[humanser] Blind people and sexual prowess

[Carmella D Broome]

Well, they say perception is reality.  I think that there is a lot of romantic  mystery about blind people. Even though a lot of people respond to us with discomfort or even fear, there are always  those folks who think we have  more intuitive powers, the ability to go straight to knowing someone's soul because we aren't distracted by physical appearances,  are incredibly into our senses of touch and more sensitive to  physical sensations, and so on.   Maybe part of the idea is that blind people are  just waiting  for someone to  give us the opportunity to unlock our pent up sexual  energies.  I have no idea.  I suppose there are much worse stereotypes.    

My hope would be that all of us,  when involved in a relationship,  would strive for communication and understanding and reciprocity. Anyone,  blind or sighted, should want to understand  and  strive to provide what matters to their  partner, sexually and otherwise.  All relationships are about  growth, stretching ourselves, and learning how to   communicate love in a language the other can hear most clearly.  That means, speaking their love language and trying to  help them understand and speak ours. This sensitivity, respect,  and communication can lead to true intimacy on all levels. Obviously, being a good lover is not just  about  skill in bed. Chemistry is either present or just isn't and can be present at different levels.  Emotional closeness and comfort allows many people to feel more able to  be less inhibitted physically and  to explore and  seek to be more and more compatible as a couple in all areas.  Certain skills can be learned, but it is so much more about figuring out what our partner enjoys and how they want to be loved physically and emotionally.  

Maybe writings like this will lead to much more active social lives for some blind folks. Of course, with all those expectations floating around,  there's bound to be some disappointment and  also bound to be some performance anxiety on the part of the blind person expected to be the  world's most incredible lover. 

There have been movies that perpetuate these ideas. Some of them were mainstream and maybe some were, well, not so mainstream. Here is an excerpt from Carmella's Quest  that explains my experience with a guy who seems to have had some of those   sexualized ideas about blind women. 

"Oh, this is my roommate, Carmella. Carmella, this is 
Jimmy." 

"Were you a cheerleader in high school?" he surprised me 
by asking. 

"A cheerleader?" I repeated skeptically. "No, I wasn't." 

"Would you consider being one here?" 

I would have been less surprised if he had asked if I'd ever 
thought about building a house on the moon. I knew my 
personality wasn't suited for cheerleading. I was too serious and 
introverted. But even if I had been the bubbly, energetic type, blind 
girls couldn't be cheerleaders, could they? I'd never heard of one. 
How on earth would someone who couldn't see learn the moves 
and coordination? 

"I've never thought of myself as the cheerleader type," I 
said. 

"Jimmy is a stunt guy with our cheerleaders now," Kelly 
explained. 

"Yeah," he said, "That's why I asked you. I bet you don't 
weigh one hundred pounds. You're the kind of girl that's easy to 
throw around and stuff." 

"Throw around," I said, not comfortable with his choice of 
words. 

"You know, for flips and stunts and stuff. You should think 
about it." 

"Actually, I do weigh more than a hundred pounds," I said, 
hoping my admission would curb his enthusiasm. 

"Not much more," he said confidently, getting up to leave. 
"You're tiny and your height is perfect. Five foot two, right? Think 
about it. See you around." 

I crossed paths with Jimmy several times during the next 
week. He always stopped to chat a minute. I wondered how many 
times I'd been around him and just hadn't known it. It was 
frustrating not to be able to visually identify the people I passed 
every day. This lack of knowledge meant I couldn't take the 
initiative to speak to someone who looked nice or interesting. It 
also meant I couldn't smile or catch the eye of someone looking at 
me if I wanted to encourage their interest. Nor could I observe 
people's interactions, posture, facial expressions, or mannerisms. I 
knew that missing out on these subtle but important clues put me at 
a disadvantage in social situations. 

One afternoon, Jimmy came into the post office as I was 
checking my mail. 

