Ableism – Silje Elsrud Yttervik

Ableism is not just about hatred – sometimes it’s about desire.»
– Andrew Gurza, disability activist

The Hidden Danger Behind «Desire»
Lately, there’s been growing discussions about a deeply uncomfortable trend: the fetishization of disabled people – especially young disabled people. Whether it be on social media, dating apps, and even in online communities.
Don’t get me wrong, disabled people have desires, wants and the potential for sexual attraction as much as anyone else – but what we are talking about here is not just about missplaced attraction. It’s about objectifying disability, and reducing a person’s identity and humanity to a single factor: their body, difference – their «otherness» alone.

«To be seen only for what makes you different… is to not be seen at all.»
– Silje Elsrud Yttervik

Le Monde recently published a piece, where several young disabled people shared how they recieved hypersexualized messages that focused explicitly on their disability. This could be all from prostetics, scars, to moving with crutches or in a wheelchair (LeMonde.fr).

These experiences, unfortionately aren’t rare – they’re part of a sinister pattern rooted in ableism, where disability is not fully acknowledged as part of a person, but fetishized as a spectacle or as a kink.

Why it’s So Harmful
Fetishization does more than ignore people’s boundaries. it often:

Reduces a person to their physical or visible «difference» rather than seeing them as a complex, full human.
Risks emotional and sexual exploitation, because their fetishizer may prioritize their own fantasy over the disabled person’s agency or comfort.
Reinforces a broader culture of dehumanization – where disability isn’t just misunderstood, but also eroticized in a way that strips away a person’s dignity.

Furthermore, research also backs this up. A study on disability pornography (PubMed) points out how certain forms of sexual content celebrate «vulnerability» and impaired agency in women with disabilities – often linking it to power and dominance. And this is not about intimacy – it’s about control disguised as desire.

Back in Time:
When Disabled Bodies Were Spectacle Before They Were People
To truly understand why fetishization cuts so deeply for many disabled people today, we have to look backwards – to a time when disabled bodies were not just stared at, but also sold as curiosities, entertainment or ‘marvels‘.

Throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, what we now call a part of the disabled community was often introduced to the wider world through circus-sideshows, ‘freakshows’, travelling exhibitions, and wider cabinets of ‘curiositites’. And they were introduced as ‘marvels’, ‘oddities’, ‘wonders’ and ‘specimens’, just barely considered as people!

Many were born with congenial conditions, chronic illnesses, or unusual physical traits and differences – that medical science simply didn’t yet understand.
Some became famous in ways they never fully controlled: like ‘hairy women‘ with hypertrichosis, conjoined twins, people unusually large or small in stature, those with growth disorders, or skeletal/ visible deformities…
Thus, instead of recieving care or respect, they became objects of horror and fascination.
And this fascination includes fetishization.

Many had their bodies marketed as exotic, erotic, or monstrous – often all at once. Posters drew- and described them in sensual or titillating language, framing their differences as something to-be-staired-at, consumed or desired in a way that simply erased their personhood.

Because, what was fetishized was never their humanity – only their difference.
And this history is not as distant as we’d like to believe!
For centuries, disabled people were only allowed visibility in two forms; through pity or through fetish.
Neither left room for dignity, autonomy, or complexity.

So when disabled people today speak about the pain of fetishization, it is not only about the present moment. It is about the heavy, inherited memory of being displayed rather than understood. Of being commodified rather than cared for. And of being reduced to a spectacle – first in a tent – now, too often on TikTok and the likes.
It’s almost like the world has changed, yet the structures around us have not.

TheNorwegian/ Youth Perspective
In Norway, this issue intersects with serious gaps in conversation about sexuality, youth and disability. According to Unge Funksjonshemmede – a national organization for young people with disabilities, there is a notable presence of «sexualiserte hatytringer» (sexualized hatespeech) on social media (Regjeringen.no).
Their reports highlights how disabled youth experience negative attention that is explicitly tied to their disability: through objectification, pressure and even harassment.
In their campaign Sex som Funker, they further explore how difficult it is to address sexual desire, consent and safety when people treat disabled bodies as inherently different, or as a source of fantasy (Unge Funksjonshemmede).

