1st Edition

Queer Crips Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories

By Bob Guter, John R Killacky Copyright 2004
    250 Pages
    by Routledge

    250 Pages
    by Routledge

    Get an inside perspective on life as a disabled gay man!

    Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories reverberates with the sound of “cripgay” voices rising to be heard above the din of indifference and bias, oppression and ignorance. This unique collection of compelling first-person narratives is at once assertive, bold, and groundbreaking, filled with characters—and character. Through the intimacy of one-on-one storytelling, gay men with mobility and neuromuscular disorders, spinal cord injury, deafness, blindness, and AIDS, fight isolation from society—and each other—to establish a public identity and a common culture.

    Queer Crips features more than 30 first-hand accounts from a variety of perspectives, illuminating the reality of the everyday struggle disabled gay men face in a culture obsessed with conformist good looks. Themes include rejection, love, sex, dating rituals, gaycrip married life, and the profound difference between growing up queer and disabled, and suffering a life-altering injury or illness in adulthood. Co-edited by Bob Guter, creator and editor of the webzine BENT: A Journal of Cripgay Voices, the book includes:

    • two performance pieces from acclaimed author and actor Greg Walloch
    • poetry from Chris Hewitt, Joel S. Riche, Raymond Luczak, Mark Moody, and co-editor John Killacky
    • essays from BENT contributors Blaine Waterman, Raymond J. Aguilera, Danny Kodmur, Thomas Metz, Max Verga, and Eli Clare
    • interviews with community activist Gordon Elkins and Alan Sable, one of the first self-identified gay psychotherapists in the United States
    • and much more!
    Queer Crips is a forum for neglected cripgay voices speaking words that are candid, edgy, bold, dreamy, challenging, and sexy. The book is essential reading for academics and students working in lesbian and gay studies, and disability studies, and for anyone who's ever visited the place where queerness and disability meet.

    • About the Editors
    • Contributors
    • Preface
    • Acknowledgments
    • Two Performance Pieces
    • Hustlers: A Buyer’s Guide
    • Sticks and Stones
    • Disability Made Me Do It, or Modeling for the Cause
    • Nasty Habits
    • Piano Bar
    • But I Don’t Like You Like That
    • Working It Out
    • Boy Scout of America
    • Rolling On (from Chapter 3)
    • Careening Toward Kensho: Ruminations on Disability and Community
    • Repetitions
    • How to Find Love with a Fetishist
    • Loving You Loving Me
    • A Meeting with George Dureau
    • Face Value: Text for a Performance Piece
    • Acting for Others, Acting for Myself
    • A Wedding Celebration
    • My Dictionary on Dicks
    • Four Poems
    • On Being (Un)Representative: In Memory of Barbara and Daniel
    • Alone in the Crowd
    • Love Is All Around: My Life As a Married Crip
    • The Boy I Used To Be
    • Homo on the Range
    • Dancing Toward the Light
    • Three Poems
    • Becoming Daddy’s Boy
    • The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues (Chapter 6)
    • Night Murmurs
    • Beginner’s Sex
    • Queer Ducks: An Unlikely Romance
    • It’s All in the Eye: A Deaf Gay Man Remembers His Icons
    • Gawking, Gaping, Staring
    • Destination Bent: The Story Behind a Cyber Community for Gay Men with Disabilities

    Biography

    Authored by Guter, Bob; Killacky, John R