Sex Gets Real 155: Andrew Gurza on sex, disability, Orphan Black, & flirting

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Andrew Gurza is here this week talking all about sex and disability. We geek out over Orphan Black, talk about his hashtag #diSAYbled, dive into body politics and ableism, and explore his experiences with sex and masturbation.

It’s such a delightful conversation full of giggles and the kind of awkwardness and realness that I adore.

We also talk about hook-up culture and how difficult it can be to communicate around needs and desires, especially for gay men. We explore what it means to be “too much” and also the institutional ableism around insisting that folks with disabilities need a cure.

I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Follow Dawn on Instagram.

In this episode, Andrew and I talk about:

• Orphan Black and Andrew’s recent opportunity to be in a room with the cast as they did a reading. SOOOOO geeking out.
• Sex and disability, and Andrew’s #diSAYbled hashtag and why it’s so important to share experiences and conversations around disability.
• Why Andrew dislikes the clean, sexy, slick version of marketing and selling sex, and what he prefers instead.
• Vulnerability and awkwardness and why we love it so much.
• Why Andrew finds dating men so exhausting and how terrible gay men are at communicating. Queer men are great at talking about dick size and hook-ups, but talking about needs and wants and feelings? Nope.
• Body image fascism and how we need to expand what kinds of bodies are seen as sexual and sexy.
• What makes sex good for Andrew and why good sex is often less about sex and more about connection. We dig into the emptiness that can happen after a hook-up, especially for folks in marginalized bodies.
• Being seen and why that’s so sexy – especially if you’re disabled, fat, queer, or a POC.
• Being touched by sex workers and connecting with ourselves through working with a professional.
• The pain of seeing a therapist who is not disability informed or kink informed or trauma informed and the emotional labor of having to educate them instead of experiencing the support you need. Andrew wants more support groups and peer-led community around sharing experiences with people who get it rather than being diagnosed by someone who will never understand.
• Institutional ableism and the medical community’s obsession with “curing” disability. We need to be asking how disability feels and leave space for people who are not interested in being “fixed” or “cured.”
• Gay-straight alliances and why we need disabled-able bodied alliances in schools and for young people to help combat the ableism and othering of kids with disabilities.
• How to get Andrew’s pants off in a heartbeat by asking real, genuine questions about his body and his disability. I couldn’t stop laughing.
• Why fucking up but trying is so much more important than being too scared to have the conversation or ask the questions and then never learning or growing. We all fuck up – we all say ableist or racist or sexist shit until we learn how to do better. But we have to be willing to take that risk and mess up in order to get better.
• Flirting and what it means for Andrew. It’s endlessly delightful. There’s even a Parks and Rec reference.
• Devotees and being fetishized as a disabled person. Andrew has some fun thoughts, and also shares how he fetishizes himself as a way to embrace his disability.
• How Andrew has been able to masturbate himself for most of his life, but in the past few months that has changed and he can’t masturbate himself any longer. The post on his blog is beautifully vulnerable.
• The ONE thing Andrew wishes people knew about sex and disability. Also, we wax poetic about porn that incorporates his wish, and you know I’m all about making porn that’s super hot and inclusive.

About Andrew Gurza

Andrew Gurza is a Disability Awareness Consultant and Cripple Content Creator working to make the lived experience of queerness and disability accessible to all. His written work has been featured in Huffington Post, This Magazine, The Advocate, Everyday Feminism, Mashable, and Out.com. He is the host of DisabilityAfterDark: The Podcast to Shine a Bright Light on Sex and Disability available on iTunes. You can find out more about his work at www.andrewgurza.com or connect with him on Twitter @andrewgurza.

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!

Hey everyone, it is another episode of Sex Gets Real. This week, I have Andrew Gurza joining me. But before we dive into Andrew and who he is and what he does, I wanted to remind you that Patreon supporters of the show not only have access to see an exclusive clip of the porn that I got to make at Erotic Film School last week with Andre Shakti and James darling. But I just announced that on April 17, we will be having a Sex Gets Real pajama party online. So if you support at the $3 level or above, you will get access to the link to join in the fun, it’s going to be at 8pm Mountain Time, which is 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern if you’re in the U.S. and Canada. On April 17, we’re going to spend an hour just hanging out online. I will answer your questions, we can geek out over whatever is going on in your lives, we can talk about who you’d love to see or hear on the show in the coming months. We can just spend some time being ourselves and hanging out. So if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. You can’t search for it, because it’s sexually related content and like every place on the interwebs, they block us in so many ways. So you actually have to type in the URL of patreon.com/sgrpodcast, but you can support in a variety of levels. If you do $3 or more than you get access to this online PJ Party where we’re going to hang out and have fun. Of course, you can check out that clip from Erotic Film School. 

Dawn Serra: So, this week, we have Andrew Gurza joining the show. It is such a fun chat. I was grinning from ear to ear for so much of it. Let me tell you a little bit about who Andrew is and then we will jump into the episode. 

Andrew Garza is a disability awareness consultant and cripple content creator, working to make the lived experience of queerness and disability accessible to all. His written work has been featured in Huffington Post, This Magazine, The Advocate, Everyday Feminism, Mashable, and Out.com. He’s the host of Disability After Dark, the podcast, to shine a bright light on sex and disability which is available on iTunes. We talk all about sex and disability, and fetishism and body politics, and ableism. We also geek out about Orphan Black and he compares himself to Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec in this really sweet part where we were talking about flirting. 