My Own Reflection: Why This Hit’s Close to Home
I’ve personally thought alot about how visibility works, both in general – and while working on my MA thesis: Modern Marvels: The Heritage of Exhibited Disability.
And, for most of us (disabled or not) – visibility is about being seen and wanted, but not about being sexualized.
Because, when people fetishize disability, they don’t necessary see the person in question; they see a fragment of them – like a fantasy living rent free in their brain.

And it hurts too, to realize how many conversations around disability and attraction that is still rooted in power – not mutual desire, but domination or infantlization. And that makes me pause: for how can we talk about sex safely, when the opposite of invisibility can feel so dangerous?

Reclaiming Our Sexuality
But there is hope. And there is power within us.
Many disabled activists, have long fought to reclaim both narrative, desire and agency. People like Andrew Gurza, who started the hashtag #DisabledPeopleAreHot – not as a fetish, but as a declaration: Yes, our bodies are valid, whole and worthy of desire. Organizations like Sins Invalid push even further: by celebrating erotic, empowered, and disabled bodies – challenging ideas of beauty and sexuality in itself.

We can demand more visibility, and we can demand more respect.
Through consent, and humanizing desire.

—

A Task For Reflection
This week, I invite you to reflect (and maybe share):

Have you ever recieved unwanted sexual attention because of your disability? (Or been objectified in any way)?
– or have you maybe ever fetishized someone else’s disability?
How did it make you feel – seen? used? unsafe? powerful? mixed?
If you could speak to the people who fetishize disability, what would you want them to understand about you – not just your body/ mind, but you?

– Silje

This week, I had several massive epileptic seizures. Not metaphorical ‘massive’ – or ‘bad days’ massive, but real – body-breaking, tonic-clonic seizures. These are the seizures I hate the most, and the weeks that I have several of them, well – quite frankly, it’s dangerous. They come, completely out of no-where, frying up my brain to the point where it takes several hours to get back from feeling slow and foggy. And then, in addition to feeling like your head is about to fall off, the muscles in your entire body is burning, joints may be out of place, bruises are forming everywhere – and there’s a constant question of whether the current bumps forming in your head warrants a trip to the emergency room, or if you can avoid it.

These elements after the fact, does not just go away once the seizure is over – no, it can last for days, as your body is re-mending. This time I was unable to sleep for an entire day, as I couldn’t turn my head, couldn’t use my right arm and couldn’t sleep on my back.

And while I sat there, aching – flickering and trying to reassemble myself, something else was happening as well. Norwegian Professor, Ragnar Torvik, in a widely circulated opinion-piece, decided to tell the Norwegian country that people like, well – me (that is, government-funded, disabled people below and around the age of 30) – we are simply lazy, and the most dangerous thing to happen to Norwegian society. His words circulated in (as far as I know) several major newspapers in Norway – I personally read it quite unintentionally in Bergens Tiende.

Now, it should be said, that while Torvik’s co-called «analysis» might have been aimed at systemic numbers, the impact is always deeply personal. Because, I never chose to be born, I never asked to be born with epilepsia, EDS and all other genetic impracticalities that is in my veins. In fact – I’ve worked for most of my life, pretending that these things were a non-factor, and what do you know – it only made me sicker!

Now, don’t get me wrong – are there people who don’t want to work, and who pretend to be ill? Sure.
Are the majority of government-funded under 30s just pretending-disability? ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY-NOT!

Because, when you – as Torvik and his (many) followers paint a brush that wide, you hit real people. People who are already exhausted. People who’s been sick since birth! People who also know there’s nothing they can do to change the way they were born – but who still try every-day to to live in bodies that won’t cooperate, in a system that barely sees them.
And remember, those are the people who’s most likely to read-and care about these opinion-pieces. Because the few people who actually don’t wish to work, they couldn’t care less.

I didn’t ask to be born sick.
But here I am – living, enduring, adapting.
And now, apparantly – I am also being blamed.
___

However, let’s be clear about what’s actually happening here:
This isn’t an economic discussion. It’s a cultural story – one that is being written, once again about us, not with us.
And the narrative is tired:

«Young people don’t want to work!»
«Welfare is too generous.»
«They’re not really that sick.»

No data presented. No nuance. Just lazy scapegoating disguised as analysis.

As Alice Walker once said:
«The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.»

