I’ve spent my life watching society ignore childhood sexual abuse (CSA) or use it as a political football to flick the responsibility from one party to another.
Category: Comment
All the Light We Cannot See shows disabled actors are crucial for disabled roles
Filmmakers often attempt to tell disabled stories, but few cast disabled actors in disabled roles.
Thankfully, Netflix’s adaptation of the globally renowned novel All the Light We Cannot See rejected that tired option by conducting a worldwide search to find visually impaired actors for the lead role of Marie-Laure Leblanc – and it paid off, big time.
Ginny and Georgia season 2 addresses key unresolved issue
From teenage sex to unhealthy parent-child dynamics, Ginny & Georgia is a smorgasbord of challenging topics that are seldom depicted sympathetically on-screen.
The Netflix series centres the mother-daughter dynamic between the titular Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and Georgia (Brianne Howey), depicting its high points and moments of great emotional upheaval, one of which is Ginny’s self-harming.
How Good Omens season 2 swerved ignorant tropes with its disabled angels
Good Omens’ second season nailed disability representation without tokenising a community that rarely gets depicted on screen.
Too many representations of disabled people stray into the objectively bad or dangerously prejudiced categories of filmmaking. Narratives position disabled people as burdens, inspirations, or mistakes of biology that must be fixed. Visual storytelling relies too much on tropes and neglects to explore the full spectrum of disabled lives.
Love Island, disabled reality TV stars, and the ‘inspiration porn’ deluge
Love Island has announced what it says is its “most diverse” cast ever, which includes their first physically disabled contestant: Hampshire PE teacher Hugo Hammond, who has a clubbed foot.
The ‘10 second grope’ ruling is ridiculous. Sexual assault has no time limit
To state what should be the obvious: sexual assault has no time limit. Whether it lasts one second or one hour, the violation of another person’s body is equally unacceptable. Yet, apparently, this is difficult to grasp – for an Italian judge has cleared a school caretaker of groping a teenage schoolgirl because it “did not last long enough” to qualify as sexual assault.
Stop desexualising disabled people like the Victoria’s Secret model with Down’s syndrome
Last week, Sofía Jirau made history as the first model with Down’s syndrome to pose for Victoria’s Secret. The images are stunning, yet the shoot’s launch set off ableists everywhere.
Critics have denounced her history-making achievement as objectifying, arguing that it is wrong to sexualise a person with Down’s syndrome. While vast swathes of the internet are embracing a significant milestone in disabled representation, others are alleging concern for her welfare.
I left the UK for Canada and can’t afford to come home
In April 2022, I flew to south-east Asia for a backpacking trip designed to relieve the stress of post-pandemic life. Now, with the cost of living crisis taking over the UK, I’ll never return to live in my home country – I cannot afford to.
I left full-time work in February 2019 to better manage my collection of chronic and disabling illnesses; the current headliners are endometriosis and fibromyalgia. Remote, part-time work transformed my quality of life by allowing me complete control over my time and distribution of precious reserves of energy.
I survived child sex abuse – here’s why Huw Edwards’s sentencing matters
Social media is incandescent with rage about Huw Edwards’s suspended sentence, but I’m not remotely surprised. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who was actively discouraged from pursuing charges at all, I know it’s par for the course. This country is essentially on the edge of decriminalising childhood sexual abuse and possessing indecent imagery of children, just like it has with rape.