Just a quick note, about halfway into the interview, my mic fizzled out and got this terrible echo, which I did cut out, but I switched to a different mic. The sound is just a little bit muted for the second half of the show for me, so you’ll hear a different sound. But this is just an episode that I’m super excited for everybody to check out. So let’s dive into this week’s show. 

Dawn Serra: Welcome to the show, Andrew. I’m super excited to have you here.

Andrew Gurza: I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Okay, before we get into all the things I want to talk to you about, I have to super freak out for a minute and say, I saw that you got to be in a room with the Orphan Black cast.

Andrew Gurza: I died.

Dawn Serra: Oh my god, I would die.

Andrew Gurza: I died. It was so amazing. They had a live reading at the beginning of this month in Toronto, and I just decided back in February. I was like, “Oh, the tickets are 50 bucks. I’m totally going to go.” And I went. I didn’t get to meet any of them or anything, but it was literally like, “Oh my god. You’re in a room with me talking about Orphan Black.” It was literally great. I love that show to a point of, “Why does it have to end?”

Dawn Serra: I know. I don’t know what I would do with myself if I had a chance to be in a room with all of them. This isn’t even remotely comparable but last year, I spoke at a Gender and Technology Conference, and one of the talks were these two PhD candidates and their entire PhD was about Orphan Black.

Andrew Gurza: That’s amazing.

Dawn Serra: I know. So they showed all these clips from the show and they were doing all these analysis on eugenics and sexism within Orphan Black. I geeked out so much over that, but to actually be in a room with them would be amazing.

Andrew Gurza: You know what’s funny, my friend’s brother was on stage with them. My friend’s brother, his name was Nick Rose– Hi, Nick, if you’re listening. He’s Colin the morgue tech from season one. He was there doing a bunch of voices because they couldn’t get the whole cast. So he was setting in for them. I was like, “Oh my god, it’s you and you get to speak with them!” I geeked out, that’s my show. I guess the reason why I love that show so much is because as somebody who has felt othered that showed, I don’t know, it just speaks to that part of myself. I’m like, “Yeah, I totally identify with all this.”

 

Dawn Serra: Yeah, there is so much about the show and how smart it is, and the diversity of the personalities and the characters. I mean, you can’t go wrong with Tatiana, the way she portrays all of those different roles. It’s amazing.

Andrew Gurza: I mean, it was so cool because you think they come out wearing proper evening attire because it was an event, they came out in sweats. I was like, “Oh, my goodness. I love you even more.” It was so relaxed and comfortable. We went and it was supposed to finish around 11:30 – no 10:30, and they went for another hour and a half because people were like, “I have 1000 questions!” Tatianna said, “Can we just let it go over for a while?” Everyone was like, “Yeah!”

Dawn Serra: That’s so incredible. Oh my gosh, I am envious in the most loving way because that sounds fantastic.

Andrew Gurza: We could do a whole podcast about that show, that’s how much we love it.

Dawn Serra: Oh my God, for sure. So I know that you just said that one of the reasons you’ve loved Orphan Black is because you have this feeling of otherness and that that show allows for some of that to come out. So for our listeners who aren’t familiar with you, would you share a little bit about your story?

Andrew Gurza: Sure. My story has a few different facets. I am 32, I live with a disability. I live with cerebral palsy. I’m not ambulatory, so I’m a wheelchair user. I work primarily as a disability awareness consultant, which is the term that I apparently stole from other people who are doing it. But I am a disability awareness consultant and cripple content creator. So I work primarily in the world of disability and queerness and sexuality and all those things. Really, I am a queer man with disabilities and I refer to myself quite openly as a queer cripple. Some people find that term offensive, but I find it is really empowering because it turns all of that stuff – all the shame, all the fear, all the anger around different bodies and otherness on its head. I wear that label quite proudly.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I know that so much of what you have been doing especially lately with disabled is being unapologetically vocal about your disability and your experience with disability, and naming the things that people are hesitant to talk about or are scared that they’ll fumble; and being ultra vulnerable and upfront about it. 

Andrew Gurza: I think that it disabled came to me because I had seen some really cool campaigns like Disability is Not A Bad Thing by my friend Karen Hitselburger, I think that’s how you say her last name. She’s a really prominent disability activist, and has written some really great stuff around that. So I saw what she was doing and I love the idea of playing with language and playing with the words, and playing with disability branding. Because I find that a lot of stuff around disability branding is so boring, so bland, and so, “Let’s talk about access,” and, “Let’s talk about not seeing the disability,” and “Let’s talk about all this other stuff that isn’t really related to the lived experience.” I just wanted to play with that. 

One day, I was sitting right where I am right now and I was sitting in my computer being like, “What if I play with the word? What if I said ‘Disabled’?” I was like, “Wow, it’s a thing!” Then I turned it into a thing and said, “Let’s roll with it.”

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I love it. Everyone who’s listening knows that vulnerability and awkwardness are totally my jam. 

Andrew Gurza: It’s my jam, I’m there with you.

Dawn Serra: Yes, exactly. I want all of us to get better at vulnerability and resilience, and also living in the awkward. Because I feel like we spend ridiculous amounts of time in our lives trying to avoid feeling or being awkward, and the reality is we just have to be awkward. So much of your blog, specifically, and also the things that you do are just being so upfront about the awkwardness and the vulnerability and your experience with your body and sex, your experiences with people that you’ve had sex with and lovers. I adore that so much of, “Let’s sit in this uncomfortable place and see what happens.”