So here I am – reclaiming mine. With words. With truth. With the full, inconvenient weight of my disabled body, and the lived experience that follows along with it.
Because I may be tired, but I am not silent.

The point of the matter is as follows;
I have complex epilepsia.
It was not caused by poor choices, or lack of work ethic, or too much time!
It’s neurological – and most likely lifelong. I was born this way – and until the day I die, I will have to live this way.
And believe me, that is no-small-thing.

For me, it means, a couple-handfulls of medications at least twice a day – and another handful to get over all the side-effects.
It means pysiotheraphy 3 times a week, just to keep your body afloat, and regular visits to several doctors to make sure things are ok-ish.
It means not being allowed to drive a car, and the likelihood of being picked up by an ambulance every-time you’re on a buss or a train. It means not being able to take a shower or (even worse – a bath!) without someone watching you. It means using filtered-glasses daily, even just for going to the toilet. It means needing everything from 9-17 hours of sleep every day. It means the likelihood of not ever getting a job (regardless of how much you can work) – and no matter how ambisious you are, because todays job-market can’t handle someone with daily seizures.
And apparantly, it means being blamed for all bad decisions government(s) make, because Its so unfair that I should be payed for all the medications I. Need. To. Stay. Alive!

Now, I’ve spent years working to stay upright and engaged. To build a life that fits the rhytm of my body. Not because I gave up trying to surpass my disabilities, but because I knew I needed to take my disabilities into account If I wanted to survive. And I fought like hell to do so. Still do!

And yet – here I am, lumped in with imaginary, lazy people, treated as a burden by those who have no idea what it means to wake up in a body that constantly betray you – and an unopperative brain that is either going to give you seizures, or (if it were to be operated) likely make you blind.

Know that, we aren’t «outside of the workforce» because we want to be. We’re outside because the world – and workforce was designed without us in mind.
I know many people (myself included) who’ve been denied work, face-to-face because of disabilities. Even though this is illegal discrimination according to Norwegian Law. So my question is, why are we – the sick and disabled, blamed for not working, when (in most cases) the only reason we aren’t is because those payed to hire us, choose not to?
_____

You don’t know how much it costs me to take the buss. Or how long I need to recover from grocery shopping. You don’t see my physiotheraphy appointments, visits to the chiropractor, doctor, neurologist, the medical side-effects I deal with every day, knowing I’ve tried all the medications I can (litterally!). And you don’t see the shame of asking for help to pay my bills, in a society that punishes dependence.
As author Sunaura Taylor writes in Beasts of Burden:

«The able-bodied world cannot imagine our futures because it refuses to accept our present.»

Because, that’s the heart of it, isn’t it? They don’t want to see us. So they call us lazy instead. Because that’s easier than confronting the fact that some people can’t be ‘fixed’, and never needed to be.

___

However, all is not without hope. For example, this post is inspired by a beautifully sharp and honest Facebook post from a Norwegian legal-expert, which was later published in the paper Aftenposten: (https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/i/GyWPkQ/arbeidslivet-maa-endres-hvis-flere-ufoere-skal-i-jobb)
His words are like oxygen i a room that has gone stale. It’s a reminder that we are not imagining this. That we’re not alone. That someone out there get’s it.

Because here’s the truth:
This has never been about policy. It’s about power.
It’s about who get’s to speak. And who get’s to exist without apology.

So, If you’re disabled and feeling crushed by this current rhetoric – I see you.
This is not your fault. This isn’t on you to fix. And you are not ‘lazy’ just for living in a body that demands care. Remember:

You are allowed to rest.
You are allowed to need help.
You are allowed to exist without having to prove your worth.
You are allowed to be sick without being a scapegoat.

Rest is not resignation. Support is not shameful. Your life – just as it is, is worthy of respect, protection and piece.
So if you have the energy; speak up! Share your story. Vote. Organize.
And if all you can do today is survive; like me yesterday; then you’ve already done more than they could ever understand.

And finally, to Professor Torvik, the ones who gave him platforms – and all the people who mindlessly follow the same rhetoric; You failed in your humanity.
Because I refuse to be a scapegoat to someone who doesn’t even understand that sickness can come to us all; from tiny babies to pensioneers. And thinking it’s easy to just ‘get a job’ for those of us who are sick, just illustrates how little you actually know.

– Silje