My cuir (queer) sexy, disabled utopia

This International Day of People with Disabilities, The D*List is embracing play, and what that means to us as disabled people. We called for community submissions and how people incorporate play in their lives. In this submission, Lilith Del Mar shares what it was like to feel desirable using a mobility aid while doing ballroom.

“OH MY GOD! You looked SO HOT! I thought the cane was like a prop or something! But you ACTUALLY use it!” 

These were the words said to me by a random man at Ivy after I walked the Sex Siren (a ballroom category) at a vogue night hosted by House of Marama in Spring 2024. 

At that time, I had been using my cane for around two and a half years as my mobility deteriorated due to my chronic illness. I was in pain, happy and at the same time confused by people’s surprise at me performing with a cane. Was it really THAT rare to see a disabled person as desirable? 

The first time I experienced this category was as a spectator in June 2019. Back then I was living in Guadalajara, México. That night, all I could feel was this sense that I had found my people, all I could think was “I want to do that, whatever this is, I want to do it.” 

In that moment right there and then, I decided I wanted to learn as much about sex siren as possible. Later that night when I went back home I looked up the sex siren walkers on Instagram and it was like a whole world opened up before me. I was so excited to be part of this community, but there was a problem… I was moving to Aotearoa two months from then. 

As Covid made everyone stay inside, a lot of online workshops started popping up. One of them by Nina Nina (at that time, part of the House of Apocalipstick) caught my eye. Nina Nina was a performer I remembered so clearly because they had petals under their clothes which fell beautifully when they took off a piece of clothing. I was incredibly excited to learn from them, and that, even from a distance I was still able to connect with the sex sirens in Mexico. 

So I signed up, and it helped me put a lot of thoughts and feelings I've had around sensuality into words and into my body. While sex siren originated in a competitive setting, Nina Nina has an approach in which sex siren is a space that teaches you skills for your day to day life. It became my meditation, I would do it in my room alone, in front of the mirror or during the online workshop. Performing sensuality that centered myself for myself was exactly what I had been needing without knowing it. 

Then I became disabled and could barely walk, I was no longer able to perform in the same way; all the cool movements I had learned were too painful for me to do anymore. When it feels like you’re constantly in crisis, it's easy to turn the anger and frustration that comes with it towards your own body. I think we have all fallen victim to this cycle of hating your body so much because of all the pain it feels like it puts you through. So much was changing very rapidly in my life; I went from working 40hrs a week to barely being able to go to the bathroom by myself. My sex siren practice had to change as my body changed, which at first seemed nearly impossible. Why would I want to connect with how my body felt if it was always in pain? How could I continue doing something that constantly reminded me of who I was prior to getting sick? Chronic illnesses are weird, you spend so much time managing symptoms, resting and recovering that all days blend together.

When you’re disabled you experience time in a different way called crip time. To quote Ellen Samuels in their essay Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time: 

“For crip time is broken time. It requires us to break in our bodies and minds to new rhythms, new patterns of thinking and feeling and moving through the world. It forces us to take breaks, even when we don't want to, even when we want to keep going, to move ahead. It insists that we listen to our bodyminds so closely, so attentively, in a culture that tells us to divide the two and push the body away from us while also pushing it beyond its limits. Crip time means listening to the broken languages of our bodies, translating them, honoring their words.” 

I had to learn to listen to my body in a way I hadn't before, I had to learn to work with my body as a team, and not use it just as a tool. My sex siren practice helped me connect with my body in a way in which I'm not constantly trying to change it, but to accept it as it is. I eventually had to start using a cane most days, and it became an extension of me. I have walked balls where, while performing, my arm or hip has moved in a funny way and semi dislocates. But I’ve found ways to put things back into place while still performing sensually for the judges. Every time after performing, I'm in bed all week with a big pain flare up. It would seem counter-intuitive to keep performing when it causes me so much pain after. But the way I see it, I will be in pain regardless, so I might as well be doing something I connect so deeply with and that feels so good regardless of whether I win or not. I have had pain flares before and survived them all. 

Someone like me doing sex siren is very confronting to a lot of people. Not only because sensuality and sexuality is something people don’t feel comfortable talking about, but outside in the mainstream world a disabled, fat, queer feminised brown body like mine is not what comes to mind when people think “sexy”. However, sex siren is a space where we create our own narratives, and where we can be and show ourselves as loudly as we want. As my sex siren teacher Nina Nina taught me in one of their workshops, it is the space where we create our own utopias and my utopia includes disabled dissident bodies as subjects of their own desire. 

Nowadays, I practise sex siren by myself or with my Pōneke 007 friends. I also facilitate sex siren workshops through a group I'm part of called Latin Cuirs. This has helped me build a community of beautiful slutty people, and that’s just one piece of what I see as my own utopia. What does your Cuir (queer) utopia look like?

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The D*List Delivered!