Andrew Gurza: Yeah, I mean, I sit there all the time. I think so much of discussions around sex generally are clean, they’re slick, they’re sexy. They’re marketed that way. I’m like, “Oh no, no. Let’s get into the dirty stuff.” I don’t mean dirty like sexy dirty. I mean the dirty, nitty gritty stuff, and sit there with the stuff, and be uncomfortable with the stuff. Let’s talk about what that feels like. Because what I learned in my work all the time, whenever I give a talk or whenever I get feedback on anything I do, people go, “I never really thought about that.” It’s mostly because they were too afraid to. I’m not afraid to because it’s my life.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I totally agree with you. One of my missions in life as a sex educator is to push against that polished, plastic wrapped version of sex of where like, “If you know the perfect technique for something, then sex will never be awkward and you’ll always be amazing.” Or “If you wear a certain type of clothing or lingerie, nobody will ever judge your body.” Instead saying, “No, we’re all struggling and we all have feelings about our bodies.” Specifically for me, as someone in a fat body, my body is not represented out in the world as sexy and so how do we start naming those things? 

I see you doing the exact same thing with your experience of sex and disability, and just like, “I’m not seeing myself represented. So let me show you what my experience is,” and how you can still have these experiences in a body and an experience that a lot of people would try to either ignore or invisiblize.

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. I love the fat body movement and people talking about being fat, and saying the word fat in an empowering way. I think it’s so important because – I’m a queer man, but I don’t and cannot fit that very particular aesthetic of white cisgendered able-bodied, down to fuck all the time, kind of aesthetic and so I have a bit of a belly and I own that. I own that as part of my experience, too, which is why I also sometimes use the #bearinthechair hashtag. Because I just think it’s fun to play with that. It really makes people talk about a different body. I think fat body politics and talking about that is really, really cool.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, there was actually a phrase that I saw in a description for a documentary that you were in that said, “Gay body image fascism”, which I loved. I know you’ve also talked about a lot of the masculinity myths, and ideals that exist within gay and queer men’s culture; and these expectations of how sexy gay bodies should look and how gay men are supposed to interact, and how queer men are supposed to show up in spaces – turning that on its head and saying, “No, I’m sexy and I can exist in this body, and I don’t have to conform to those ideals.” 

Something else that you wrote about that I love, too, is you were talking about how exhausting dating can be because it reminds you of how many men are terrible communicators. I thought that was really interesting too – just the socialization around emotional intelligence and empathy and communication, right?

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. I mean, gay men, queer men – men generally, but especially in my experience, queer men will talk to you if you are engaged in very particular types of queerness. So if you’re down to fuck, we can talk about dick size and cock size and all the things we want to do to each other. That’s a really easy conversation. But I really want to have a conversation with you about what I need from you or what I want from you from the experience, all of a sudden, you shut down. Because, “Oh my goodness, I’m asking you for too much. I’m asking you to be a person with me and I’m going to get naked with you.” 

People say to me all the time when I talk about what I’m looking for in a lover or partner or some kind of quasi-romantic thing that I want to do, they’ll say, “Oh, no. Don’t expect too much.” I’m always like, “Why? Why can’t I expect something? Why aren’t I allowed to have expectations?” So people will also tell me that because I’m disabled, sometimes they ask for too much. I’m always like, “No, I don’t think it’s too much.” I think that we’ve been so conditioned to believe that we’re not supposed to ask for things when it comes to partners. We’re supposed to just be grateful that they’re there and I don’t really believe that’s true.

Dawn Serra: Oh my god, I love that so much. I’m like, “Oh my god, my brain must go 7000 places.” I think that that narrative around, “We’re supposed to just be grateful and we’re not supposed to ask for things” is especially true for people who are not white, cis male, able-bodied human, right? So if you’re a woman, if you’re trans, if you’re queer, if you’re disabled, if you’re in a fat body – it’s like, “Because you’re not considered sexy, so your currency is therefore culturally lower. You should just be grateful that someone’s even showing up.” So then when you start actually asking for things, it starts to feel like this too much phrase, which I hate so much. You’re so right. Oh, go ahead.

Andrew Gurza: Does that happen in your experiences as a fat person? Do you feel the same kind of thing just over lap, the feeling of being too much?

Dawn Serra: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There’s this feeling I’ve had in the past, especially within hookup situations of like, “You should feel grateful that I’m having sex with you.” So then because I spent so much of my life internalizing that I wasn’t lovable or sexy, or fuckable because of the body that I’m in, I agreed with that. I didn’t ask for the things that I wanted and I ended up in situations that often didn’t feel good, because I wasn’t asking for what I wanted. Because I was just feeling like, “Well, if this person’s showing up and I’ve been told no one else is going to, then I guess I should go with this.”

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. I mean, that feeling – if I’m really, really honest right now, I haven’t had a lot of good sex. I’ve had a lot of sex, but I have had very rarely good sex. It is because of that, “Well, no one else is showing up so I guess I better do this because I want to have that relief and feel that emotion, so I’m going to do it because I think I’m supposed to.” But if I really thought about the majority of my sexual partners, if I really narrowed it down, I probably wouldn’t have slept with a lot of them because it wasn’t what I wanted.

Dawn Serra: When you think about those instances when sex has been good, what does that look like for you?

