are so many people who openly admit to be devs. Then there are many people without a disability. What brings someone without a disability to a dating site like this if not being a dev? I would guess that at least every 15th person there does not have a disability. I only see the male profiles, but still. Let alone the many many devs who aren’t self aware...

I really wonder why the general understanding seems to be that devness was so rare. Having the awareness that it is not that rare would help a lot in terms of self-acceptance, but also in braking the taboo.

[missparkle]

Oh dear, linda it gets scary again, about me and you! LOL 😂 I just had the same thoughts yesterday and wanted to make a thread about it!

I think that line between dev and non-dev is not clear one, it is not binary, it is more fuzzy!

Guys often say "I had a girlfriend who was non-dev". But I am thinking, in that case, ok, maybe she wasn't dev in hard core sense I am, BUT... If she was already ok to go with all that disability stuff, she was already higher on a dev-scale than someone who would never date pwd,right?!
And as you say, on dating sites "Positive about disabled", what that means? For me it is crystal clear it is dev just wrapped in more shiny paper! Or am I missing something here?

So what is dev and non-dev anyway? Where is the border line?

[brinzerdecalli]

Dec 15, 2019 5:23:04 GMT -5 linda said:

It is being said over and over again that devness was so rare. I‘ve wondered many times about that. I just don’t think so.

When I came out as a dev to some good friends earlier this year, I had one saying that he too finds women in wheelchairs attractive. I wouldn’t necessarily say that he is a dev, but what makes one a dev? Another question of its own... Another friend has been married to a woman who was born without arms due to thalidomide. I never suspected him to be a dev, it just didn’t cross my mind since it’s not my own attraction. Funny how the brain works there... Anyways, when we met again after I had realized my devness and talked openly about it, it turned out that he is a dev. And he also claimed that his wife was having many admirers who were explicitly interested in her because of the disability.

There is this German dating site for PWDs. There are so many people who openly admit to be devs. Then there are many people without a disability. What brings someone without a disability to a dating site like this if not being a dev? I would guess that at least every 15th person there does not have a disability. I only see the male profiles, but still. Let alone the many many devs who aren’t self aware...

I really wonder why the general understanding seems to be that devness was so rare. Having the awareness that it is not that rare would help a lot in terms of self-acceptance, but also in braking the taboo.

That is awesome for in Germany! In the US, any comparative site is very scarce and paywalled... Probably related issues. I think disabled females have far more admirers than disabled males. This may be because of ingrained archaic expectations of what makes a good romantic/intimate partner by gender. Of course the more "normal" your body looks or the stronger you are the more admirers you will receive. 

When we are looking at statistics, I sincerely apologize if anything I may say offends anyone, but these are my observations in their rawest form.

As a guy with a fairly severe disability, but who is decent looking, and with several talents to create intrigue, using several dating sites and going to meetups; being extremely bold and at least slightly charming, I find something like 1 in 50 girls show some interest in me. Yet 1 in 8 of those I return the interest in... I tend to find better success in alternative dating "fetish/kink" sites, because I find people with more dynamic understandings of what makes for fulfilling experiences and relationships. I actually found my last relationship of 3 years on that type of site.

Another piece I will share, and get dangerously close to sounding prejudice: There's a disproportionate number of BBWs who express devotee tendencies, perhaps because not too long ago they went through a similar ascension of sexuality and civil/social empowerment as PWDs are now? 

Right now being disabled places you in far lesser "dating level" in society's eyes. I can't tell you how many people say "You're too picky" or "Date on your level" because I have fairly normal heterosexual male preferences, some of which are purely derived from practicality.

So I would say, yes... it's pretty rare, for women to have it towards men... unfortunately...
The other way? Much less rare, but with the caveat of there being much more intense, prominent, and dangerous objection and abuse to be found.

Hope that anecdotal evidence helps! I wish I knew someone in sex and gender studies who could get some real stats on this!

[Amee]

Oh linda and missparkle I've been wondering about this for years - and actually mentioned it in my intro, when I first signed up!

I too have always had a bit of a gut feeling that it might perhaps not be as rare as we on here generally say it is. I think it makes a lot of sense that it could be more of a spectrum rather than a binary and that women on the more moderate end of the spectrum just never become aware of it.
I've had several moments with friends and family members, where certain things were said that really made me wonder...
A female friend of mine once said during some TV series she liked with some hot, muscular main character and lots of action (I can't remember what series it was), that she really liked it, when he got a little bit injured, because then she could "feel sorry for him".
Another friend told me that she found men most attractive, when they were "dirty and a little bit injured".
The hot nurse nursing the wounded warrior back to health is - as far as I'm aware - a very mainstream trope and I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was also considered somewhat erotic by more "regular" girls?
My brother's girlfriend had had some injury on her foot and had been using crutches, when they first met. I remember a while after they had been together, they talked about when they met and he carressed and kissed her and in a very loving way said how "fragile" she had been back then.
My mother once told me that she used to really like it in primary school, when a kid had a cast on their leg. And I also remember that casts and injuries were something that were quite commonly considered cool in childhood.

