Author: Chloe Petridies
Psychologist

“The Last Taboo” tells the gripping and heart-warming story of six people with various physical disabilities and an able-bodied partner who was in a relationship with one of them. These individuals share their perspectives on intimacy, relationships and what their experiences have taught them about themselves. “The Last Taboo” asks us to step outside our comfort zones in order to reconsider our misconceptions regarding disability, identity, gender, attraction, beauty and sexuality.

In our interplay with physically disabled people we often adopt a paternalistic attitude which places them and chains them to a life of numb acceptance of childish care. Sometimes, the strong discomfiture we feel in presence of their diversity, drives us towards a nonchalant behaviour which might be expressed even as repulsion. Personally, through my interaction with physically disabled individuals, I have come to detect feelings of guilt for the well-being of my own body which grants me certain privileges, despite the fact that I have never earned them, nor fought for nor deserved them, any more than they do.

Many of the needs and the experiences of people with physical disabilities are kept in the dark, as they do not adhere to the angelic picture of the eternal child, or/and because they are extremely disturbing for us to come to terms with. What does that really mean though? Aren’t people with special needs entitled to exploring and enjoying their sexuality just like everyone else?

However much we are socially trained to patronize people with physical disabilities, however much we repeat the phrase “they are just big kids”, and despite how both of the above point to their eternal innocence, they will never cease being excuses for jumping to conclusions about them and for avoiding delving deeper into the story of each or for not further examining the ways in which our lives are alike.

The following documentary, which is filmed in a completely natural environment, far from any cliché, melodrama and morals, aiming to break the non-transparent window of oblivion, brings us closer to people with different physical conditions than ours for 50 minutes and answers questions which we would never bring ourselves to ask. By turning the microphone in their direction, they are given back the voice which social marginalization stole from them and by turning the camera on them, light is shed on aspects of their life with which we can all relate and on experiences from which we should all learn.

If you take a look at the page and the following video you will see how disability does not equal abnormality and how even though the mediums we use are different, the need for acceptance, love and pleasure remains the same for both of us.