Disability-Rights/Feminism Convergance

Nancy Jane Moore wrote in Ambling Along the Aqueduct about high heels and how the myth of their sexiness perpetuates the idea of helpless women as more attractive and I couldn't help thinking about the fact that I get hit on the most when I look the sickest.  When I need to use oxygen, when I have a minor infection and have to go to school anyway, when I have a broken bone and I'm on crutches, men find me more attractive.  This makes absolutely no evolutionary sense.  I have a genetic illness, and so even if I were able to produce children (which my illness prevents) I would pass this illness on to them.  Therefore, I must conclude it's cultural.  As a woman, my weakness, my vulnerability is attractive.  I don't think this goes both ways.  In media, men and boys who have disabilities are often portrayed as sexless, or without possibility of romantic attachments.  Women and girls have some of this too, and many women are considered worthless and undesirable because of their disability, but that same "defectiveness" makes many of us creep magnets.

I feel icky now.