Representing Men
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As I have noted before, there seem to be a lot more photos of women with disabilities looking amazing and sexy, than there are of men. Is the “selfie” trend mostly a woman thing? I don’t know. In any case, that’s why I was so excited this morning to find this Tumblr blog, which is simply photos of men in wheelchairs, in a variety of situations, clothes, and moods. Thankfully, there are no captions, and no obvious point being made, other than to provide representation. Yes, there are all kinds of guys who use wheelchairs. Yes, they do all kinds of things. Yes, they have a variety of personal styles and attitudes. Here they are.
I think this gets at why disabled people who hate “Inspiration Porn” still post and share photos of disabled people. We aren’t inspired by the specific scenes, or by blandly positive slogans, so much as we are tickled to see so many different people with whom we share the disability experience. We don’t all work in the disability field, or have access to a large in-person disability community. Once in awhile, it’s helpful to see confirmation that the statistics are correct … there are a lot of us out there, even if we don’t meet other disabled people most days. And frankly, though I do enjoy looking at those photos of fantastic disabled women, I occasionally feel that the male disabled population is somehow missing from the Internet disability community.
“hot guys in chairs” is a welcome corrective.