So I don't think it's all that absurd to think that perhaps the "extreme" of real devness is just an exaggeration of some more mainstream and naturally occuring tendencies of finding certain things erotic and arousing that have to do with physical differences and physical weakness.

I'm so endlessly curious about what the numbers really are, but I'm afraid it's something that is really, really hard to get any statistics on, as it has so much to do with whether or not someone is aware of it. It would make sense that the less intense someone's devness, the less aware people become of it. And then of course, you quickly get to a point, where people would just never identify themselves as a dev, since it does come with such a negative connotation. If you don't have the kind of strong devness that we have, why on earth would you want to identify yourself as one?

[devogirl]

Men are more likely to admit to being devs and to act on their dev desires. Women are still socialized to repress their sexual desires, especially any desires that are outside the norm, so women are much more likely to hide or deny or not act on dev desires. Also amputee women are by far the most pursued PWD. If any young amputee woman has a social media presence or in any way a public persona (as an activist for example) she has almost certainly been contacted by dev men. While I still think the vast majority of PWDs are partnered with non-devs, an amputee woman may be somewhat more likely to be partnered with a dev. Just a hunch, there haven't been any studies of this.

The fact that this message board has been around for what, over 12 years? and still only has 2500 members TOTAL tells me that the number of devs is tiny. Keep in mind that about half or more members here are PWDs not devs and we average around 100-150 active logins per day. That's nothing. A super popular story on the PD blog will get around 300-400 hits. Again, that's nothing. There are other dev sites online, but we are one of the first that pops up in a google search. Our membership here is small compared to other Proboards communities for things like niche hobbies or cult TV shows that were cancelled for low ratings.

Also I only have anecdotal evidence and word of mouth, but I have heard for years that there are a lot more devs in Germany than in the US.
Maybe German people are more open and accepting of variation in sexual desire? US culture is still very puritanical in some ways--people don't want to admit to desires outside the ordinary. In the past, I assumed that the reason there were not many German devs joining PD was that they were all on German language sites. I'm glad to see such an influx lately of German devs.

[lisa]

As far as I'm aware, there are no German dev sites comparable to PD. There used to be one or two boards, but they usually get overrun pretty quickly by creepy guys.

I have been around the dating site linda is referring to for the past months. It is really *incredible* how many dev men messaged me there. In the course of one or two months, I think it were about 30 guys. (You could ask yourself now, why they are messaging me and if it really is all about "sharing thoughts and experiences". It turns out, that while this might be the case for some, many of them are also pretenders and think that I might be a perfect match for them when they are pretending to be disabled. Well, I had to disappoint them.) Of course, noone of us does have any numbers, but I think that there aren't more male devs than female devs. Female devs just don't "brag" openly about it so often. I also talked to quite a few disabled guys on there and many of them stated to have former experience with female devs who they got to know on exactly this website. That tells me, that there might be as many female devs as male devs around, they just aren't visible as easily.

And I think that devogirl is right about the statistics of PD. While PD of course can only target the English speaking world, about 1000 devs in 12 years is nothing. There are probably many many more than those, but it's still a really small minority. I'm a bit intrigued by all the examples Amee has. I never got such responses. Still, I think the theory about devness being an extreme case of a more general thing of being drawn to vulnerability sounds plausible. (At least for me, because vulnerability in guys is definitely part of my devness, I know that is not the case for everyone.)

(And a side note: For me it doesn't really come down to "normal" body looks or something and it sounds a bit as if this is a theory about non-devs...)

[Deleted]

I think true devs amongst the female population are very rare.
I recently went to a large social event with my partner who is paraplegic and a LOT of women interacted with him.
Initially i thought they were interested in him but as i watched, and when i spoke to him later, a lot of it was caring/mothering. Asking if they could help at all, was he ok etc etc.
There was no flirting or sexual interest.
So whilst he appeared to get a lot of female attention, it was for the wrong reasons.
So i think meeting a real dev is still very rare.

[linda]

Dec 15, 2019 12:37:36 GMT -5 @delight said:

So i think meeting a real dev is still very rare.

I do think that devness is congenital. The reasons given by brinzerdecalli about the roles of men and women in society are very reasonable and may lead to the conclusion that female devs would be less self-aware than males. But I don’t think there really are less female devs.

And yes, lisa , I also very often get approached by male pretenders on that site... Quite frustrating at first (and at second and third also in a way), but at least I came to understand them a bit better than I used to. And most importantly: once more acknowledged the fact that no one of us has a choice... It’s always good to see things from a new perspective.