Andrew Gurza: Actually, not a lot of sex. A lot of emotional – like, “Let’s hang out.” “Let’s flirt.” “Let’s make out a little bit.” Maybe we won’t have sex and maybe we will. It’s not really about sex so much that is about like, “Let’s connect.” The issue with, I think, a lot of queer male on male sex, in my experience, is that it’s really hookup based. It’s really much like, “Hey, you’re five feet from me on an app, why don’t I come over and suck your dick and then I’ll never see you again.” That kind of stuff. I did it a lot in my 20s, that was a lot of my – pretty much the majority of my sexual encounters in my 20s was that. That’s not really what I’m looking for. I’m looking for more like, “Let’s hang out, let’s nerd out together. Let’s sit and spend an hour talking about Orphan Black, then maybe we’ll make out or maybe we won’t.” But if there’s a sense that I might see you again, that’s more important to me that if you would get your dick out and we have sex.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think you’re so right. When I think about transcendent sexual experiences or moments of intense pleasure with another human being, it was about that connection and feeling seen and less about the fact that body parts were doing X, Y, Z.

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. You talk about being seen as a disabled person, and I’m sure you know that as a fat-identified person, being seen is so critical. When you get a glimpse of that from somebody even if there’s no sex happening, when you get a glimpse of being seen, that is the sexiest feeling you could ever have. Because you’re like, “Wow, you saw me for real and you didn’t run away. What the fuck? Okay.”

Dawn Serra: You actually wrote about something that was really powerful. So, a couple of years ago, I went to a sacred intimate, and I had this really beautiful experience with this sex worker, who allowed me to be touched and to receive in a way that felt really radical for me. You’ve written about an experience that you had with a sex worker, and at least from what I read and what you wrote about, it seemed like this really beautiful experience of being seen and held, and centered in this exchange. I frequently recommend to listeners that they seek out a professional when they are in a variety of circumstances, but I’d love to know a little bit more about where you are now with that experience and maybe share what feels good about that.

Andrew Gurza: That experience was great. Unfortunately, the individual and I don’t speak anymore, things broke off after that and we don’t have the happiest relationship to each other. But the event itself was important for me. It was something that happened after a 10-month inability to access sexuality for myself. So I really took it upon myself to engage in that experience and to own the fact that I was going to hire this person and this was for me, to reconnect with myself, and reconnect with my sexuality. That’s what I love so much about that experience was that I got to finally be touched and finally reconnect with what made me feel sexy.

I think that because of the the personal issues that I have with the the worker in question, me and sex work, it’s a weird thing again because I am one of those people that gets really attached to people even though they’re doing it professionally. My emotional attachment is like “Wow, we did a thing now we have to be the best of friends.” So I haven’t engaged in it since then, I would love to again, but I would need to really sit with the worker and talk about my emotional availability and all those things. Because that experience was so powerful for me that it knocked the professional relationship off course, and that was problematic I think for both of us.

Dawn Serra: I love that you are able to name, looking back, your needs around your emotional attachment and being able to set those expectations. I mean, I think that’s something that all of us need to examine, whether we’re in long term relationships or friendships or, going through hookups. I’ve had a number of listeners write in who have felt really hurt by hookup situations, because afterwards there was zero communication and they felt like they had this beautiful exchange. So now they wanted something more afterwards. Even just being able to articulate that, I think is so important.

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. I mean, something more, I think, for disabled people or anybody who’s othered engaging in sex, the whole idea of sex is okay – to be sexualized is fun and great, and important, but I feel like a lot of the times after you have sex as a person who’s been othered you feel empty. Because like, “Okay, so I did the thing. Great. What about the rest of it?” For me, I’ve never been in a long term relationship. I’ve never had somebody say, “Hey, I want to get to know you outside of being naked with you sexually.” So I am always constantly searching for a little bit more and a little bit like, “What comes after me sucking your dick? What comes after being naked? What’s the rest of that?” So hookups and that experience with the sex worker was great and I will never forget it. But because I didn’t get the more, it almost felt like, “Oh, okay, so I did it great. But what comes next?”

Dawn Serra: That’s a really good question to be able to ask yourself and also to ask people that you’re engaging with, of, “What comes next is important to me. So can we talk about that before we get to a point where I feel empty?” I’m not even sure how I feel about that encounter anymore. Something else that you wrote that’s a little bit in this vein that I really connected with is you were talking about how you had gone to a therapist and you were talking about your experience with sex and relationships, and your disability; and that this therapist at the end of you sharing all of these things, and wanting this help and support, had no idea of how to support you because they hadn’t worked with somebody who had cerebral palsy or had a disability the way that you do. And this education you had to do with the therapist. I know, I’ve had to educate therapists before about kink, and how emotionally exhausting that is to go to someone for support around these issues that we already feel sensitive around, and then have to educate the professional we’re going to.

I know you are specifically calling for – there are no visibly disabled therapists that you have access to, and to have therapists who really don’t understand disability and the way that you move through the world is hard. I’d love to know what has happened since you wrote about that? Have you had anybody come forward or have you met any therapists who are disabled? I know that a lot of people that listen to my show are professionals. So I want them to have that seed of, “Don’t put the emotional labor on the person that’s coming to you when this kind of thing comes up.”

