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Post by fabie on Apr 29, 2006 9:50:16 GMT -5
My question is... Given the opportunity would you really do a surgery?
I mean in 2000 a scottish surgeon did two leg amputation on people with BIID and even though a surgery to get a SCI is not yet possible it might be in future...
or did you already answer?
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Post by maddie on Apr 29, 2006 9:57:46 GMT -5
I am a devotee but I'venever had the desire to be a pretender/wannabe. I think that people who want to be disabled might feel neglected or unappreciated, and think that having a disability would cause others to pay more attention or act in a more kindly way towards them. I personally think that devoteeism is a little more complicated because there are devotees whose motivation is BDSM or the idea of having a lover who is helpless... and then there are others who admire disabled people for their ability to overcome physical challenges, and there are others who just want somebody to care for.
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Post by obscure on Apr 29, 2006 10:59:23 GMT -5
Maddie, it may not be a great idea for you to say that you've personally never had any experience with the desire and then in the next breath to judge and assume what it's all about. I can tell you that I am pretty damn certain that my desires don't stem from feeling a sense of neglect or wanting to be taken care of more. In fact, I would be just as happy with myself paralyzed and in a chair sitting at home than I would be in front of ten thousand people who all wanted to give me attention. Because for me it really isn't about anyone else or their reactions towards me.
This isn't something that I have actually admitted aloud before, so here we go. Wow, first time. And I'm not really certain I can describe what it's about or why I feel the way I do. All I know is that I've felt it for quite some time now. With me though I have to admit that it doesn't just end at paralysis. Deafness is also in the mix. Which could say something about my personal experiences and further uphold the idea that I was "born to be disabled" in some way.
You see when I was small I was severely hard of hearing. After a round of three surgeries and years and years of being seen by my ENT nearly every two weeks, I'm finally at the point where I can at least pass off as having decent enough hearing. I pass audiological exams, no one considers me to not be perfectly able to hear (though I'm not). Maybe I feel like part of who I was really supposed to be was lost in the surgeries, and am just trying to regain back (with the aspect of me who actually wants to be deaf) what was lost there. I spent a long time finding different ways to relate to the world when I was younger as a result of my hearing difficulties, and maybe now my mind and body are just still confused on what to do with themselves as a hearing person.
For the life of me I don't know what it is about paralysis. I can't point back even to a time where I recognized the desire in myself. I guess I feel some of the ways that have already been expressed by others here. I feel like things are more right when I imagine myself in a chair, I feel that that's what I'm supposed to be doing. When I watch videos of disabled people or read stories on the sight, I do get turned on by the sight of them, but I get turned on also by the thought that that's something I could have. However, it isn't sexual for me. If that makes sense. What's turning me on I think is just the depth of feeling I have for the idea of actually becoming who I think I should be.
I'm afraid I'm rambling and not making much sense, but that's what this topic is to me. It's never made much sense to me. All I know is that it's there in me and it's strong and I've always had the desparate desire to understand it, as well as for others to understand I mean no harm by it whatsoever.
To answer a couple of the questions here, I see myself more as a paraplegic. A T8 complete. And yes, if given the opportunity for whatever reason, I would do it. Certainly a surgery's the least of a long list of highly dangerous things I've considered.
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Post by maddie on Apr 29, 2006 11:06:19 GMT -5
obscure, i'm afraid that i came across the wrong way with what i said. it's true that i don't know too much about pretenders, i only meant that i am guessing a few pretenders are pretenders because of what i was saying - but by no means all. sorry if i offended you
but what i do still assert is that nobody is born being a pretender or devotee and that everyone who is a dev/pretender today is that way because of specific experiences..
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Post by obscure on Apr 29, 2006 11:21:34 GMT -5
Once again I have to say that I can't entirely agree with you on your vast overgeneralization here either. I believe the word transabled has been used in reference to this topic, and I think that's an excellent word to use. As you see most of the people here who are talking about their experiences with it are saying that they feel as though they should have been born disabled, as though it was somehow gotten "wrong" that they weren't. I have spent a lot of time explaining this to myself by using the idea of a transsexual person. Someone who feels so wrong or so uncomfortable with themselves as the gender that they are, who thinks that some mistake was made within their prenatal development that caused them to be the wrong sex. And there is a lot of biological evidence to support some of these ideas. A born-female who produced quite a lot of testosterone when she was developing, but suddenly stopped short and never made it the full way towards becoming a man. A male who just teetered at barely producing enough. I'm probably not the one who ought to explain this as it's been a while since I've taken biology. But suffice it to say, I do NOT believe there is a specific life instance that "changes" a person towards wanting to become a different gender, and I do NOT believe there is a specific life instance that "changes" a person towards wanting to become disabled.
My desires go back absolutely as far as I am able to remember. When I pointed to a specific instance in my post, I did so only to make reference of the thought that something was completely stolen from me. Not the concept that you seem to be wanting to push. I guess if you have to believe in some idea of a tangible life experience then mine IS the moment that my hearing was "restored" and I became a little less in tune with the world that I had already begun to understand and relate to well. I was left completely in the dark with no knowledge of what to do with my "healed" self and a world that I had to completely relearn how to navigate my way through.
