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You and Yours听- Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 28.01.05 - Disabled People and Sexuality PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON |
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Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ROBINSON Are disabled people as sexually attractive as anyone else? Could you, for example, ever fancy a quadriplegic person? Well the Daily Telegraph's theatre critic, Charles Spencer, raised the question with his review of a West End show. Whose Life is it Anyway is about a glamorous and vivacious young sculptor left paralysed after a road accident. It explores the right to die and it stars the Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall. Charles Spencer wrote: "In real life you'd never find yourself fancying a quadriplegic, but in the theatre I certainly found myself fancying Cattrall." Here's a taste of the drama: CLIP FROM WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY CLAIRE HARRISON Suppose you came to my studio to buy something, you looked at all my pieces and you said - I want the Mother and Child. And I said - No, no, no, you don't know anything about sculpture. The proportion's all wrong, the texture's boring. You're getting the Flamingo. You'd think I was crazy. You might ask for my professional opinion but as a mature adult you would reserve the right to choose for yourself. DR EMERSON But we're not talking about a piece of a sculpture to decorate a room but about your life. CLAIRE HARRISON That's right - my听 life. ROBINSON Kim Cattrall and William Chubb who plays her consultant on stage at the Comedy Theatre in London. Well in a moment we'll hear from Charles Spencer but first here's the reaction to his review from the chief executive of the Spinal Injuries Association Paul Smith. SMITH I found it greatly offensive. There are an awful lot of loving caring relationships out there with high level quadriplegics. And they're leading full sex lives and enjoying life to the full. If you have a model who has wonderful looks actually becomes quadriplegic she still has those same looks, she hasn't changed at all. In reality it just isn't the case that someone would not fancy someone who is quadriplegic, it's been proven time and time again to be the case that someone has found someone attractive and has wanted to follow through with that relationship. So his sweeping statement is factually incorrect. ROBINSON Paul Smith, the chief executive of the Spinal Injuries Association. Earlier we put his points to Charles Spencer, the Telegraph's theatre critic. SPENCER I was writing, of course, about my own reaction, which is what you always write about in a theatre review. I was saying that how in fact I had been persuaded that quadriplegics - you could fancy them or feel a sexual desire for them. So I don't think he's quite right in what I was saying. But I think more generally if I'd said of course you always fancy quadriplegics, I think people would have thought I was a pervert of some kind. You don't tend to think - and this is the very point that the play is making - that severely disabled people are objects of sexual desire. And I think that may be wrong but that is what the play is suggesting is what happens and it's one of the things that makes Kim Cattrall's character so upset, she's become a sexless object, rather than a sexual person and this is one of the many streams of debate in the play. ROBINSON But what you wrote - and I'm quoting now - is that in real life you'd never fancy a quadriplegic, what you meant was in real life one would never fancy a quadriplegic, you're not actually talking about yourself, you're extending it to everyone, it was a bit sweeping wasn't it? SPENCER Maybe that was sweeping, maybe I should have said I would never fancy a quadriplegic. And that would be meaning because I have no experience of it. So perhaps that was a sweeping remark and that people would. But the point is repeatedly made in the play that she has no feeling from the neck down and that sex - she has said goodbye to her boyfriend - and that one of the reasons she wants to die is that she no longer feels like a full human being. ROBINSON But isn't one of the points of the play that those are her feelings, they're not necessarily what you were meant to feel in the audience. SPENCER No, no exactly, I mean this is exactly what I went on to say that in fact what is remarkable about the play and her performance is that it forces you to see disability in a whole new light and what's fascinating about it is that while she desperately wants to die, because she feels her life is worthless, the feeling amongst the viewers of the play, I think, and certainly my feeling was, was that when in the end - I won't say what happens at the end - but you desperately don't want her to die, this is a human being with a huge amount of potential in all kinds of ways, that she seems determined to put an end to and not to make the best of her situation but that her situation, she feels, is not worth living. And I think this is the very point of the play, particularly with Cattrall's performance, is that you do begin to slightly fall in love with the character and so that her determination to die begins to seem incredibly poignant. ROBINSON Was it, would it be fair to say, simply a piece of unguarded honesty, a sentence about which you didn't give very much thought? SPENCER Well the review was written in 45 minutes. But no I do tend to say - and what I should have said is I rather than you. When I see someone in a wheelchair I don't think of them as someone - someone who you fancy and this may be wrong of me but I can quite see that people who are married to someone who becomes badly disabled, that sexual desire of course may well linger and that seems to me to be entirely excellent. So I think I should have said I, rather than you. But the you then was, as you said, was meaning sort of one and I think that was wrong, I should have gone full out and said I, as I did in the second half of the statement when I said that I did indeed fancy Cattrall in her performance. ROBINSON Do you accept there probably isn't a minority group left about which you could write this in effect, saying that you could never fancy them or no one could ever fancy them apart from people with disabilities? SPENCER Interesting. It's an odd one isn't it. I personally I don't think - I say this as someone who's quite fat and not particularly fanciable myself, I don't want to be sort of putting myself up as some kind of great Adonis, whether I fancy someone or not is of any interest to anyone. But I think that's an interesting - I think there is a stream of politically correctness here. I would say that for me, probably, I would personally never go for a redhead, for instance, and that maybe redheads would get offended by that. I mean you can't legislate for desire or sexual attraction. I think it's important to be honest about these things and certainly I would say that I have a perfect right to say that I wouldn't normally fancy someone who is severely disabled. But by no means judging people in relationships who do. ROBINSON But if you describe yourself then as physically unattractive - you were saying you're fat and the kind of person no one would have any interest in knowing who they fancied and who they didn't fancy - you must know then that sexual attraction isn't simply about looks, that it's about personality and interests and all that kind of thing. SPENCER Oh absolutely, I'd quite agree with that. But there is also - you do - I think - I do myself, I don't know if you do, that there are some people you find fanciable and some people you don't. I think it would take getting to know someone in a wheelchair or who is severely disabled - time - if you saw someone lying in a hospital bed I don't think your first - unable to move from the neck down - I don't think that your first reaction would be gosh I really fancy that. ROBINSON Charles Spencer thank you very much. 听 Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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