Dec. 28, 2003 — A new design is coming…
As much as the current design is very screen-reader friendly, it is cludgy to update and I need to create a new layout to ensure that I’ll really stick on top of the site. Don’t worry. Whatever I design will be just as structurally simple if not moreso and will never interfere with screen readers.
The design updates will hopefully be finished in the coming month–trust me on this, it is a pretty large undertaking.
Dec. 20, 2003 — The site’s been rescued!
I apologize profusely for the lack of updates. My web site has been on a box in Maryland with broken FTP access. Because my life was in a state of intense upheaval, I haven’t had time or resources to rescue it until this past weekend. The host has been changed to a much more reliable machine with better file transfer capabilities, and I have a bunch of edits to make. They will be coming soon. Thank you for your patience.
January 26, 2002 — Resources updated!
Added a few links to the general section of the resource page. A bigger overhaul of the personal perspectives section is still coming.
October 16, 2002 — Another big update!
The site update needed this time was pretty extensive so I kinda chickened out. This update brought to you by my awesome friend Colin! (Thank goodness for geeky boys with more time than I’ve got.) Soon to come (straight from your full-time webmistress) is an update of the personal perspectives pages.
July 14, 2002 — Big update!
Updated and cleaned up the resources page. Updated the biography of the webmaster. Updated the sex aids page. Updated the Personal Experiences page. Updated the index with some general announcements. Removed some dead or unuseful links. Still working on some additional content… so check back. 🙂
May 7, 2002 — HELP WANTED
See the index page! Looking for an LGBTQ individual with a disability and HTML experience who’s dedicated to the cause of this site and interested in helping others…
May 4, 2002 — We’re in the news!
Okay, not really, not prime time, but disabledsex.org was mentioned in New Mobility this month! Very nifty. I’m pleased. Fixed some stuff on the reading list. This’ll be my last update until June or so, but once it’s June I may be able to update more often… I’m going to have the busiest summer EVER so I’m really not sure… Will keep you guys posted. Still working on some content but slooooooowly.
March 21, 2002 — Links and stuff
Spring break means time! The queer-related links have been updated, and a NEW SECTION for the site is in the works as we speak! You will just have to come back to see what it is all about!
Nov. 8 2001 — Books and Links
Updated the general books list and the resources page again. Still following more leads…
Nov. 1, 2001 — Books and stuff!
Updated the general book list. Might be more to come–I am investigating more as time goes by.
Also updated the resources page, making it slightly more organized (for me) and adding a few things. Yay!
Oct. 8, 2001 — Getting Personal
Personal perspectivves pages have been added to! A very sleepy webmaster promises more updates soon–but not too soon….give me a week, maybe. We’ve got a helper! Yay!
Sept 11-13 2001 — Haitus
Nothing was done on the site this week due to the Sept 11th things… My family is fine despite many close calls, but it is/was a crazy time….
July 15, 2001 — Resources updated.
School has been getting in the way of the page. Trust me, if there was more I could do about it, I would be doing it, but life is just really hectic right now. Minor update today: I fixed the disability humor section of the resources and I fixed an HTML error. Updates will become more frequent when this hellish class I am in right now ends.
June 2, 2001 — Controversy! Yay!
Well, the newest Commentary and Controversy article is up! Brought to you by a fit of insomnia!
May 30, 2001 — Reviews!
Reviews are finally posted for Enabling Romance and Sexuality and Physical Disability: Personal Perspectives. Also, a few things were added to the Articles page. The column’s coming up in the next few days! Also, things are REALLY in motion to start covering sexual positions on the site! All of my contacts are falling into place, which is really reassuring.
May 29, 2001 — More bug smashing!
Well, I’ve been fixing a lot of silly typos and such here and there. Most of the broken links should now work. If they’re not working, it’s because it’s going to take me a while to find those articles (or whatever) again so I can figure out where the typos are by comparing URLS. I hope to get all of it done very, very soon. Be on the lookout by the end of the week for my April column!
May 22, 2001 — The Fuzzy Circle …
The newest from The Fuzzy Circle was posted today. This is a two-part article looking at pornography and its effect on our sexuality. Very well done–I’m looking forward to part 2!
May 19, 2001 — New article
The newest Commentary and Controversy article is online. Check back for the Fuzzy Circle article soon and a few updates!
May 4, 2001 — Some fun links
This week I ran across some really fun links and have added them to the resources page along with a whole bunch of mailing lists open to the queer community. 🙂 I’ve also had a number of articles suggested to me by visitors to the site, so those will be reviewed in the next few days. Lastly I hope to get a few book reviews up, and I have a few leads for the Personal Perspective pages underway.
April 19 2001 — Articles and Columns, oh my!
