"You've never seen a porn?"

Often times, I'm the first blind person people get a chance to have a conversation with. And for some reason, most of the folks that encounter me honestly believe that I'm not "like them." I can understand basic ignorance. But I cannot understand sheer stupidity.

Over the years, people have asked me some pretty ridiculous questions. But again, I chalk it up to ignorance. If you don't know, you just don't know. So, when people ask me the questions, I take a deep breath and just answer, even if I do think it's silly.

Here's one example of some of the silly questions people ask me. And I'll quickly answer the question, just in case you're part of the group that always wished you had the opportunity to ask a blind person this

“Who bathes you?”
I bathe myself. I clean out the tub with whatever cleaning product that I purchased. Then I run my water. Most of the times, I sit in the tub when the water is running. So, the possibility of the tub overflowing while I'm in it is not there. But if I'm not in the tub, I stick my hand in the tub to make sure that the water is not getting too high.
After that, I put my behind in the water, lather up my towel, and use my sense of touch, as well as this good brain of mine, to make sure that this body of mine is scrubbed from head to toe. So far, no complaints...

Somebody even asked me this:
“Do you have sexual desires?”
Um, yes… My eyes don’t work. But every other part of me is in good working order. Last time I checked, eyeballs had nothing to do with sex. Well, for women anyway… LOL!

Honestly, I thought I've heard all the questions that someone may have about a blind person, until recently. A few weeks ago, I met a man that asked me a question that floored me.

We were having a friendly conversation about my blindness and how it impacts me. He asked me all the questions in the book.

"Who dresses you?"
"Who helps you shop for your clothes?"
"Can you cook?"
"How did you go to college?"
"How do you read books?"
"How do you use the computer?"

And trust me, that was only a few of his questions. But I answered them, like I always do.

As the questions kept coming, they became more and more interesting.

"So, are blind people good with their hands?"
"Is your sense of touch more potent than others?"
"Are blind people sensual?"
"Do you date?"

And then, out of no where, he had a light bulb moment. He lowered the boom and threw me completely off withthe the next question that popped into his head.

"Oh my God! You've never seen a porn before, have you?!"

"Nope, can't say that I've seen a porn before. Seen a lot of bare breast on HBO and TMC when I was a kid. But no porns..."

Out of all the things to be concerned about, that's what he came up with?

"So, if your man wanted you to watch a porn with him, you wouldn't be able to? That's awful!"

Well, I never thought about it. So far, I haven't had the opportunity to respond to such an invitation. But I hardly think that not having the chance to watch a porn would rank high on my list of "blind disappointments."

I can't recall the time that I thought to myself, "Man, I wish I could watch some hot, butt naked sex on my television."

While I figure that it may indeed be entertaining on many levels, I really can't say that I'm being punished by not being able to watch one.

Maybe that's because I haven't seen one. LOL!