I’m Coming Out – No More Lies - I’m Out & Proud!

Posted by Larry the Rolling Filmmaker at 2/24/2008 5:49 PM and is filed under uncategorized

I’ve known for years. It came on all of a sudden but after that there was no denying it. I never came out and said it and I think others could tell but they were too scared of saying anything and especially something that would offend me. Women knew for sure. Not all but most never looked at me the same way since. So now the opposite sex and I are like best friends because she never looks at me in a romantic way, no fear of being taken advantage of.  Men obviously know and think the same thing – they see me as no threat to their romantic or sexual relationships with women or the potential relationships to women in the clubs. So there it is and time for me to just say it, the “G” word

out loud

to EVERYONE -





I am a GIMP! That’s right I am a cripple, a paraplegic and proud! Paralyzed from the mid-back, thoracic 7th vertebrae and I don’t care who knows!  
 
Yeah, I know you thought I was going to say something else but my sexual orientation is hetero and I love women, and making love to women. Yes I still can, although it is different but with a little consideration for things such as who’s on top, to the miracle of medication in the pills that claim they can assist even when you’re interrupted during the next 36 hours (although I do not know how it is for able bodied men with ED and if they still need to be stimulated before the magic pill goes into effect – I can say when I have taken it – it would not be good to all of sudden be interrupted and wait), and now thanks to the Intimate Rider adds motion back into the acts and eliminates the given of who is on top. Still for me it is still a personal choice of intimate relationships and either way the best part for her is that I am not in any hurry to get to my own pleasure as with the assist of the medication mentioned above only makes for a empty attached tool there is still no sensation below the waist! It is more Tantric then Kama Sutra although both are incorporated as I derive pleasure from giving pleasure so the excitement for me is exploring where and what is going to give her the best to be satisfied. And she is under no pressure to pull a Meg Ryan in “Harry Met Sally” way and instead can act and react to the erotic map that I am exploring and that doesn’t matter how long it takes!   
 
Well it is often a subject that comes up early on when first meeting people – first is “How did you wind up in a wheelchair?” and then usually sex or sometimes indirectly using another issue that is also of interest and that is how to go to the bathroom! Subjects I just love to talk about when in public or parties! But you know what – all of this is part of the authentic voice – that can only be written by a person who has experienced it – not an able bodied person who watched a movie by other able bodied people or even by merely reading this blog. Would a movie where this was authentically represented help in society’s opinions, and in the able bodied interacting with those with a disAbility in public or a crowded party? Lessen the awkwardness that the able bodied and the disAbled have with one another thereby opening a more inclusive and accepted way of life for everyone?    
 
Okay now that that I have your attention and provided this but one example of the issues that deserve an authentic voice, it is probably no surprise how I am frustrated and don’t know how to express it – this serious issue of disabled culture and voices and having people who have no idea what it is like to live with a disability, especially one that is as dramatic as being paralyzed – representing me and all of us with a disability in today’s entertainment.
 
It seems there is a haven for those who are different getting a welcomed embrace, an honest and sincere acceptance, and the heart felt support from the entire Hollywood community. Gays, lesbians, transgenders, black, brown, yellow, purple, and even green. And that could be taken in two ways, the green movement of environmental activists and as I intend it to reference Kermit the Frog’s honest song, “Being Green” or “It’s Hard Being Green” that I can so relate to. And despite that everyone of the afore mentioned minorities also have members within the disability community as whether you are born with it or is acquired later in life through disease or injury, disability does not discriminate and affects all races, nationalities, genders, social & economic class, all ages, all orientations, all political groups, all creeds as nobody is immune to the possibility of a disability – yet Hollywood feels that it is ok and completely accepted to allow someone without a disability to nearly always be the voice and deny us representing ourselves with authentic voices and portrayals.   
 
It doesn’t matter that I cannot suddenly just come out and proclaim how I am different from the majority and how I feel about the social and economic disadvantages that are imposed on me and how I have to deal with them. How as I mentioned above even some of the basic human needs and desires do not get dismissed because they are never even considered – as a wheeler I am rarely considered a romantic and certainly not a sexual being, although I am certainly both. But those things are not important to us as human beings, right? Not important issues in our society and our culture. Sex is not important unless of course your orientation is different from the majority. Then the often scorned and forbidden love and the physical expression of it is embraced and even celebrated as “everyone is important” in Hollywood and its products that give voice to it.
 
But even with the very little representation those with a disability get in movies and television – we have to be content with able bodied writers, directors and actors being our voice and our representatives. Let me put this in a way that Hollywood feels is much more important – it is like having a Republican give voice and representation as a Democrat in the halls of Congress. Would that be fair? Would you feel comfortable with that? And what if that was the case in nearly every single case? Now do you feel where I am coming from?
 
Most of Hollywood that I have dealt with over the years somehow does not think this is a problem. As was pointed out to me from the personal opinion of a staff member (I can only assume as he was the one that answered the phones) at James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment made it perfectly clear. Yet in my final question to him do you think for one moment that you as an able bodied person can understand what I go through every single day as a paraplegic, he did answer no, yet somehow it is still okay by him that someone like himself was the writer, director and actor of a paraplegic character being represented on the screen.
 
Well, Hollywood, I am out and I am going to make this authentic voice and representation despite how you feel. And if you keep making me feel that my art is worthless  as anybody can represent what I do as a writer and director, and as a person who has no rights to express an authentic voice of those with a disability, then instead of the hundreds of phone calls, letters, faxes, emails that I have been sending you to bring attention to this, then I am going to come knocking on your doors – at your Producer/Production company offices, and at the Big 6 Studio executive’s office with a camera of my own and with your names proudly displayed on screen to ask just one question, where are the representation of your audience – the segment of 56 million Americans, a full 20% of our population, the one in four American households that have a person with a disAbility in YOUR MOVIES?
 
Anybody want to talk, just talk about this BEFORE it comes to this?   

 

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