Andrew Gurza: Actually, because I posited that in Canada, we had the Bell let’s talk day, a few months ago, to talk about mental health. So I was planning on doing a bunch of tweets about that. I was saying all there. I was reiterating – do you know disabled therapists? People were saying actually there are, but it’s hard for them to get into the market because of disability and accessibility, and all those things. So I learned that they are out there, you just have to really seek them out. I think what’s more important for– I’ve done the conventional therapy where you sit across from therapists and tell your life story. Then you expect them to give you this awesome thing at the end where they answer your question, which I learned very quickly doesn’t happen ever. So I did that. I’ve done that a couple times through my university career, and then again, a couple years ago. But what I think is really important for people with disabilities is support groups. 

Sitting in another room with another disabled person where I could say, “Yeah, I’ve been through that too.” “Yes, I’ve done that, yes.” I think, for me right now at this point in my life, is more important for me than sitting across from a therapist waiting to be quasi diagnosed with something. Because being able to say, “Yeah, I went through that shit and so did you. That’s great.” It makes you feel really connected to the entire experience better. So I’d like to see more disabled support groups where we can talk about this stuff. Not solely negative like, “Oh my god, the world is ending because I’m disabled,” kind of way more like, “I’m disabled. This happened, let’s talk about it.” There needs to be more of that. I think there needs to be more people saying, “Let’s find a space to do that. Let’s have a bunch of people with disabilities come and talk. And let’s see what happens.” I think if there were more groups that were open to having people with disabilities talk, whether they’re in a happy space or not so happy space , I think things would change immensely. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah, there was this interesting exchange that happened on your Facebook page recently where you had shared an article and you’re expressing some frustration around like, we shouldn’t be constantly trying to cure disability, not all of us want a cure. And someone said, “I would like a cure. That’s my story, I would like a cure.” Then people were weighing in on their experiences with their own disability and their feelings about potential cures and experimental therapies. I thought it was so powerful the fact that people were even able to have that conversation and articulate that. I think you’re right, it’s so important that we’re able to say, “Here’s my experience…” and have other people say, “Here’s my experience…”and they can all be true.

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. That’s why I respond to that person. They said, “I do want a cure. That’s what I want.” I said, “Yeah, that’s why I said sometimes,” I said, “Your experience is valid as fuck and I’m here with you. I’m there with you.” I’m not going to pretend like some days I don’t want to be like, “I really wish I could get out of this chair and walk around.” What I was saying really about the cure was the institutional idea of being cured and being fixed needs to be looked at. So when we talk about cures and fixes in terms of disability from a grander scale, what we’re talking about is institutional ableism. We’re talking about fixing all those disabled people from their horrible, horrible lives. Those conversations need to stop and need to be morphed into, how does disability feel generally? So if somebody wants a cure and that’s genuinely their experience, I’m not going to tell them that that’s not true. I’m going to say, “Some days I do want that, too, and that’s what I want.”

Some moments my disability pisses me the fuck off and I don’t want to have it. That’s a really honest and true feeling that I have. So when I talk about not wanting a cure, or not wanting to look for a cure, what I’m really saying is, “Let’s remove the institutional ableism around the idea of a cure and a fix.” I mean, I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience in a fat body – there’s a whole bunch of pressure for a fat body person to lose weight. There’s all the things. So when I see things around institutional ableism and institutional body shaming, it’s so sad especially when it comes to kids- when it comes to the next generation of queer cripples. When I see kids being pushed into this medical model of disability and not being allowed to celebrate who they are today, and being told they have to walk or have to gain better abilities or never lose their ability – all this stuff. What if you told the kid from a very young age that they were disabled and that’s okay? What did you use, not to plug myself and I’m totally not, but what if you use something like the disable campaign to teach a young kid like 5, 6, 7, 8 that it’s okay to be disabled and it’s okay to have a different body? Much like we have the Gay-Straight alliances that are happening now, which I think are great and amazing, and I fully agree with all of them. 

Andrew Gurza: I think we could also have disabled-able alliances – have a mixed group of young kids, some with disabilities and some without, real, talking about ableism and talking about the time that so and so’s on the playground and someone said that horrible thing; and here’s how this person felt and then here’s how the able-bodied person felt. Have them really talk about that stuff, but everybody is afraid to do that. Especially institutionally, because nobody wants to offend the disabled kid so nobody says anything. It’s better if you skirt the line of offense by genuinely having questions. 

When people ask me about my queerness and disability, and they want to ask me about – basically the big question is, “Can you have sex and does your dick work?” It’s the two questions that I get all the time. So when they asked that, if they asked that with a genuine – hopefully they won’t start with, “Hey, how does your dick work?” But if it’s like, “Hey, I see you have a disability and I want to learn more.” My pants would be off and I would be like, “Let’s go fuck over there.” Because what you just said turned me the fuck on. 

Andrew Gurza: I think that the way that we talk about these things, and I think the way we don’t talk about these things is creating a big barrier. If we just talked about it and gave people the space to be comfortable– Actually no, I’m going to rephrase that. The space to be uncomfortable, I think, is really, really important. Disabled people can be ableists, too. I have done it and as I grow into this work, there’s a lot of language that I have retired that I won’t say anymore because I’m learning that it’s not appropriate. I’ve done it, so I genuinely respect when someone says, “Oh, I fucked up. I’m so sorry.” I have friends who it’s it’s Transgender Day of visibility today, when we’re recording this, and I have friends that I have misgendered or said something in an inappropriate manner. I’m like, “Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” And we moved on. So I think the same goes for disability or anybody who’s been othered – if the person genuinely is like, “I’m trying to connect with you and I fucked up, I’m sorry.” I don’t give them a pass. But I say to them, “All right, that’s fine. We’ll work on it ‘cause I know you didn’t mean it.”

