more stories featuring characters with spina bifida

[Guest]

Dear Literotica forum, i am a young man who was born with spinal cord disability called spina bifida. i was looking through the literotica website and i noticed that you only had 7 total stories that feature characters that have spina bifida. please try to add more stories to the literotica website that feature characters with this disability. sincerely and respectfully mg357

 

[estragon]

Very Hard to Write

about disease or disability without personal experience, either as caregiver or subject. I tried writing about a polio victim in "The Poem", my best-rated story so far, but I still think I didn't get it altogether right. That there are as many as 7 spina bifida stories on this site is testimony to the variety of writers here, and their willingness to take risks.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Estragon is right on both counts, mg: it's hard to write about that which one hasn't experienced, and, given that, it's not bad that you found 7 stories with characters who had the disorder. In fact, I can say that in nearly sixty years of reading, the only times I've come across spina bifida was when I was doing research for the WHO in 1970 and in the newspaper today over the risks and benefits of folic acid supplements for pregnant women. Not once have I found it in fictional literature.

Now, given Estragon's points, it might be a good idea for you to try your own hand at writing stories or, at least, collaborating with a writer who might want to develop such a tale.

 

[stephen55]

Dear Literotica forum, i am a young man who was born with spinal cord disability called spina bifida. i was looking through the literotica website and i noticed that you only had 7 total stories that feature characters that have spina bifida. please try to add more stories to the literotica website that feature characters with this disability. sincerely and respectfully mg357

And just how did you find out that only seven Literotica stories feature characters the have spina bifida?

 

[Stella_Omega]

I can recommend you to a different writing community that would be very welcoming to your concerns and desires.

 

[lovecraft68]

Dear Literotica forum, i am a young man who was born with spinal cord disability called spina bifida. i was looking through the literotica website and i noticed that you only had 7 total stories that feature characters that have spina bifida. please try to add more stories to the literotica website that feature characters with this disability. sincerely and respectfully mg357

Curious as to how you found the seven. I wouldn't think it would be in a tag line. I am not sure which categories you searched but another author on this site that I talk to quite often was telling me that there a re a lot of mother/son stories where the son is disabled. Not sure if that's a topic you would want to read about and not sure it would be that specific disease but you may find something there. On another note I agree with the above authors as far as not much to go on to get it right. Although this is an erotica site most authors make the effort to write somewhat believably and if it something you are pretty clueless about it's going to suck. I recently wrote a story where a girl losses her virginity it had a decent background/plot and build up but when it got to the sex itself I found myself staring at the computer trying to imagine being an 18 year old girl having sex for the first time. after a couple of tries I shelved it until i had the time to read some similar stories and then ask the wife if she could remember that far back (I had plenty of time to write after that joke trust me). but that's apples and oranges a disability is something I and most authors here couldn't come close to. Honestly and I am just speaking for me but I will admit that I might feel uncomfortable doing it as if I was somehow mocking the situation and also to be totally honest they would not be mass appeal stories and I'm sure authors with limited time to write might not want to spend the time.

 

[evanslily]

The OP didn't need tags. All you need is Google (or similar) and a search for Spina Bifida and Literotica.

 

[sr71plt]

The OP didn't need tags. All you need is Google (or similar) and a search for Spina Bifida and Literotica.

I only found one story that way.

Writing erotica that includes physical ailments is walking a tightrope. Not only do you need to know the disease you're writing about really, really well, but you also need to be ultrasensitive in what you write. I did it once--just with a character with crippled legs--and got mixed results, ranging from profuse thanks (from those claiming an infirmity), for depicting such folks as capable of having hot sex, to declarations of how evil I was to take advantaged of the phyiscally impaired. (I rather thought that the ejaculation that the guy with the impaired legs in my story was reward enough for him. But then that's just me.)

 

[estragon]

Writing about a physical phenomenon, be it disability or something unique to one sex (like abortion or childbirth), from the outside in, is an invitation to get slammed hard, and deservedly so, by those who have to live with that phenomenon, who see the writer as one who doesn't know jack-shit but treats their agonies as a diversion or a platform to display his/her superior compassion. I quote my man C S Lewis again: "I will not indulge in futile philippics against enemies I never met in battle". Nor will I write about those who must encounter those enemies every minute of their lives, with no chance of relief, until I have been on that field of battle.

