What does it mean to be disabled and desirable?

In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we meet Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple” who has made it his mission to make sex and disability part of the public discourse. Andrew embraces his role as a poster boy for the cause with an honesty that is, in itself, a kind of striptease.

 We follow Andrew as he plans the second edition of Justify My Love, a sex-positive play party that the international media was quick to call a “handicapped orgy” when it launched in Toronto the year before. Throughout the film, Andrew discusses desire with a candour that cuts through the polite and often hypocritical discourse surrounding disability. “I own all of it. All of the crippled parts of me.”

 At the heart of the film is the uneasy dichotomy that disabled people face, of feeling either invisible or like a freak show, especially with regards to their sexuality. With its insistent and unflinching gaze, Picture This invites us to see them for who they are.

In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we follow Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple,” as he plans the second edition of Justify My Love—a sex-positive play party that the international media was quick to call a “handicapped orgy” when it launched in Toronto the year before. At the heart of the film is the uneasy dichotomy that disabled people face, of feeling either invisible or like a freak show, especially with regards to their sexuality. With its insistent and unflinching gaze, Picture This invites us to see them for who they are.

What does it mean to be disabled and desirable?

How do you assert your sexual identity when you also have to deal with leg bags, personal support workers and a society that would rather look away?

In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we meet Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple” who has made it his mission to make sex and disability part of the public discourse.

We follow Andrew as he plans the second edition of Justify My Love, a sex-positive play party that the international media was quick to call a “handicapped orgy” when it launched in Toronto the year before. As Andrew preps the party and wonders if it will live up to its former fetishized hype, his co-organizer, Stella, shares her own experiences with sexual viability and desire.

We also meet Andrew’s best friend, Tinashe, who helps him navigate the daily ignorance he encounters and the deeper issues at play, and his mother, whose strength and grit helped make Andrew the man he is today: funny, brash, and self-determined in the face of the attitudes he’s made it his life’s work to subvert.

Throughout the film, Andrew discusses desire with a candour that cuts through the polite and often hypocritical discourse surrounding disability. “I own all of it. All of the crippled parts of me.” His insights go deep, but his sense of humour brings a surprising levity and tenderness to a range of subjects—from how to write a dating profile when you’re in a chair, to how to respond when someone expresses shock that people like Andrew can have (or want) sex at all.

At the heart of the film is the uneasy dichotomy that disabled people face, of feeling either invisible or like a freak show, especially with regards to their sexuality. With its insistent and unflinching gaze, Picture This invites us to see them for who they are.

Andrew Gurza is a disability awareness consultant and “cripple content” creator working to make the lived experience of queerness and disability accessible to all. His written work has been featured in Huffington Post, The Advocate, Everyday Feminism, Mashable, and Out.com. He has presented all across North America on what it means to be a Queer Cripple and the intersectionality of sex, queerness and disability. He is also the host of the DisabilityAfterDark podcast. Andrew resides in Toronto, Canada. You can find out more about his work at www.andrewgurza.comor connect with him on Twitter @andrewgurza.