Dawn Serra: Okay, so I know one of the things that you really love geeking out about is flirting, and I feel like that’s the perfect place to shift a little bit. Because flirting can be super awkward, but in a cute sweet way. Also just a really fun way to play with language and to get to know people. So I would love to know for you, what about flirting do you love and what is flirting look like for you?

Andrew Gurza: Well, what you can’t see right now is that I’m in my studio blushing – that’s what people can’t see. What flirting looks like, for me, is me sitting in the corner being like, “Hey, I think you’re really cute, but I’m not going to go over to you because I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid that you’re afraid of me.” For me, flirting happens mostly in the digital realm because in terms of accessibility, Andrew getting into a bar is just not really plausible. So I don’t have a lot of face to face flirting. I flirt around the apps and I find my personality in the apps very much gregarious and like “Hey, here I am, no big deal.” Whereas in person if I saw the same person, I’d be like, “I’m going to go stand in the corner and not talk to them because I’m too scared.” But if you get to know me, if you would come up to me, even though I’m terrified – I’ll babble and gurgle and be weird. I’m just thinking about it. 

I’ve been watching a lot of Parks and Rec right now. I’m basically Leslie Knope. My romantical desires are fully in line with Leslie Knope, I want to I want to have all the best friends and I want to love everybody. But I’m afraid to tell you that because I don’t want you to think that I’m, again, it goes back to being too much, and I’m afraid that if I tell you that I think you’re cute or if I tell you that I think you’re hot, or I want to fuck you, that you’re going to be like, “Whoa, the disabled guy talked to me about sex. What? Shocking!” So flirting for me is like “Hey, you want to come over and watch Netflix and stare at each other and hope that things happen?” Also when I was 16 or 17, for certain people they learned how to– Not certain people, the majority of people who maybe have not been othered, but you learn a very specific way of how to flirt and date and do all those things. 

Andrew Gurza: When I was 16 and 17, I was busy having spinal fusion surgery and I was busy doing a lot of disability stuff to better my body to head off to college. So I wasn’t learning. I didn’t get the chance to engage in the young love moments where you get your heart broken and you do stupid things, and you try all this stuff . Almost 17 years on, I still haven’t gotten what I would consider a proper date where I thought the person liked me, or where I felt like, “Oh, I’m not the only one feeling this spark of whatever’s happening.” So, a lot of my flirting is weird because I feel like because of my disability, I’m a little bit stunted. I may be physically 33 years old, but emotionally as a romantical person, I’m 17, because I didn’t get to do any of that stuff when I was younger.

Dawn Serra: Well, that makes me feel better. I feel the exact same way. In my head, I’ll be like, “Oh my god, I should totally make eye contact and smile, and say something witty.” And in that moment, the only thing I can do is look down and turn around. I love that and I love, too, like, “Hey, you want to watch Netflix at my place and hope something happens?” I feel like that’s so many of us for so many reasons.

Andrew Gurza: I mean, know that Tegan and Sara song “Closer”, that video was pretty much mean flirting right there. It’s, “Come over and let’s hope that stuff goes down.” Even if it doesn’t go down, the fact that it might go down is more exciting than if it actually did go down. There’s a lot of teenage stuff that I haven’t resolved because– I think partially because people are afraid of disability and they’re afraid of sexualizing the disabled, and I was afraid when I was younger of being sexualized because I came from a very small town, where being queer and disabled was not cool. Then when you go to school, you go into school, you think, “Oh, well, everything’s going to change here.” What I really quickly realized was that even though I was out, it wasn’t cool to be queer and disabled. All those experiences – I’m 33 still waiting to let my 17 year old self be like, “Hey, want to nerd out together?”

Dawn Serra: Oh, yeah. There’s so much in that. I’m wondering – I talked to Robin Wilson-Beattie about this a little bit too.

Andrew Gurza: Isn’t she the best?

Dawn Serra: She’s fantastic. I love her so much.

Andrew Gurza: Fantastic.

Dawn Serra: Yes, I had her on the show, I think, last year sometime and we had such a blast geeking out and laughing. She’s so great. We were talking about being fetishized. In my life, I have not felt very good about being fetishized for my body. So she was talking about her feelings about being fetishized. I’m wondering, have you had any experiences with people who fetishize disabled bodies and wanting to be near you because of that? And if so, did that feel good or did that feel bad or have you not encountered it? I’m curious.

Andrew Gurza: I was fetishized once when I was in college – really, really fetishized, where the hookup person that I met was like, “Oh my god, I love your chair. Your chrome wheels are turning me on? At the time, I was like, “Oh, this is weird, like, no.” But it’s funny because in order to meet sexual partners or lovers, or as part of my personal growth and brand – I have, in a way, positively tried to fetishize myself. So I’ll say to people like, “Oh, let me be your first queer cripple guy that you’re going to sleep with me. Why don’t you touch my joystick?” I think fetishization of disability or anybody who’s othered – it draws a really fine line, because you can go to a place where it’s too much too fast, or you can go to the place where it’s like, “You’re seeing me and you’re seeing this is part of me, and that’s okay.” 

