Jockstrap

It's that time of year: sun blazing down on scorched turf; birdsong twittering along in the background; the distant poop-poop of a motorcycle; and then THWACK! the unmistakeable shot of cork against willow ricocheting around the environs of the local cricket pitch.

At school cricket bored me to tears. I wanted to be doing something. In middle age a friend and neighbour, who happened to be an ex-pro cricketer, kindly explained the laws and took me each Sunday to some local league cricket match or other hither and thither in Lancashire. I learned to enjoy the sport, the packed lunch and the warm, cask beer served in the clubhouse.

Whilst rugby has its muscled bears and soccer has its glamour boys, cricket never quite seems to elicit the slightest hint of the erotic.

One Sunday, however, in Middleton, beads of sweat clinging to me in the sultry afternoon heat, I was suddenly and unexpectedly flustered by being turned on. Here's why...

jockstrap


his jockstrap
my glance keeps returning to it
towards the cricket pavilion
a posturing jog
no box protection
so nowt is hidden
not particularly well endowed
he dresses to the left
quite noticeably
his dick and balls bob
up and down
facing the onlookers
he stands unabashed
thrusts down
the front of his pants
his hand
lentiginous tanned skin
and forearm
reddy-golden hairs
a lengthy self-adjustment
jiggling his tackle
quite brazen
no embarrassment
after all
he must adjust
his jockstrap
I burn in the heat
with lust
later tugging
at the band of his jockstrap
strongly underscoring
his left buttock
on its right-side only
a fleshy fold overlaps
where his jockstrap
deeply cuts
into his meaty cheek
jogging from long-off
in the outfield
his gluteus maximus muscles
wobble and ripple
en route to second-slip
drawn back
to his jockstrap
a visibly sweating butt-crack
a darkening of the centre-seam
a tau-cross on whites
- oh boy,
get a grip -
is it discomfort
or discomfiture
that causes him
to periodically tug
at his pants' seat
every few minutes
after any and every action
back to this rousing
sight
his jockstrap

[Image description: cricketer Alex Stewart dropped his pants to adjust his jockstrap; from a newspaper clipping, date & © unknown]

Sexual Eunuchs?

[Image description: wheelchair user icon with another person sitting on wheelie's lap facing wheelie.]

I imagined having a photograph at the top of this article. It would have been of two naked men having sex. Nothing unusual in that one may consider. However, I wanted one of the chaps to be in a wheelchair or at least visibly physically disabled. Alas, I could not track one down.

To me this was rather surprising. Inputting 'gay disabled sex' into the Google search-engine returned 178,000 hits. Over the first six pages only three items were serious articles, the rest were links to porn sites. I clicked on a few, but none really seemed to offer what was on the label, but rather were simply channelling able-bodied pornography.

Perhaps I should not have felt so astonished at my inability to locate a photo. The issue of straight (heterosexual) disabled sex only really started being the focus of feminist writers in the 1980's. No doubt I just have not found them, but the only article I discovered that directly referred to men was T. Shakespeare's 1999 article "The sexual politics of disabled masculinity". No wonder I could not find items relating to gay/bisexual/queer disabled menfolk! (Actually, after a subsequent brain-wave, I did locate some academic research articles via Google Scholar (q.v.).)

We seem to be almost invisible, at least to the mainstream. Why is this? I rarely frequent Manchester's gay village as many of the venues are not accessible. Moreover its streets are uneven, and I am likely to fall when able to walk and I am too embarrassed/proud to be wheelchaired, as I prefer to be independent and wheel myself when needing to use my chair. I am not saying they do not exist, but I have never seen anyone in a wheelchair there. Nor anyone with dark glasses and a white cane. I have never seen an amputee. Nor someone physically mutated by pharmaceuticals. I have never seen an obvious burns victim. Never even seen someone else walking with a stick. The only visibly disabled folk I have observed in bars are the deaf, with their hearing-aids and signing.

Perhaps gay culture's obsession with the body beautiful is at fault? Or, perhaps it is we disabled folk's fault: for not asserting our right to participate, to be accepted; for not accepting ourselves in our physicality and sexuality; for not pursuing alternative eroticisms?

Research has demonstrated that most able-bodied pity we disabled or, worse, abuse us. We are objects for charity. Certainly not erotic objects of desire. Usually we are perceived as being child-like or asexual - 'sexual eunuchs' if you will.

Many factors militate against disabled minds and bodies being able to engage in sexual relations, including: accessibility; negative attitudes; transport; assistance; and, above all, trying to find that willing desirable someone. (All of these could be the germ of an article in themselves.)

Manchester has dozens of support groups for gay this, queer that; but I could unearth only one for disabled folk, the hearing-impaired. (Bless 'em!) However, there is nothing I could join. I once wrote to the main Mancunian LGBT support group enquiring whether they knew of any gay disabled groupings. They did not even bother to reply. (This particularly hurt because, when able-bodied, I used to do volunteer work on their behalf.)

I perceive myself as almost imperceptible: partly due to being mainly house-bound; partly because I do not feel able to fully express who I am. I'm not after sex three times a day, once a week, even once a month; but every now and then would be a great start. I still have needs and desires. My disability did not geld me.

I wish I could have found that image of queer wheelchair sex in the real world, not just in my head...


This article is part of "Blogging Against Disablism Day".