The articles page got a little makeover today. The new (and first official) Fuzzy Circle article was posted, as were several new ones I have found or had contributed by nice friends! Also, the personal perspectives pages are underway as I find some nice people to fill them with stories! Things are progressing pretty well. In general, there should not be anything broken. However, this will probably jinx me!
April 14 2001 — Toys…
Today I finally finished the update of the Sex Aids page. There is a lot more there. It was a really long process getting all of that stuff together, because it’s fairly obscure, which is why I knew I needed the page in the first place! Well, now it is pretty thorough. If it doesn’t have what you are looking for, at least it will give you some idea of what will work in the search engines! A restless webmaster means that by the time you see this there may be a few more changes around the site… who knows what my insomniac brain will dream up next!
April 11 2001 — Fixes
A few odd things were fixed today. I had been using a few tags which have suddenly gone out of style–doh. Hopefully some updating will happen today. I have become extraordinarily busy with that really nasty thing some people like to call “real life”, which has limited the days that I can update the page. Working three nights a week is far from ideal for me but hey — money is money.
As it stands right now, most updating will be going on Wednesday nights, and probably a bit on the weekends. This doesn’t mean the page is any less important to me, but things have just gotten hectic around here. Plus, I’m having a few health problems which are slowing me down. But I’m still here, so keep visiting!
April 6 2001 — Updates!
This morning I added a ton of articles to the body image page. There are still a few I am looking for to add, so that might happen in the next few days.
Also, I am hoping to update the Sex Aids page this weekend. This week has been the WEEK FROM HELL so I apologize for not getting done everything I thought I might, but I’m very happy with finally updating the body image articles! There’s a lot there now.
April 2 2001 — BUG FIX
Fixed some sidebar links which were pointing to old files (only affected a few sidebars). Sorry about that! All old files should now be GONE. 🙂 In the next few days, I will be working on the reading list, so check back later in the week.
April 1 2001 — Articles!
Today I added a bunch of articles on spinal cord injury. There is a ton of stuff, so that section of the page is now split into general, female sexuality, male sexuality, and parenting. I wish that there was so much out there on other disabilities, but ah well. I’m always on the lookout! Next category: Epilepsy.
Also, the April article for my column is uploaded.
March 30 2001 — Positioning, positioning, positioning!
FINALLY, I did it! I found someone to draw us some pretty pictures of some positions for disabled people to use during sex. This is an ongoing research project of mine, and I still don’t know as much about it as I would like, but would like to put together what I do know ASAP. Please keep in mind, though, that since I’m completely artistically braindead, I’m at the mercy of my friends who are able to draw, so this is why there’s nothing on this topic on the site as yet (written by me, anyway).
Several articles were also added today, as I resumed my (mostly fruitless) search on info for people with CP. Tomorrow: Spinal Cord Injury, again.
Fixed a bug on the articles page. Sorry, guys! You’d think I was drunk while coding. 😉 (Uh oh, I probably shouldn’t tell you I’m not…)
March 28 2001 — Q&A;
Today, I added a few new articles, books and resources. I’m generally going category by category to make my searches more coherent. Today, a lot was added dealing with mental disabilities. In addition, I’ve decided to throw out to you the beginning of a Q&A; column. If it takes off, it will stay–if not, then it may be removed. If you have questions, I probably have answers! I’ve been doing some pretty thorough research and have read (or am in the process of reading) many books on the reading list. Of course, I am not a doctor, and don’t intend to masquerade as one. So we’ll see if you’re all comfortable with the idea of me helping you guys out. REMEMBER, I will never threaten your anonymity. The same rules regarding anonymity as noted in the Personal Perspectives Submissions pages will apply here. (The length requirements are of course different. smile)
March 26-27 2001 — New Column
In the last few days I’ve been in contact with a visitor to the site who was highly interested in contributing personal stories to the site. After some brainstorming, we decided that the best route for him would be his own monthly column, which he wrote an introduction for this week — now accessible for all of you to read.
To keep things from being confusing, I’ve given an official name to my own column — Commentary and Controversy.
I have also been scouring the net every chance I’ve gotten for more articles, and added a section for info for people with Muscular Dystrophy. Right now, though, it’s time for sleep–I’m working off a stomach bug. I’m not sure how much the site will be worked on for the rest of the week, but I always say that, and then I end up sitting down with Quanta and GIMP and banging out more pages, so we’ll see.
March 25 2001 — Additions
Today I scoured the net basically all day for articles. I’m not finished, but it’s time to get ready for sleep, because tomorrow I go back to the grind. Don’t worry — work on the site will NOT end. I’ve been working on it pretty much daily since it began, so I don’t plan to stop now. Lots of articles were added today, and a few resources. Enjoy!
March 23-24 2001 — Reorganizing
The last bit of reorganizing was finished today, so a few bugs popped up earlier in the day as I was moving files around. Most of the bugs were problems specific to Netscape Navigator — as usual.