"You know, I started to call you last night." Jimmy said, 
changing the subject. A bunch of us were going off campus for 
dinner, and I was going to ask you to come with us, but I didn't 
have your extension." 

"7301," I told him, slipping an envelope out of my 
mailbox. 

"Thanks. Next time I'll call you." 

Walking back to my room, I couldn't help wondering why 
Jimmy would want to hang out with me. He couldn't really be 
thinking of asking me out, could he? I found the possibility 
intriguing but unlikely. I considered my opinion of myself to be 
pretty realistic, and I knew I wasn't the type of girl most jocks 
were attracted to anymore than I was the cheerleader type. Maybe I 
was stereotyping, but I just couldn't figure out why he would find 
a girl like me particularly interesting. I wondered if he would really 
call-and if I wanted him to. If he did, what would he say? More 
importantly, what would I say? 

He called later that evening. 

"I called because I felt bad about lying to you," he 
explained. "I didn't go out with a bunch of people last night. It was 
just me, and I wanted you to go." 

Did football players always use lines like that? Before I 
could come up with a reply, Jimmy spoke again. 


"Well, I really do want to get to know you better," he said. 
"Why don't we find an empty swing and talk for a little while?" 

Ten minutes later I was slipping my hand around Jimmy's 
massive elbow, and the search for an empty swing began. The first 
two were occupied by couples too intent on each other to notice us. 
As we made our way toward the third and final swing, I 
remembered what Scott always said to Tim and me when he saw 
us walking around together. "Remember, guys, if two people of the 
opposite sex are seen on any combination of swings more than 
three times, they're probably going to get married." 

Unbelievably, the last swing was empty. 

"You know," Jimmy said as we sat down, "I was really 
glad to see you in the cafeteria with Kelly the other day. I've seen 
you around campus all semester and wanted to talk to you, but I 
just was never sure what to say." 

That statement surprised me. Of all the words I would've 
used to describe him, "shy" certainly wouldn't have made the list. 

"I've been telling the guys on the team I wanted to get to 
know you," he went on. "A few years back I saw this movie. I 
don't remember the name of it, but there was this beautiful blind 
girl in it. I was just so fascinated by how she did things. Ever since 
then, I've wanted to get to know a girl like that. Who can't see, I 
mean. The guys don't believe me. They say it's just because you're 
cute." He draped an arm over the back of the swing, brushing the 
bare skin of my upper arm with his fingertips. 

"Tell me about the movie," I said, wanting to try to gauge 
what kind of fictitious image I would be compared to in this guy's 
mind. 

Jimmy proceeded to give me a rapt description of the girl in 
the movie. He talked about how beautiful she was: how she would 
run her fingers over objects and how she seemed so tuned in to her 
sense of touch. He also told me all about how her boyfriend would 
read to her and describe things to her, and put things in her hands, 
and on and on. 

Jimmy continued talking about the movie. "He wanted her 
to experience everything." Her world had been limited to what she 
could hear and touch. He wanted to explain things so she could get 
an idea of what they might look like, even though she'd never 
really seen color or shapes or anything. But then she helped him 
really pay attention to how things felt and to sounds and to 
intuition and stuff like that." 

"It's a gorgeous evening," Jimmy said, "There are so many 
stars out and fireflies, too. Can you see those?" 

"Sure, if they're in a jar or something where I can look at 
them up close, I can see them light up. That's about the closest I 
get to seeing starlight, I guess." 

"It's not the same," Jimmy said. "You need to get to see the 
stars. What about if you had a really good telescope?" 

"I don't know," I said. 

"Maybe I can figure something out," Jimmy said. "Maybe 
they have a telescope in the science department they would let us 
use. I'll ask my general science professor. He doesn't like me 
much because I sleep through his class all the time, but maybe if I 
tell him why I want to use it he'll realize I really am a decent guy." 

I imagined that's what the boyfriend in the movie would've 
said, minus the sleeping-through-class part. 

When we said good night in front of my dorm, Jimmy 
asked me if I were going to the play the school's drama department 
was presenting the following evening. 

