Deafness as Subculture not Disability

So I was reading an article today and being the person I am I developed some strong opinions on it. It was an article relating to the lives of the deaf and how the larger percentage of them consider it to be a great insult to be labeled as disabled. This article then later goes on to say that giving cochlear implants to children should be considered child abuse and that 86% of deaf adults wouldn't want to hear even if it was free and find the concept of 'curing' deafness greatly offensive. I'll be honest this stopped me dead in my tracks. I can hear and always have. I can't imagine a world where I couldn't hear my man say 'I love you' or where music didn't play when I got in the car as anything other than dismal. If I were to suddenly go deaf I'd be signing up at every research hospital in the country to make them give my hearing back. Then I started to think, is this simply because I was born being able to hear?

Well the more I thought on it the more I can to a few conclusions. If my child was born deaf I would get them the cochlear implants asap so that they might lead a more normal life. It may offend this particular subculture of the deaf to read this but this is my opinion and as always I enjoy your thought out rebuking. So let's start with communication. If my child is born deaf this makes the challenges of parenting ten fold more complicated. Where as a child born with hearing I could teach them their names and the alphabet what food they do and don't want. How to let me know if they are hungry or tired. If I see them run into the street I can scream for them to stop. I can tell them stories for bed and how to sing songs. Not only that  but research I have found shows that those who are born deaf have a much lower reading level upon high school graduation than the average child born with hearing. So if I can't teach my child to read or write, instead I am spending the most important years trying to brush up my own sign and teach it to another then I would be putting my child at a great disadvantage. Also children who are born deaf is less than 1 per 1000. So the odds of my child having a friend they could talk to during school or having someone who understands drops significantly. I'd rather my child be the one with the implant and a few friends than the one who is deaf and all alone.

Also even as imaginary child grew up they would be hard press to find a job that could suit their needs. How do you explain to a child who wants to be a doctor that their chances are a lot slimmer because they can't talk to their patients traditionally. It just seems to me that so much heartache and loneliness could be avoided if people took advantage of technology.

I know they said that deafness isn't a disability but I'd have to argue. If the world had not evolved as much as it has, being born deaf could be a death sentence. Granted being blind could be arguably worse but those I have had the pleasure of meeting who are blind seem to have fared better than those I have met who are deaf.

So I'll be honest I am struggling to understand the argument here that being deaf isn't a disability that can stunt the rest of your life. I think this is because I can hear and the person who wrote the article could hear as well. I would adore the input of anyone who is deaf or has experience with the deaf.

Corset working through her logic,
signing off

Artistic Nude?

So I was living life one day, like you do, when I noticed someone was selling a gorgeous artistic nude, my only problem was that there were smiley face stickers covering up particular bits of the art work. The artist noticing my confusion approached me and told me those were not part of the picture, he had to cover them up because the art was on display in a local restaurant and a child might come in and see it. To which I responded, so what? Children fall into two big categories when it comes to artistic nudity. Eww coodies/meh, or There's better on the internet. Well we went back and forth for a few moments but it came down to this, why are children allowed to see movies depecting people have sex and all the naughty bits there but it someone presents the human form in a still tasteful manner, it's all of a sudden something we should be ashamed of? This makes little sense to me.

 Parisian nymph painted by Jules Lesebvre

The first argument we discussed was parents prerogative. If they do not want their child to see nudity on display, they should have that right. What this means is that in his case, they were right to tell him to cover up the bits. A parent should get to chose if they want their child exposed and how they want their child to learn about sexuality.

The Second was that in the light of liberalism, if people stop acting so shamed by the human form and repressed their children less then there would be less in the way of bullying of gay children and those who have different body shapes. Later on in life as well, they would grow to be more comfortable in their own skin and would have a general increase in self confidence. If you think even remotely like me the second sounds awfully optimistic, however I do see the basis where this is coming from and while I don't think it will be in such a dramatic manner, I can see the benefits of letting children grow up aware of the human figure.

This led to our third great disagreement. The differences between male and female nudity. It is excepted a lot more commonly to see an image of a naked woman and call it art however if you even show full male in a movie you are looking at an R or X rating. Yet you can show full frontal of a woman? How does this work? Not well was my answer but we had to agree to disagree on this front.

Then, as it happens when talking about artistic nudes, we began to discuss, what is art? Is a picture of a naked woman with an innocent gaze holding a type of cloth in one hand to cover herself art? Or is it in poor taste? How about naked fae dancing under the moon? Oh my said we. We are roaming blindly through the realm of opinion. One mans art is another mans trash. So does it really matter if a man is forced to cover up an artistic nude? I think so.

What do you think?
Corset signing off.