Letter to the editor, the Village Voice, February 18, 1992:

In her review of Nancy Friday's most recent book on women's sexual fantasies ["Different Strokes," January 14], Judith Levine says of sex books she looked at as a child, "Some were even kinky, like the illustrated handbook on sex for the disabled."

Disabled people having sex is per se "kinky"? Sex "for" the disabled? (Rather than between people expressing their sexualness?) "The disabled"? (A phrase that objectifies, connotes radical differences and distance.)

Articles in the Voice specifically about disability (most recently, by Nat Hentoff and Mary Johnson) have tended to respect and understand disability. But frequently, offhand remarks appear in other articles and in reviews that demonstrate an absence of recognition that disability is political, not an oddity or an individual misfortune. This is a curious, harmful absence in people presumably on the left. I attribute it to the depth of terror disability arouses in non-disabled people, as well as the profundity of personal change needed to acknowledge that there is such a thing as ableism, and to learn about, recognize, and challenge its manifestations.

I'm not asking for censorship of such remarks, but I am asking for editing that sends a piece back to the writer pointing out ableism, and asking the writer whether he or she wants to stay with what they've written. As it is now, readers never know when they are going to be hit with a piece of flying mud.

—Eleanor Smith
Atlanta

Judith Levine Replies:
I regret very much having committed an offhand act of ableism. Ms. Smith is correct that prejudices of the body run deep, and I thank her for calling me on mine.

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