Being both blind and gay has given Yvon Provencher of Montreal a somewhat unique perspective on the world.
“One night I went to a club in the Village, and someone who worked there came up to me and said, ‘Do you realize where you are?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘You're in a gay bar.’ And I said, ‘I know.’ And he said, ‘So you want to be here?’ And I replied, ‘Yeah.’ Only at that point did the bar employee seem to get it.”
Sex is somewhat mysterious for all blind people, and even more so for people who are gay or lesbian and blind. Blind people are often not told about the mechanics of sex as teenagers, as there is an almost universal perception that people with disabilities are asexual, and as such many blind individuals reach adulthood without ever fully understanding even the basics. It’s not something that’s really spoken about in an informative, responsive way outside of sex-ed classes. When blind people do pipe up the courage and ask, and when even more unusually someone actually takes time to answer their questions, it’s inevitably explained to them as something that won’t happen for them, that exists for ‘normal’ people. But blind people experience the same urges and desires as sighted people, albeit slightly differently.
Imagine the frustration, and then imagine that frustration compounded by not being able even to find out by other means. There certainly isn’t much available Braille erotica out there (yes, I can hear the sniggers…) and a blind person can’t furtively browse the top shelves of the bookstore or newsstand. Blind individuals often have no idea that such things as phone sex lines or massage parlours exist. Add to this an awareness of homophobia, and an exploration of sexual identity becomes even more enigmatic for gay blind people. Coming out is frightening even for sighted gay and lesbian people.
When Robert Feinstein was a senior at college, he wanted to go to a meeting of the gay and lesbian student’s association on campus, but was afraid to ask for directions to where the meetings were taking place, because he feared the responses of fellow students to someone who was both blind and gay. Just as for sighted gay and lesbian people, adolescence and early adulthood often mean trying to hide in heterosexual relationships for blind queer people. Provencher says, ironically, his blind status has protected him from homophobic violence in the past. For years, he wore either a pink triangle or a rainbow symbol on his lapel. ‘Sometimes, there would be tense moments when people would see them and threaten me,’ he says. ‘Then they'd realize I was blind and back off. There's something in our society which says you shouldn't beat up disabled people, so that would put an end to it.’
So how do you do it? Most of us can’t even imagine sexual attraction without sight. ‘Once you turn off the lights,’ says Provencher, ‘there's little difference.’ Attraction exists without sight, sighted people just tend to forget that. The sound of a voice, the significant silences, the sense of proximity to another body, the scents, the idea of seduction or strength… sexual attraction is a many faceted thing. ‘It is different in a way, I guess,’ Provencher concedes. ‘The glance, the smile, there's something very visual about sex. That it's not there can be very disconcerting for some.’
Provencher's blindness does raise some obvious questions though, most specifically: how does a blind man cope among other gay men, who are so notoriously looks-obsessed? ‘Gay men are men. It's about being male. Men seem to be more visually oriented than women. I do have a different perspective and that's partly related to being blind. I'm not so much into physical appearance. But if I were sighted I'm sure I'd look at men for their bodies too. I realized at a certain point that how you look can affect how people interact with you. For me, clothes were just a matter of not being cold. All that colour coordination for me was very complicated. There was something very superficial about it all. After a time, I stopped fighting it as it was going to be there all the time whether I liked it or not.’
Robert Feinstein sees the gay and lesbian community as discriminatory toward blind people. ‘I remember my excitement when my guide dog and I set out for our first gay bar’ he reported in a Montreal magazine in 2000. ‘We got off the subway at Christopher Street, a street in the heart of Greenwich Village. I asked for directions to the bar, but once inside, I realized that this wasn't going to work… the noise level was incredible! I couldn't hear a thing. And because I couldn't see, I had no idea what was going on around me. I was basically rendered deaf and blind because of the noise level. I sat at the bar, and felt worse and worse as time went by. Nobody tried to talk to me. I finally got the courage to tap the person next to me, and to try to strike up a conversation. The guy was polite, but after talking with him a while, he told me he was with someone.
‘I realized that I had no way of knowing who was alone, who was with someone, and what was going on. I went to other bars on subsequent days, but… unfortunately, the same thing happened. I was shown to a seat, and there I stayed. Nobody came over to talk to me. I finally left and vowed I would never try to meet gay people in this way… I was feeling worse about being blind and being gay than I ever had in the past’. He notes a difference in attitudes towards those whose blindness is a complication of HIV and those who have been blind for life: ‘Many people with HIV suffer visual problems but are looked after within the gay community, and yet blind and vision-impaired people who have not become so from medical complications are often made to feel that they do not belong.’
Don’t read this and think it’s all woe and worry, however. This is not an article about disempowering gay and lesbian people who are blind; it’s not about pity or PC. This is about remembering that whether we can see or not, whether we can hear or not, whether we can walk or not, we are all human beings with the same needs, desires, wants, dreams and hopes, whatever our sexual orientation. Blindness holds up a mirror to society, and can teach us much about ourselves that those ‘privileged’ with sight are, ironically, unable to see, such as how we treat each other, what we take for granted, how we can do things in new ways and ultimately what it is to be human. An anonymous quote on BFLAG (Blind Friends of Lesbians and Gays)’s website says: ‘Someone once thanked God for making him blind so that his soul could see. I have come to believe that there is a lot of truth in that.’
DannyR
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