I'm not doing a good job of explaining this, I'm certain. This is the first time I have tried to speak on the subject at all, and I think it might be a little too soon. Nineteen years and I still haven't been able to get my thoughts in order. And yes, I said nineteen years there. Nineteen years with me being nineteen years old. Because I still don't believe there was some great moment in my life that "turned me over" to this. It's just always been an awareness that I should be disabled in some manner, that I'm not right when I'm not disabled.
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Post by Sean on Apr 29, 2006 17:05:50 GMT -5
Oh wow! I'm sooooo happy this thread got revived! I'm happy because obscure "came out" Congratulations on this first and uneasy step. @ obscure - You claim, twice, that you don't make much sense in explaining what you said. Perhaps you feel you weren't clear, but I certainly relate 110% to everything you say. Clear as a bell, but then, it might be because I am familliar with the topic, with the feelings involved. In fact, could you please email me sean @ transabled.org (skip the spaces in the address). I would like to discuss with you the possibility of you posting some of your thoughts on my site. Please give me permission to use part of your first response to Maddie? Please please please pretty please? @fabie - Yes, if there was a legal and surgical way to approach this, I would be in line really quickly. I don't believe that surgery for SCI will happen in my lifetime, however. maddie, bit like obscure, I don't think it's about attention, even though at one stage of my thinking I have thought it might have been. Perhaps one small part of it pertains to attention, but it's certainly not a huge factor for me, and I relate very much to this idea of "I'd rather be a para alone at home than an AB getting tons of attention in public". As for "we're not born that way". It is true that it has been proven that some transgendered individual actually *were* born that way. It is a bit harder to claim that you were born with the "paraplegic gene", as there isn't such a gene (although there's spina bifida and a number of other conditions that are similar enough). That said, I'm not convinced I wasn't born this way. But even if I weren't, even if it was "acquired", as obscure points out, it's not one single event that made me the way I am. And to a point, I'm not sure it matters whether I was born this way or formed to be this way. I am the way I am, and short of a lobotomy (or an sci snip), I doubt I'll ever change. And I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy! Well, now *I* have gone on and on a lot... <shrug>
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Post by maddie on Apr 29, 2006 17:10:32 GMT -5
sean, you can use anything i've written, even if it does make me look clueless... i don't mind.
it seems like everything i've been saying on this thread has come out completely wrong, lol. what i meant to say was that not "a specific event", but any series of events or just the way that you were brought up, as opposed to somethign at birth, that causes you to want to be a pretender.
but obscure brought up some really interesting, enlightening points and while i still believe mostly in the nurture rather than the nature, i don't think it'll be easy for any of us to ever know, and that's ok. i guess the how isn't as important, anyway.
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Post by Sean on Apr 29, 2006 18:15:03 GMT -5
i guess the how isn't as important, anyway. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, it's ultra important to understand yourself and have a good feel of where it comes from within you, because it's important to do that no matter what. But how I arrived at the person I am today is, in fact, not too important, because there just isn't any going back
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Ahiru
Full Member
Posts: 135
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Post by Ahiru on Apr 29, 2006 19:45:19 GMT -5
Well done on your first and hardest step obscure. If you feel you want some support feel free to come and introduce yourself at www.ahiruzone.com
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Post by wheelie37 on Jun 12, 2006 0:26:05 GMT -5
That is what I like about this board, we can say how we feel about things and learn a lot about others. Such a positive thing and hopefully people will continue to find us, and even if they are not a pretender/ wannabe, or a devotee etc, they will still find it a learning experience One thing I have noticed is it seems by the postings that it is more men who want to become disabled? Is that because this is a site for wheelers and female devotees? What do you think think?
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Ahiru
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Posts: 135
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Post by Ahiru on Jun 12, 2006 2:19:37 GMT -5
there are more guys then girls who are transabled yes...I don't know about other chicks but I have a lot of guys who assume I'm a fetishest, one guy wanted me to strip in front of my webcam for him.
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Ahiru
Full Member
Posts: 135
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Post by Ahiru on Jun 12, 2006 3:29:42 GMT -5
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Post by Sean on Jun 12, 2006 6:21:01 GMT -5
paul, I'm not convinced that there are more males that need (note, not want) to become disabled than there are women. There are more guys on the web that come "out of that closet", but can we safely assume there are more guys accross the board who are transabled? I'm not sure. For the longest time people thought there were more Male-to-Female transexuals, but in fact, it appears that there are about the same number of Female-to-Male, just that they weren't really a "known phenomenon"... I suspect that's the case at play here. I know that I've come accross more transabled girls in the last few months than in the previous decade. They *are* out there, just not quite as vocal as us guys As for learning more about us, yeah, this forum can be good for that.
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Post by wheelie37 on Jun 13, 2006 1:22:04 GMT -5
paul, I'm not convinced that there are more males that need (note, not want) to become disabled than there are women. There are more guys on the web that come "out of that closet", but can we safely assume there are more guys accross the board who are transabled? I'm not sure. I know that I've come accross more transabled girls in the last few months than in the previous decade. They *are* out there, just not quite as vocal as us guys Thank you for the info, of course we will probably never know until people "come out of the closet" I wonder how many missed opportunities I have had, going out and socialisng, not knowing someone maybe watching me with something more then casual interest or admiration in their eyes I do seem to have a LOT of female "Friends" who come over and give me a kiss when they are passing though! who knows
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Post by Valkyrja on May 10, 2007 1:56:01 GMT -5
What is this?... what extrange language!!.... did you see oriental symbol in the bottom?
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