01-06-2025
Young people with disabilities face online fetishization
Since 2019, Em, 24, has regularly received messages from fetishists on Instagram. The feminist disability activist (who used a pseudonym), who was amputated as a teenager and has Proteus syndrome – a rare condition characterized by the overgrowth of bones, skin and other tissues – has identified several such profiles over the years.
Some asked Em for photos of their stump and complimented them on their prosthesis. Others treated Em as if they were asexual or "fragile." The Paris region resident was also often followed by accounts named "amputee fans" who liked, commented on all their posts and sent messages. At times, the attention escalated into hypersexualization, accompanied by crude comments such as, "You must have been really fucked to limp like that."
While there have been few studies on this phenomenon in France, Pierre Brasseur, a sociologist specializing in disability and sexuality, noted that erotic magazines long featured pornographic representations of people with disabilities. As early as 1972, the magazine Penthouse, for example, published a series of letters from readers who said they were attracted to amputees.