 

[vrosej10]

I have written a poem posted here called The Autistic Bride. Comments included disbelief that this person could be afflicted in this fashion, showing a serious lack of understanding of the condition (my son is autistic and I know a LOT of people with it, so I got it right). This kind of thing is a huge problem when writing about disability. Outsiders never quite get the details right or you get idiots in the audience who have no actually experience yet somehow think they know everything.

I am currently writing a story that features a young man with Tetralogy of Fallot. I went an did buckets of research and am including appropriate details but I am betting there'll be at least one wise guy.

 

[stephen55]

I am currently writing a story that features a young man with Tetralogy of Fallot. I went an did buckets of research and am including appropriate details but I am betting there'll be at least one wise guy.

Make sure you say it was done by Dr. Mustard, in the operating room with the knife.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Make sure you say it was done by Dr. Mustard, in the operating room with the knife.

I never realized that Col. Mustard was in the Medical Corps! And with a private OR as well!

 

[stephen55]

I never realized that Col. Mustard was in the Medical Corps! And with a private OR as well!

Close, but no cigar!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Close, but no cigar!

Of course no cigar! It's pretty much against the law now, isn't it?

 

[3113]

Getting into the heads (and bodies) of others is our job!

Writing about a physical phenomenon, be it disability or something unique to one sex (like abortion or childbirth), from the outside in, is an invitation to get slammed hard, and deservedly so, by those who have to live with that phenomenon, who see the writer as one who doesn't know jack-shit but treats their agonies as a diversion or a platform to display his/her superior compassion.

I will grant you the point given your coda that if the writer is doing it to "display his/her superior compassion" then they should get slammed. But I won't grant that any writer, who does their research and is writing the story from a different perspective ought to get slammed.

That's nonsense and no writer should ever think that or suggest that to other writers.

Like actors, putting ourselves into the heads of others and telling their story--because we have a way with words and maybe they don't--is what we do. And it doesn't matter if the part we need to play (write) is the Elephant Man (which, let's face it, few of us will ever come close to experiencing, and so the only one who might be able to write that man's story--or act it--could be able-bodied) or a different gender. It's our job. Shakespeare never went to war, yet soldiers who watch Henry V all agree it captures, to this day, a realistic feeling of being a soldier and in the field. Some argue that this is because Shakespeare wasn't "Shakespeare" but an aristocrat who went to war--but hey, he also accurately writes about what it's like to be a sheep farmer (don't think many noble men who went to war and then came home to write plays were sheep farmers), a king, an actor on the stage, a fourteen-year-old girl in love for the first time....etc.

How did he get all these so right? The way all writers who get it right do: by talking to people, observing, listening, investigating. Brokeback Mountain could have never been written if writers felt compelled only to write about something they, themselves, had experienced. The author was a heterosexual woman and until she decided to write this story, she knew almost nothing about gay men. She researched to get it right and, from what gay men say, she did. That stunning story got written not because of any "superior compassion" on her part, but because she was simply a good writer, doing what a good writer does. Write stories. This was the one she felt compelled to tell, and she worked to get inside the heads of those characters in order to tell it right.

When we say "write about what you know" we don't mean you can only write about your own life. We mean that you can write about anything so long as you make the effort to get to know it, and so long as you remember that you are translating to human beings (readers) a human experience. There will always be those who slam and complain and bitch and say, "That wasn't my experience." But if you get those who say, "It was just like that for me!" and, more importantly, readers who say, "I didn't understand this experience, but now I do..." then, as a writer, you've done your job. And you've nothing to be ashamed of if you wrote from the perspective of a character going through an experience you never personally went through or even could go through.

 

[evanslily]

I only found one story that way.

Really? Did you spell it right? . I found 6.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

I only found one story that way.

Really? Did you spell it right? . I found 6.

Bing returns one, google returns six. I'm guessing these are the search engines you used?

 

[sr71plt]

I must have spelled it correctly. It came up with a lot of hits. Just the one leading to Literotica on the first couple of pages, though--on Google. Bing has appeared as an option on my toolbar, but thus far I'm ignoring it.