So for me, I like men with red hair and big muscles and big dicks. That’s a fetish and I will totally admit it. That gets me bodied and I’m all about that. I mean, that’s a fetish so why couldn’t somebody say, “Hey, I think your wheelchair’s super hot.” Maybe they would have to say, “I think you and your wheelchair is super hot.” I think it’s also in the way you deliver that – if somebody was leering at me like, “Hey, your wheelchair is super hot.” I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to go over here.” But if they were like, “Hey, I think you and your chair is super yummy.” Let’s explore that. I wouldn’t really be concerned. I’d be concerned if they were like, “Oh, so you’re disabled. I’m going to disable you more.” Then I’d be like, “Yeah, that’s a problem.” But if it’s in good fun, about them learning about the disability and if it turns them on… 

Andrew Gurza: I had a guest on my podcast a few months ago who is the devotee. For those who don’t know what a devotee is, that’s somebody who is sexually attracted to people with disabilities. So we had a whole hour long conversation about devoteeism and she mentioned that she had met her husband on a devotee website, and now they were married. I was like, “Wow!” It blew my mind about how people think it’s some scary fetish when really it can build community. So I think that if you fetishize disability and otherness with consent and the right way, I think it can be really sexy.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I agree. I think where it gets bizarre is when you don’t see me as a person. You just see the thing about my body or perhaps like your chair, where it’s not about Andrew and your sense of humor, and all these kinds of things and the chair – it’s just the chair and it doesn’t matter who’s in it. I think that’s, for me, where the line is. But how wonderful that you had this guest on your show who met her husband that way, and they were able to really bond over her desires and her fetish, and to create this relationship. That’s fantastic.

Andrew Gurza: It was super great. When we’re off the air, I’ll give you her name and you should definitely have her on because it’s a really interesting conversation.

Dawn Serra: Oh, thank you. Yeah, that’d be great. So you wrote about something back in February that I would love for us to touch on. It was this deeply vulnerable post, where you are talking about how for most of your life, you have been able to masturbate yourself using your thumb and forefinger, and to achieve and experience your own pleasure in your own body, and to give yourself this release; and that you had recently had a change and how you’re experiencing your hands and that you weren’t able to actually masturbate. I’m wondering, has that changed since you wrote that and where are you now?

Andrew Gurza: It hasn’t changed since I wrote that. I’m working now on more physio to get that moving again. I’ve actually gone on Craigslist and posted things like, “Hey, I’m disabled and queer, and I need help masturbating. Literally, I need help masturbating. Can somebody please assist me with that?” Because I’m trying to find ways to get that release, just being honest about it. So I still can’t, but it’s also taught me that sexuality and sex, and that release is important, but it’s also diving me into my work and giving me a lot to think about the kind of sex that I want and the kind of ways that I want to look at sexuality. 

Like I said, for me, the sexiest thing right now would be having somebody come over and watching Netflix for a couple hours, and then making it out without any expectation of like, “I’m going to touch your genitals now.” I mean, if they did, that’d be great. But what I want from my experiences now are not necessarily the simple relief. Yeah, that would be great and if that happens, I’m going to enjoy that moment. But I want more of an emotional connection with the people that I connect with. This inability to masturbate is troubling because how the fuck do adapt to that now again, but it’s teaching me to look at the sexual spectrum and sexuality a lot more broadly and with a lot more respect for the little things that aren’t genitally related.

Dawn Serra: And if someone did reply to your Craigslist ad, would you be looking for someone who could Netflix and chill and then masturbate you? Or would you be interested in someone who just wanted to come over and jerk you off and then go get their groceries? Is the connection, even for that kind of space, something that you would be interested in finding?

Andrew Gurza: I’ve had guys say, “I can come over and jerk you off, and then get my groceries.” It was weird because they said it almost literally like that, I was like, “That’s odd.” I thanked him and said, “I’m not quite looking for that.” I mean, yes, but no. So I think that I would want something more deeper than just, “I’m going to jerk you off.” I also want them to– Because sex for me is so much about the other person. For me. as a disabled person. sex is so much of like, “Did I do it right?” “Did you enjoy yourself?” “Am I acceptable? Am I okay?” “Did I make you cum?” “Did I do my part?” So even putting the post out there and asking about, “Can you masturbate me?” The whole idea of them not getting any kind of pleasure out of it, also, was weird for me. Sex for me is so much about… I mean, I think in the kink community, I wouldn’t say that I’m a full submissive, but I’m very much a pleaser. I very much like to please my partner. So, if they were going to get me off and then go get the groceries, I would hope that they enjoy themselves too. So I’d want something a little bit deeper than just, “I’m going to jerk you off get groceries.”

Dawn Serra: That makes total sense. I would feel the exact same way. There was something else that you said while you were talking about that. It’ll come back to me. Anyway, I’m wondering for people who are listening, I think that culturally we know that– I would hope that people listening to the show know by now that there’s this ableist view that folks with disabilities, especially visual disabilities, are asexual and/or sex is not important to them. 

One of the things I love so much about what you do is you are so vocal and upfront, and visible about your sexual needs and your sexual experiences, and your desires and the mistakes, and the awkwardness, and the fact that you want sex and you’re horny. I love that you’re saying, “Here I am and here’s my experience.” I’d love to know for people listening, what’s the one thing you really want people to understand about sex and disability?

Andrew Gurza: There are 10 things I want them to understand. But the one big thing is to see my chair. See it. I’ve had guys come to my house to fuck me and go, “Oh, yeah, your disability is no problem. No big deal. It’s okay.” Then we’ll start doing the realities of what I need and they’ll go, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were that disabled. I didn’t realize you needed that much.” So before you start to engage with anybody, sexually or otherwise or romantically, or even just as a friend, if they are using a mobility device, or if they have something that markedly shows them as being disabled, recognize that.Don’t say to them like, “Oh, I don’t see your disability.” What? I do. 

