The Rite of Spring

It doesn't matter how much you care; a transactional arrangement is always going to feel more hollow than just showing up without money involved, because you want to be there ...

A friend sent this to me because he wanted to know my thoughts on it... I can see why; it was a difficult watch for me at times... It's not an especially good OR a bad film ... but it almost made me cry hot, salty tears at some points (if you've seen the film, you'll get the reference) just because it made me think of my own life, and the way some people might - or might NOT - see me...

Believe me, I get that some able-bodied folk don't see the disabled as having needs and desires of their own... but, being disabled also doesn't give you an excuse to be a perv!

I think about sex all the time, so as soon as I became an adult and lived independently, I got a poster of a topless woman from a men's (non-porn) magazine for my room... I had the courtesy to be discreet and stick it to the inside of my wardrobe door though, because you never know who's going to walk in, and I didn't want anybody to feel uncomfortable... It's no longer there any more; it became ripped and was falling to pieces, so I took it down...

Pictures of topless women ALL over his walls, though?! Just because sex is a void in a person's life, that doesn't make it perfectly legitimate to overcompensate and make a shrine to it? For any woman entering that room, it would be like walking into a garage with nude calendars hanging up, in the late 80's ... That made certain people feel unwelcome in particular spaces, so they were taken down... I know it's his own personal environment - but it still felt awkwardly sleazy.

I guess what I'm saying is; sex is important... but it still felt suspect, somehow, that it was the primary focus of David (also my name!) ... When finding a woman I was comfortable with, I'd happily accept a hug and going to the cinema once a week!

Just because sex is important to me, I don't want certain people looking at me and making the judgement that this is all my soul has the capacity for (and I'm frightened that they do, or did... )

My friend hated the ending, and I can see why... The plot synopsis on Letterbox'd frames it as another case of a person using someone else's disability as the catalyst to make improvements in their own lives...

That didn't bother me so much; I was just troubled by the representation of a disabled person so obsessed with sex, that they think it gives them license to behave in ways that no sensitive person ever would.