I'm conflicted about this thread and think some of you are going overboard on what not to write. For my story "A Gift," I've gotten piles of "thank you for concentrating on the sex and making it OK for people of disability to be depicted doing" notes. I think some of you on this thread are putting the illness too much in the story, making it read like you are on the soap box for something or the other. I think if you just write it as a trait, along with others, of one or more of the characters and not let it move to center stage, you can do a story that lets "x-afflicted" have hot sex like everyone else.

 

[PennLady]

I must have spelled it correctly. It came up with a lot of hits. Just the one leading to Literotica on the first couple of pages, though--on Google. Bing has appeared as an option on my toolbar, but thus far I'm ignoring it.

I'm conflicted about this thread and think some of you are going overboard on what not to write. For my story "A Gift," I've gotten piles of "thank you for concentrating on the sex and making it OK for people of disability to be depicted doing" notes. I think some of you on this thread are putting the illness too much in the story, making it read like you are on the soap box for something or the other. I think if you just write it as a trait, along with others, of one or more of the characters and not let it move to center stage, you can do a story that lets "x-afflicted" have hot sex like everyone else.

This is a good point. I've written about things I haven't experienced, although not illnesses. In Facing the Past, the female lead had an abusive past, something I (thank God) have no experience with. But going by what I've read in different articles and stories, I extrapolated, and most people seem to think I did it well enough.

So I think if you can do some research, possibly talk to someone, and as SR71 said, make it a about a person with the trait, as opposed to all about the trait/illness/experience, then you'll have a character and not a prop.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is a good point. I've written about things I haven't experienced, although not illnesses. In Facing the Past, the female lead had an abusive past, something I (thank God) have no experience with. But going by what I've read in different articles and stories, I extrapolated, and most people seem to think I did it well enough.

So I think if you can do some research, possibly talk to someone, and as SR71 said, make it a about a person with the trait, as opposed to all about the trait/illness/experience, then you'll have a character and not a prop.

In my series both the brother and sister were abused (her sexually) she also spent 10 tears as a drug addict and the brother has series rage issues. I have gotten rave reviews over how I "nail" these traits. About the amazing insight I have into these dark aspects of their past and how it effects their present.
Truth be told although I am not an addict but I grew up in a heavy alcoholic family so know the mentality. I was an abused child and although not sexually abuse scars in similar ways (close enough to be accurate with Megan's recurring nightmares and insecurities with men other than her brother) and Mark's rage issues are my issues which I occasionally even in my early 40's still suffer bouts of. Now on the flip side I have a faction of detractors because my series is dark and melancholy apparently incest should be light and fluffy. I write from experience and this series is a s much a personal exorcism for me as it is a hobby. I have vented a lot of my own demons on this site. My point at the end of this is that it pisses me off to no end when I read a story in any genre where the characters have been abused and they are so far off it is ridiculous. It doesn't matter how good a writer is if he/she doesn't understand it cannot be faked. Boils down to "better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it." So when I say there are things I will not write about it is not a question of my talent as SR is kind of saying in his post sometimes not everything has to be a challenge and some things should be left alone. Pennlady you may be someone who in addition to being an excellent writer may also have some empathy and intuition and therefore deliver what you technically don't understand but far and away a lot of attempts fail and in a touchy subject like abuse/disability it can be upsetting when someone misses by a mile. SR also concentrates on nothing but the sex "people were happy they were having hot sex" This is a sex site of course they were. But there are people with that condition who can't have hot sex and maybe it will upset them more. My opinion is you just don't need to go certain places just to prove a point or in SR's case to make a few sales. There is no right side to this argument this is just my side of it.

 

[estragon]

3113, We Really Don't Disagree

I didn't say don't write about people with phenomena (I hate "disability" and I hate "handicap" except at Gulfstream or Aqueduct, and no, I'm not being politically correct, I hate judgmental shit of any stripe, and I hate lies worst of all), I said that one does so at one's peril. If I didn't make that clear I'm sorry, but I thought with your reference to my tagline you got my drift. If a writer tries to write about these things without doing a barrel of research, or not having been there, or worse, is trying to show how noble they are or otherwise get brownie points, then they deserve the slamming. If the writer trains for the fight, does the roadwork and the sparring, then s/he can put on the gloves and go in the ring, and the best of luck to him/her.