"Sure," I said. "It's one of the more painless cultural 
events." 

"No kidding," Jimmy said. "I'd rather go to a play than one 
of those boring instrumental concerts or art galleries. I'll find you 
and we can sit together." 

"That's fine," I said. "See you tomorrow." 

I had a hard time refocusing on my psychology project. I 
wasn't sure how to respond to the evening's events. I still couldn't 
sort out Jimmy's motives. Did he really want to get to know me for 
me or because I was blind? I wasn't comfortable with the idea of 
simply being a means to satisfying his curiosity or of being an 
object of fascination because of preconceived notions. I still didn't 
have enough information to decide whether or not I wanted to 
continue our association, such as it was. "Maybe I'll be able to 
figure things out a little more after tomorrow night," I told myself. 

But Jimmy never showed up for the play we'd talked about. In 
fact, I didn't hear from him again for more than a week. I was 
annoyed by this lack of contact but couldn't quite decide whether I 
had a right to be. It seemed to me that someone who claimed to be 
so interested in getting to know me would have more to say, but 
maybe he'd changed his mind about that. He finally called late one 
evening. He asked me to have lunch with him the following 
afternoon. 

The meal was pleasant enough. Jimmy helped me get 
my tray, and we had a decent conversation. That was the last time I 
ever really talked to him. We had a couple more brief phone 
conversations during the next couple of weeks. After that, our 
contact was limited to short exchanges in passing, and often, 
according to my friends, he'd walk right by without speaking. I 
wondered why he'd decided not to have anything else to do with 
me. Maybe I hadn't responded eagerly enough to his show of 
interest. He was probably used to girls practically throwing 
themselves at him. Or perhaps a real blind girl wasn't as intriguing 
as the fictitious one that had fascinated him so much. 

"You know, I'm sure that blind girl was played by a sighted 
actress," I blurted out while having dinner in the cafeteria with Scott one evening. "No one I've talked to about that movie has 
ever heard of it anyway." 

Scott sighed deeply. "Carmella, can I say something to you 
and be completely honest?" 

"Sure." Recognizing the seriousness of his tone, I put my 
fork down and waited. 

"This is probably going to be a little shocking for you," 
Scott said carefully. "I don't want to ruin all the nice ideas you 
have about your former football player, but I've given this some 
thought." 

"He's not my former anything. What is it?" 

"Porn," he said. 

"Excuse me?" 

"Porn," he said again. 

"What do you mean?" I was genuinely confused. 

"The movie about the blind girl," Scott explained patiently. 
"I think it was probably porn."

"You mean . . . you think . . ." I couldn't finish the 
sentence. As I thought about it, I realized how right Scott most 
likely was. It was true that I knew next to nothing about "that kind 
of stuff." Nothing remotely similar had crossed my mind. I'd just 
thought it was some film that was either really old or obscure, but 
Jimmy didn't seem like the type to be interested in classic or 
independent films-not the kind I was thinking of, anyway. 

"The movie . . . the guy wanted to show the blind girl 
things she'd never experienced before. She taught the guy more 
about the pleasure of touch. She was so beautiful." 

"Right," Scott said. I guessed he'd watched my expression 
change as I considered his hypothesis. "Beautiful and naked." 

"Gross," I finally said. "Well, it did sound like a lame 
plot." 

We ran the idea by Lynn the next day. 

"You think?" She paused for a long moment before 
agreeing. "I think Scott's right. That guy's a weirdo." 

Bryan, as usual, thought it was hilarious. We spent about 
half an hour one night coming up with possible titles for the movie, 
which I shared with Scott and Lynn. Tamer suggestions included, 
"Lust is Blind," "Breasts and Braille," "Sightless Seduction," 
"Blinks in Bikinis," and "Canes and Concubines." 


Carmella Broome, Ed.S., LPC, LMFT/I
Crossroads Counseling Center
www.solutionsforlife.org