[Deleted]

I can only speak from my tiny circle of four friends as a statistic that can possibly be applied to the larger population. Out of four I'm the only one who is a dev, the other ones obviously are not and have voiced often enough what kind of men they prefer. When my friend thinks a video with guys dressed in weird little red velvety skirts and Santa hats dancing and shaking their hips with their naked d... swinging around under the little red skirts and she thinks that is hot, I can literally only shake my head. So not hot...beyond my comprehension.

We just had this discussion last week again about the male sexual and reproductive piece 😉 and I was amazed again at how important they think that piece and the way the guy handles it, is for THEIR sexual satisfaction. I can't comprehend, because I don't need that piece for my sexual satisfaction, but I also think that my friends have a warped view of what they think they need for sexual fulfillment.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2019 7:49:01 GMT -5 devogirl said:

Also I only have anecdotal evidence and word of mouth, but I have heard for years that there are a lot more devs in Germany than in the US.
Maybe German people are more open and accepting of variation in sexual desire? US culture is still very puritanical in some ways--people don't want to admit to desires outside the ordinary. In the past, I assumed that the reason there were not many German devs joining PD was that they were all on German language sites. I'm glad to see such an influx lately of German devs.

I do believe it is because Germans are more open about sexuality and nudity and such things. So probably not really more German devs than Americans but most likely just more open about sexuality in various forms. It starts with the way people approach nudity already from a young age on. It is not weird to see toddlers naked in the summer in a pool or at the lake (except for maybe a swim diaper) or women and men enjoying mixed saunas, it's part of the culture really. And Germans say stuff more directly and with that also discuss things more including sexuality.

I have found in the US people are either very extreme or nothing at all, like with drinking or with sexual stuff. There is no good medium. It goes with so many things, like the drinking age for example. You can't legally drink before you are 21 but you can drive at 16 or join the Military.
If you come across some overprotecting parenting, a young kid could literally be listed as a sexual offender if they just happen to expose themselves in doctor play with their friend. There are so many examples I can list. Some of it is ridiculous and it denormalizes sexuality. I had issues like that with my own son getting in trouble in elementary school and it was caused by parents who have a very messed up view of sexuality and what is indecent/criminal and what is natural child behavior and how it should be approached if such things occur.

The extremes are too wide in the US, either too much or not at all, too exaggerated or too neutral, it happens with so many things and sexuality being just one of those things.

[wonk]

I am going on a 10 day cruise next week, there are 6300 passengers and 2300 staff. I will have my Dev radar highly tuned!

[Dr. BiPAP Sachin]

Dec 15, 2019 16:47:39 GMT -5 wonk said:

I am going on a 10 day cruise next week, there are 6300 passengers and 2300 staff. I will have my Dev radar highly tuned!

Bon voyage! Let us, the good folks of PD, know how it goes. 

[brinzerdecalli]

Might I even challenge there is no such thing as a "paradevotee" or any category of near fetish levels, but we just place labels on preferences, because it is all we know to do. By saying there is a spectrum of devos is slightly betraying to the root of "we all like different things". I would not be interested in only who identifies as a devo, but finds people with disabilities of different types attractive. I don't think someone who is into people with a limp from an accident vs completely genetically modified, deformed, and completely reliant on caregivers can be less devo. Nor are people who have actually dated and only find disabled people attractive any more devo than those who fantasize about disabled people but have never acted on these. It's so diverse and needs many categories to do justice to this preference.

I would also actually disagree with you, linda , that being a dev is not nurtured by media and social standards and influences. It may be slightly ingrained to genetics to be able to defy such pressures for conformism, but if everything and everyone said PWDs are sexy AF there would be far more people into disabled people and categorize, even self-identify as a devotee! Sexual/aesthetic preferences are determined by what is ideal for populating, and this is relative to what is told from influencing forces.

[missparkle]

Dec 15, 2019 17:43:54 GMT -5 brinzerdecalli said:

I would also actually disagree with you, linda , that being a dev is not nurtured by media and social standards and influences. It may be slightly ingrained to genetics to be able to defy such pressures for conformism, but if everything and everyone said PWDs are sexy AF there would be far more people into disabled people and categorize, even self-identify as a devotee! Sexual/aesthetic preferences are determined by what is ideal for populating, and this is relative to what is told from influencing forces.

I am afraid that this theory of yours is coming from observing only one aspect of devness, approaching from kink/fetish/sexual/aesthetic angle. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, because devness is that, too. The problem is that devness has many other, psychological, emotional aspects, that are even more important for us devs and troubles us more, in a sense of self acceptance.

Yes, if pwds were more populated, I am sure there will be more people finding it appealing, but that wouldn't make them dev.

[brinzerdecalli]

Oh? missparkle , what other components of devness are separate from preferences? All preferences can and often do have psychological and emotional aspects, but it is the divergence from the mainstream that creates this abstraction and challenge of acceptance of something so normal and natural.

I apologize for my ignorance but would love to understand more!