 

[sr71plt]

In my series both the brother and sister were abused (her sexually) she also spent 10 tears as a drug addict and the brother has series rage issues. I have gotten rave reviews over how I "nail" these traits. About the amazing insight I have into these dark aspects of their past and how it effects their present.
Truth be told although I am not an addict but I grew up in a heavy alcoholic family so know the mentality. I was an abused child and although not sexually abuse scars in similar ways (close enough to be accurate with Megan's recurring nightmares and insecurities with men other than her brother) and Mark's rage issues are my issues which I occasionally even in my early 40's still suffer bouts of. Now on the flip side I have a faction of detractors because my series is dark and melancholy apparently incest should be light and fluffy. I write from experience and this series is a s much a personal exorcism for me as it is a hobby. I have vented a lot of my own demons on this site. My point at the end of this is that it pisses me off to no end when I read a story in any genre where the characters have been abused and they are so far off it is ridiculous. It doesn't matter how good a writer is if he/she doesn't understand it cannot be faked. Boils down to "better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it." So when I say there are things I will not write about it is not a question of my talent as SR is kind of saying in his post sometimes not everything has to be a challenge and some things should be left alone. Pennlady you may be someone who in addition to being an excellent writer may also have some empathy and intuition and therefore deliver what you technically don't understand but far and away a lot of attempts fail and in a touchy subject like abuse/disability it can be upsetting when someone misses by a mile. SR also concentrates on nothing but the sex "people were happy they were having hot sex" This is a sex site of course they were. But there are people with that condition who can't have hot sex and maybe it will upset them more. My opinion is you just don't need to go certain places just to prove a point or in SR's case to make a few sales. There is no right side to this argument this is just my side of it.

A. Personal testimonials about someone's abused past don't resonate with me.

B. I don't think I was saying anything you attributed to me. I don't write about what I haven't experienced--or can't easily research--either. So, I wouldn't include spina bifida in my stories any more than I'd write about skinning a lion in any detail. (But then I wouldn't write about an "oh, woe, is me" abusive childhoold or marriage in any depth either, because I find such stories dreary.) Thanks for the fair warning that I'd probably find your story too dreary to read. When I'm looking for erotica to read, I'm not looking for someone's "just my perception" "oh woe is me" abusive past story. (I don't go looking for that when I'm looking for nonerotica to read, either.)

 

[lovecraft68]

A. Personal testimonials about someone's abused past don't resonate with me.

B. I don't think I was saying anything you attributed to me. I don't write about what I haven't experienced--or can't easily research--either. So, I wouldn't include spina bifida in my stories any more than I'd write about skinning a lion in any detail. (But then I wouldn't write about an "oh, woe, is me" abusive childhoold or marriage in any depth either, because I find such stories dreary.) Thanks for the fair warning that I'd probably find your story too dreary to read. When I'm looking for erotica to read, I'm not looking for someone's "just my perception" "oh woe is me" abusive past story. (I don't go looking for that when I'm looking for nonerotica to read, either.)

To each their own obviously. Personally I enjoy some stories with "realism". Fiction and entertainment by definition would be an escape from reality but real life often times sucks and I like it to sometimes suck for the characters I read about because it helps Identify with the characters. I mention my past to make a point if I was "woe is me" I wouldn't have turned my life around. And please don't be offended but I will sleep tonight even knowing that I don;t resonate with you. Arrogance doesn't sit with me and you seem to have a touch of that going on with yourself. Yes though my story is dreary it's why i get 50 votes instead of the 100's the grope and go incest stories get. Sorry I can't pull off Daddy would you fuck me and let mommy watch?. But even though I have a more limited appeal 38 of my 39 stories are over 4.5 with quite a few over 4.7 Not bad for woe is me. Their is a market for everyone.

 

[sr71plt]

"Realism" and "oh woe is me, let's you and me together get him for what he's done" aren't synonyms.

I think you're in for a real letdown when you get this e-book of yours launched. But I'm happy to leave that lesson to you.

I consult on publishing in the "real" world, and I've seen your pattern a hundred times before.

 

[vrosej10]

Make sure you say it was done by Dr. Mustard, in the operating room with the knife.

Okedoke. The research was actually pretty interesting in a morbid kind of way. This stuff always makes me wonder how any normal babies get born at all given how much can go wrong.