The articles, personal perspectives, and reading list pages have all been transferred successfully into their own directories, so if you have bookmarked any of them you will need to change your bookmarks, BUT this is the LAST reorganization I am going to be doing. I got everything finished!
Lastly, I will be adding many articles to the page in the next 24 hours, so if that is where your interest lies don’t forget to check back soon.
March 22 2001 — Uncluttering
I have de-cluttered the index page. Everything you were previously able to read there is split up into a few different pages — it should be relatively self-explanatory. I’m also going to try to finish the last bit of reorganizing. None of the main pages are going to be going anywhere different, but if you’ve bookmarked any of the reading list pages, they will be moving into a separate directory as of today.
The Personal Perspectives page is now up and running. Guidelines for submission are available there. Please read them before submitting anything for that page to me.
Lastly, a new article was posted this morning, technically the 23rd. I’m going to try to take tomorrow off from dealing with the site, but we’ll see if that actually holds true.
March 21 2001 — Bug Smashing
A few silly mistakes which cropped up in the past day or so were really messing with Netscape’s understanding of the page. I have to say that I advise against using this browser as it’s not very current on what it supports, but I did manage to fix all of the (known) bugs. If you are still having trouble with the site after today then please let me know–especially if you use Netscape.
The Mental Disability and Sexuality reading list was apparently inoperable although I had uploaded it. It is now running fine. The “What’s in a Name” page, which outlines semantics which will be used on the site, is also fine. I’m sorry for those of you who may have looked at it and been confused.
March 20 2001 — Linking
A lot of things have been added to the resources page today, mostly in the clubs and boards section. I’ve also received some interest from people lately in the Personal Perspectives page, so I planned to have it up and running today with what I have received.Unfortunately, a few bothersome tasks and bugs caught my attention, instead. The page will be up within the next 2 days. I hope that you enjoy it! And don’t hesitate to share your own story. Anonymity will always be preserved here.
March 18-19 20001 — Making Contact
I’m on spring break now, so this means two things. The first is that I have plenty of time to sit and plot for new things for the site. The second is that my boyfriend is around more to want computer time! The site’s growing pretty rapidly, still, but I thought I’d let you all know that things might slow down a bit from the pace I’d like things to be going at. I think that’s okay, though. This is my break, after all.
In the past few days, I’ve been making contact with some interesting people who’ve got potential information that I will of course pass on to you. I’ve got lots of things brewing so don’t forget this place! My copy of Enabling Romance (see the reading list) came today and I’ve been tearing through it. A review will be posted within the next few days.
The Sex Aids page has received some additions. I’ve also caved in and gotten a guestbook, to make it easier for people to leave comments! No excuses now!
March 17 2001 — Cleanup
A new category came about today in the reading list: Mental Disability and Sexuality. Also, the last cleaning up occured. No further bugs should be found, but any that are can be reported to me. Lots of proofreading — of content AND the HTML happened in the past two days. No one should be having any problems currently. So– the site is officially in business. Now, get busy suggesting!
March 15 2001 — Moving Day
Today we moved to the new server. I had been doing a lot of minor webmastery for the past two weeks or so, but since I kinda consider today the “official release” of the page, I haven’t bored you with the nitty gritty. The reading list is now divided into useful categories, and many links have been added, but I’m far from finished.
In the coming days, look for:
A mailing list for disabled teens to discuss issues arising from this site and any other worries they may have, an article for March, and the Parenting (with a disability) page. And don’t forget to send suggestions my way!
March 2 2001 — Websurfin’
Today I set out to do a lot of link-gathering, but considering that I was at school, and I work there, I shoulda known I’d get interrupted. Found a few good resources which are either added to the links or soon to be added–maybe later tonight! I’ve done lots more of the final redesign, too–playing with GIMP is just so addictive. I’m now burnt out at that, though, and feeling the effects of my draining week. TGIF! I’m now off to play tomboy and let the other web geek in the house work on his page.
February 26-March 1 2001 — Negotiations
Discussing the page on mailing lists again, it came to my attention that there is nowhere, really, where people with mental disabilities can go to begin to understand or discuss sex. Confronted with this fact, I scoured the ‘net some more. At least 95% of sites on the issue of sex and mental disability, and all of the ones most likely to come up in search engines, discuss only how to keep the mentally disabled safe from abuse and never how to handle any other issue relating to sex with them. Discussions with a colleague with mild autism have brought us both to a decision. In the near future, a regular to semi-regular column will be here to discuss issues faced by people with mental disabilities and sex. A Question and Answer section is also in the works, but neither have been designed yet as we’re still ironing out the kinks in the idea.
Most of the resources have also been added during these past few days, and a minimalistic navigation system has been added to that page by creating categories with clickable links to each. Anchors are so nice!
