Words of love and sex

Hello, I’m Penelope. I write erotica.

Quick first impressions. What do you think I’m like? Now let me try again.

Hello, I’m Penelope.

I’m disabled and I’m a wheelchair-user. Has your image changed, by any chance?

When people who know me as a wheelchair-user ask me what I do, I tell them that I write erotica. Often, they look surprised, and I hope it helps them realise that I am more than the chair I sit in; that just because I am disabled does not mean that I am not interested in sex.

People with disabilities aren’t supposed to know what sex is, let alone write about it. According to popular opinion, sex is for young, healthy, able-bodied adults. It used to be that homosexuality was seen as beyond the pale; in modern days, the idea of people with disabilities thinking about, writing about, and especially having sex is far more of a taboo. From my point of view, I enjoy sex and take pleasure in writing about something I love. However, whilst I’ve written both heterosexual and lesbian erotica, I haven’t yet made one of my main characters disabled. You wouldn’t be able to tell that I was disabled from reading my writing, any more than you’d be able to tell I write erotica by admiring the detail on my wheelchair.

Sometimes this concerns me. I worry that I’m betraying disabled people by writing predominantly about able-bodied characters, especially given the prejudice we already face in this area. But then… I am a person first and foremost, not an illness – not a disability. In the same way that being happily married to a man doesn’t prevent me from writing lesbian as well as heterosexual fiction, nor does the fact that I’ve got ME mean that illness has to be there, visible, in
everything I write.

At the same time, however, I don’t want it to be something I hide, something I’m ashamed of. Yes, life would be easier if I were not disabled – but being disabled is part of what makes me “me”. In that sense, everything I write, everything I do, is affected by my health, even when I haven’t made explicit reference to it.

So now’s the time to stand proud (or perhaps, given the wheelchair, sit proud). I am disabled. I am sexy. I am utterly fulfilled in life. And, I hope, some day soon I will live in a world where it’s possible to write characters who reflect that.

• Penelope writes under the name Penelope Friday

• Extract from Beautiful Sin, by Penelope Friday, contained in Ultimate Sins, available from www.xcitebooks.com
“Elizabeth dragged off her petticoat, which rustled sulkily as it dropped from her body. Lizzie’s fingers were already fighting the stay laces. The time for slowness had passed; they were both too impatient, too frustrated, too needy. Skin against skin against skin; the chemise was ruthlessly tugged away and Lizzie collapsed onto the bed with Catherine, legs tangling suggestively; hands pulling in Catherine’s hair; mouth warm and wet on her neck. Catherine arched her back, pushing her small, high breasts against Elizabeth, moaning at the delicious friction.
“Kate – Kate!”
Lizzie was humming a continuous note of pleasure against Catherine’s neck, the sound sending shivers through her. Catherine ran desperate, longing hands down Elizabeth’s back, cupping her bottom and pulling her closer, always closer.”

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