Disability and Dating: What is a devotee?

Devotee – a person attracted to disability.

When I first heard about this I was confused on why someone would be creeped out or offended by someone being attracted to disabled people or seeking out a disabled partner. I mean that sounds awesome right? If you’ve dived into the world of dating with a disability even a little bit you know that there are extra obstacles and things you have to think about.

I thought to myself, that sounds rad I don’t have to have that thought in the back of my head that “oh gosh did I disclose too much too early / have I waited too long to say anything?”   I was offended by someone saying it was bad because I was reading it in the lens that some people believe that you have to have a “fat fetish” in order to be attracted to a fat person or how some people believe you are a traitor for dating interracially and so on.  I thought it was a way of someone saying there is only one type of beautiful.

  A fetish is not about an attraction to what society deems “abnormal” it is a sexual fixation on one thing in fact a couple synonyms for fetish is fixation and obsession.   When I read this I thought it was something more along the lines of a positive personality trait that they have found certain disabled people tend to have. For example they say people with chronic pain/illness tend to be more grateful and appreciate the simple things in life.  Or maybe something as simple as they have a beloved disabled friend or family member and are more prone to dating disabled people because of that experience.

But anyways if you watch the above video you’ll see that this is different. To make it more clear it’s not a person attracted to disability…. It’s a person who’s  sexually attracted to watching a disabled person struggle and/or attracted the mobility device/medical equipment themselves. In other cases they are attracted to the different body shapes some disabled people have, which I think in some ways it's positive but others are negative.

I’d be really really uncomfortable if I was dating someone who got off from me struggling to walk, passing out, or writhing in pain.   This type of attraction is voyeuristic and seems troublesome to me because I can imagine that a devotee might pressure or force their disabled partner to do something they struggle with – making their life harder.  I don’t know I’m sure it depends on the person…. I highly doubt that all devotees try to put extra stress on their partners as some disabled people recommend relationships with devotees.

On the other hand I do like the idea of a person liking my mobility devices since I have to use them almost all the time and there are some people out there that can totally disqualify you solely for your mobility devices or even be embarrassed to be seen with you although that isn't all cases. But at the same time I get the message that they are more attracted to the object itself rather than the person and I would want to be wanted for me not my cane/wheelchair.

 I think another plus of devotees is if your disability makes your appearance different than an able bodied person like amputees or people with different conditions that affect skeletal structure. I can imagine with the way societal beauty standards are that could add another bump in finding a partner and could also make it harder to be confident than someone who has the skeletal shape of an able bodied person but requires mobility devices. I've read some stories on a disabled guy with a different skeletal structure who dated a devotee girl and it really helped his self esteem because she was attracted to his shape. But should being attracted to a non-normative body shape really be considered a fetish? That sounds awfully offensive.

I'm on the fence about devotees! The main thing is that someone should love you for you,
it may be a big part of our lives but it’s only a small part of who we are as people. So there are some pros and cons to this..... Thoughts?