February 25 2001 — Pretty Pictures!
In honor of the decision to make the site both more official and more accessible to the general public, I commenced a very mild site redesign, as far as graphics go. The design goes a bit beyond bold and italicized text, but not much. My wonderful boyfriend introduced me to the GNU Image Manipulation Program — The GIMP, for linux. Linux programs always have such fun little names like that! I was quite amused. Plus, GIMP rocks my world. It’s incredibly easy–and I say this as someone who refers to herself as artistically and spacially blind. Still, graphics aren’t my main concern on this page. It’s the information and ease of use that matter.
The more important aspect of the redesign is that, in this interim period before we move to the new domain, I’ve restructured the site a bit–but not in a way that will be visible to you as much as it’s made maintaining the site easier. I’m now using cascading style sheets (CSS) to maintain a standard layout, and while this might seem slightly boring, uniformity makes it easy on me as webmaster, and continuity is your friend! Also, directory structure will be something I work on once I’ve moved to the new site, again for my convenience.
February 24 2001 — What’s in a name?
I posed the question of a possible domain name registration for the site to my mailing lists. Out of respect for the differences in semantics which I’ve seen in the disabled community, I offered some suggestions and took votes. War broke out between the “gimps” and the “disabled.” Acting in a fit of Gimp Pride, I registered both possible domains: gimpsex.org and disabledsex.org. Either address will work to come to this site. Here’s why I came to this decision and why I think it is important. The domains are not as yet functioning as a means to reach the site. My host is currently in the process of setting this up–after he’s done moving into a nice, new house! Geeky friends are a lifesaver.
February 14-20 2001 — Additions
A lot of reading of articles happened during this time and I began to add more pages as more issues cropped up. Parenting is one issue in particular which I decided definitely needed to be addressed. The reading list was added and reviews were planned. I hunted down more books in preparation for this new section. Extreme lag was noted on the page’s “old” home and I began to consider registering a domain name for the page.
February 13 2001 — Birth
The web page was now in good enough shape that I felt it was okay to announce its birth to my friends. It was very plain, but all of the pages had some kind of content and it had a basic structure.
February 1-3, 2001 — Arrival
Somewhere in there, the book arrived. At last! I finished it in two days, in between all of my other work. I then began to conceptualize the site in earnest. The book had awakened me to just how many issues there really were attached to disability and sexuality even not counting my own! I had been zeroing in on something, which was essentially driving me up the wall because I couldn’t figure out how to fix that one thing. I broadened my focus.
January 26, 2001 — Shipment
My first book on sexuality and disability, She Dances to Different Drums, edited by Kath Gillespie-Sells, Milldrette Hill and Bree Robbins, was shipped from the UK. Of course, at the time of my order of this book, Tom Shakespeare’s book had gone from 24-hour availability to backorder. Irritated? Sure I was. But something had finally gone right.
January 2001 — Gathering
During this time, I scrounged for information by asking pertinent questions of my fellow mailing-list members, and scoured the net. Things were still looking grim, but slowly and surely I was reading as much as I could on disability and sexuality. I found lists of several books and paid particular attention to the ones seeming to address physical issues for disabled people in bed. Many of these were out of print or otherwise difficult to obtain. Nevertheless I spent much of January hunting them down. I e-mailed Tom Shakespeare, a very interesting sociologist with a disability who collaborated on The Sexual Politics of Disability: Untold Desires with Kath Gillespie-Sells and Dominic Daveis. He gave me some interesting feedback, a very good article to read, and a list of books to check out. I realized that to get all of the books I wanted I was going to have to order each one from separate stores, under various odd conditions such as “This book can only be ordered when the moon is full and you have not gotten laid in three days, six hours, five minutes and thirty-five seconds, to ensure that you really do need this book. Please pay in foreign currency and wait four to six weeks for delivery, one to two weeks for confirmation that the book has not dropped into the nearest black hole, two of which reside outside of our shipping warehouses here at ReallyPickyBooksellers.com.” Needless to say, I was a bit distraught, but I managed to plan my purchasing somewhat around various gift certificates and just tell myself that all of this was worth it.
December 26-29 2000 — Conception
Web searches had been bringing up next to nothing for me on the topic of sexual positions for the disabled for many months. As someone whose mobility decreases a lot in bed, I was feeling as if things were going wrong and I needed to find new ways to make sex work for me. I couldn’t find anything, though, and many disabled people I talked to were confused about why I was asking when they couldn’t even find a girlfriend/boyfriend. Well, the site was born, as far as the idea, when I decided to make a site pertaining to sexual positions for disabled people. Resources were, however, very limited, so I searched the web in vain, but I had a new determination. What wasn’t readily accessible on the web on this topic, I would put there.