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A review by analenegrace
Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire by Alice Wong
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
Alice Wong is someone I look up to considerably as a disabled person living in the United States, so when her newest edited collection was released, I picked it up as soon as I could. Wong's collections have never failed to engage me and challenge me, but at times, feel embraced into the warm circle of the disability community.
It is currently disability pride month, July 2024, and disabled people around this country are experiencing ableism from every direction. This collection looks at intimacy from every direction and it was a super important read for right now. This collection provided me with so much language I didn't have to understand and explain topics around disability and particularly, disability justice. Many of these essays forced me to challenge my own internalized ableism and better understand the experiences of those with disabilities different from my own (I have fibromyalgia, which causes extreme chronic pain as well as degenerative knees, and multiple neurodivergencies, also PCOS....) and I even saw fibromyalgia more than once which almost made me cry because I felt so seen.
Wong's collections, and especially this one, are so intersectional, and it is so profoundly impactful to hear from those whose experiences I have not lived, particularly as a white cis woman who acknowledges my privileges.
I am deeply grateful for Alice Wong and her work and this collection, as well as to all of the writers who took their time and bodymind to contribute to this collection. As a note, my favorite of these essays was probably "many of whom have never been and are like me and feel alienated by it" Access Intimacy in Archives by Gracen Brilmyer. I have an MLIS, and archives/libraries hold a deep place in my heart, so this was a read that really connected with me, among MANY others.
I cannot recommend this more. If it makes you uncomfortable, keep going and keep reading. That is necessary for understanding the disability community's struggles and disability justice.
It is currently disability pride month, July 2024, and disabled people around this country are experiencing ableism from every direction. This collection looks at intimacy from every direction and it was a super important read for right now. This collection provided me with so much language I didn't have to understand and explain topics around disability and particularly, disability justice. Many of these essays forced me to challenge my own internalized ableism and better understand the experiences of those with disabilities different from my own (I have fibromyalgia, which causes extreme chronic pain as well as degenerative knees, and multiple neurodivergencies, also PCOS....) and I even saw fibromyalgia more than once which almost made me cry because I felt so seen.
Wong's collections, and especially this one, are so intersectional, and it is so profoundly impactful to hear from those whose experiences I have not lived, particularly as a white cis woman who acknowledges my privileges.
I am deeply grateful for Alice Wong and her work and this collection, as well as to all of the writers who took their time and bodymind to contribute to this collection. As a note, my favorite of these essays was probably "many of whom have never been and are like me and feel alienated by it" Access Intimacy in Archives by Gracen Brilmyer. I have an MLIS, and archives/libraries hold a deep place in my heart, so this was a read that really connected with me, among MANY others.
I cannot recommend this more. If it makes you uncomfortable, keep going and keep reading. That is necessary for understanding the disability community's struggles and disability justice.