The sexiest thing you can do is say, like, “Hey, Andrew. I see that you’re in a wheelchair, and I have no fucking clue what to do with that, but I’d like to learn more and then maybe suck your dick. I’d like to get to know you better.” Just be honest about your ignorance, be really upfront about your ignorance without being rude about it. Don’t ask me what happened and don’t ask me how my dick works, especially don’t ask me how my dick works. Ask me to go down on my dick. Please, future lovers, anyone listening, and anyone who might want to sleep with an individual with a penis who is with disabilities – don’t ask him how his dick works. Ask him if you can go down on it. It’s just rude, it’s just rude. Bad form

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Talk about, “Let’s make this as unsexy as possible,” like, “Hey, by the way does this work?” I mean, that’s not in any way, getting me more revved up about what’s about to happen.

Andrew Gurza: It’s happened to me where they’re in the middle of it, and I’ve written about it. There’s moments where I’ve been with guys where they’re about to put their mouths on my genitals and I’m all into it, until they go, “Oh, can you get it up?” I’m like, “I could have and I was.”

Dawn Serra: Not anymore. 

Andrew Gurza: Yeah. So I think the one thing, and it’s going to sound so cliche, but it’s really about own your ignorance and I’ll own my otherness. You own your ignorance and I’ll own my otherness, and we’ll work together. But just own it and say, “ I’ve never done this before.” Because some of the sweetest people that I’ve had sex with have said to me at the beginning, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” It’s really hard because there’s a power play there, then all of a sudden, I have the currency of the knowledge of disability and I get to bring them into this world in a sexy, safe, comfortable way, where we– I was going to say where we don’t have to be uncomfortable, but that’s not true, where we can be uncomfortable together. Even if I like the person and we’re having really great sex, which, as I said, is rare for me. But if the sex is really good, I’m still that uncomfortable, 14 year old kid inside being like, “Did I do right?” “Is it okay?” “Do they like me?” “Am I accepted?” 

So I think that if we own that and I can own my weirdness, I can own all those things, and I can own my otherness, and all that stuff; and if you or the person that I’m spending time with owns the fact that they don’t know shit about disability and they’re just learning, that’s a big turn on for me because it means that we can learn together.

Dawn Serra: I love that so much. That requires dropping that bravado. Culturally, I think, we’re taught that you always need to be great in bed and you always need to know what you’re doing. So it really takes vulnerability and it takes some courage to actually say, “I don’t know if I’m going to be good at this and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do. But maybe if we figure it out together, then something really fun can happen where we’re both there, instead of me pretending and shutting down and now we’re having this really stiff, awkward, disconnected experience,” which sounds way less sexy.

Andrew Gurza: Wouldn’t it be great if in your favorite porn, somebody stopped and said, “Hey, I don’t know what I’m doing. But let’s have a fun time together figuring out.” That would be the hottest thing I’ve ever watched because it would show that none of us know we’re doing. And like you were saying, the whole bravado of like, “I have to know,” I struggle with it all the time, even now of when I engage in any any kind of sexual relationship is that I have to know how to have sex and disability and guess what? I have no clue. I don’t know what I’m doing and I own that, and I just want to get naked with somebody or not naaked, and see what happens. I’m very comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Dawn Serra: Well, I’m so glad you said that about the porn because I just got back last weekend from learning how to make porn. And I am looking for all kinds of ideas. I wanted to do really subversive and cultural changing porn. So I the fact that you were like, “Let’s have porn where people are like, ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing but let’s figure it out together.’” My little porn brain was like, “Note to self: Make a porn that does that.”

Andrew Gurza: Can you imagine kids, instead of stumbling on the polished, over veneered porn – stumbling on the app for the first time and being like, “Oh, you’re representing me for real and I can jerk off to this because you also don’t know you’re doing!” That would be, I think, a game changer.

Dawn Serra: I so agree. Oh my gosh, I hope all of us can embrace that phrase. I would love it, Andrew, if you could share with everyone how they can find you online and stay in touch with social media because I’m sure lots of people listening will want to hear more from you.

Andrew Gurza: Sure, I can be reached on Twitter @itsandrewgurza – that’s ANDREW GURZA and then on Facebook @itsandrewgurza84. My personal website where all my blogs and podcasts are hosted: andrewgurza.com.

Dawn Serra: Nice and easy, that’s easy to remember and makes it easy to find you. So I will have links to all of your social media and website on dawnserra.com/ep155 for this episode. Andrew, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. This was so fun and fascinating, and delicious and wonderful. I just had a great time.

Andrew Gurza: It was so fun and I’m so excited for people to hear it. I could talk to you for another hour. It was just so fun.

Dawn Serra: I know me too. I feel the same way, which means you will just have to come back on the show at some point.

Andrew Gurza: I would love it. I would love it so hard.

Dawn Serra: Good. To everybody listening, if you want to stay in touch with Andrew or if you have any questions or comments, of course, you can go to dawnserra.com and send me a note. You can also submit your listener confessions. This month’s theme, of course, is messes, so I want to hear all about your literal messiness and/or your emotional messiness. So please check that out and the guidelines, and I will be talking to you next week. Bye.