Yesterday I found out that one of my followers on Instagram is a devotee.
Shit.
I knew this might happen when I went public with the blog and put a couple of videos on YouTube.
My first reaction to finding out that someone is looking at pictures of me solely because they think my deformed hands or feet are sexy was one of feeling physically ill. I felt like my privacy had been violated somehow.
After taking some time to mull it over, I began to wonder if it was really any worse than finding out someone was attracted to me because I had blonde hair or because they liked some other feature, such as my fine ass. (I kid.) Either way, it’s objectifying me down to whatever part it is they are turned on by.
Then I thought about celebrities and how all kinds of people are admiring them from afar and likely including them in sexual fantasies all hours of the day and night. So maybe if I have one or two guys scouring my blog or Instagram feeds trying to find pictures of my hands and feet (of which there really aren’t many), what harm is there really in it?
This person suggested that I could make money if I posted videos of myself doing stuff with my hands or feet. Not even sexual things, but just regular things. Somehow that is a huge turn on.
I’m kind of glad I found this out now, as I was considering making a video of myself playing the piano and sharing it here and on YouTube. Scratch that!
Maybe I am being too sensitive about it. If someone wants to diddle themselves while watching a completely nonsexual video that I posted online, why should I worry about it? It’s completely within my control whether I feed into it or not, and I choose not to.
To my friends with ectrodactyly, if someone asks you to send pics of your hands, I have a few choice photo responses you can use.
I’m curious to hear from others. Have you been contacted by a devotee? How did you react? Do you think it’s a harmless side effect of making your presence known online? Or are we boarding the train to creepy town when we interact with these people?
Are you a devotee? Why are you attracted to disability or deformity? I can understand being interested from a curiosity standpoint, but why is it sexual?
Uncommon Heather 
Ewww.
Cracked has a video that should be sent to all who think this is an appropriate thing to do: https://youtu.be/iUuJN2X6T3E
I’m going with creepy. It would be creepy no matter what feature he chose to fetishise because A) He doesn’t know you and B) you are not creating sexual content for his consumption. If he wishes to jack off to a strange woman’s image, he doesn’t need to tell you about it.
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That’s a funny video! Why do (some) guys have to be so gross?
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My default is to assume these guys are twelve, either in their heads or they are literally twelve and need tutorials like the ones Cracked offers. “Cracked: Saving the Dudebros from themselves, one video at a time”
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In this day and age, it’s almost a certainty that someone, somewhere, is diddling themselves to an image they come across online. There’s pretty much a fetish for everything at this point (sitting on balloons fully clothed, sitting on a cake fully clothed, foot fetishes, hand fetishes, people that are sexually attracted to inanimate objects) and if you think i’m exaggerating, check out youtube for anything I mentioned! Being a dude, I don’t imagine I have the same issue as woman on the internet so I can’t pretend to understand; I’m only offering my perspective.
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Haha, that is true. I guess people can be turned on by anything.
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I think you have a unique opportunity to pull of some hardcore trolling on the folks that are bothering you for “video of you doing normal stuff”. Like, upload a video of you typing, but instead of the video being your hands on the keyboard, it’s just a recording of the screen showing how fast you’re typing the words and proceed to tag it with whatever it is that’s attracting the “devotes”.
I guess that doesn’t actually solve the issue of being objectified for a specific feature, but at least you get to have the last laugh! :p
I didn’t expect you to reply so quickly (if at all!), but since “I’ve got you here”, where’d you end up settling on the issue? Have you had any more problems with creepers?
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Haha, that is a good idea.
I just blocked the guy on Instagram, and that was the end of it. I haven’t had any more creeper troubles… Unless you are one!
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:-O
I don’t think I am? I kind of tumbled in here accidentally; I’m an electronics nerd (my profile picture is an IoT weather station based on an ESP8266 ESP-12E, BME280 and a couple LED’s) and naively thought EEC could have something to do with Electronic Engineering haha. Curiosity got the better of me and here I am!
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That is funny! EEC also stands for European Economic Community. Well, I hope my blog kept you entertained for a bit. 😄
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It did! You have a very nice blog – I respect the amount of time and thought you’ve put in to it; I’m bad at the whole blogging thing and will end up with a couple posts back-to-back only to abandon it for the following month or two.
It’s cool to see how you’ve embraced who you are and reach out to other EEC folk with your blog, the conventions and the Facebook group thing. Keep being you! It seems to be working out pretty darn well for you :p
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Oh and since I can’t edit my reply: I forgot to mention, your blog is very well written! Is writing a hobby or educational interest for you? I wonder if you could put a book together with your experiences plus maybe some other folks with EEC’s input too… I’m not sure how insulting/offensive and damaging it would be, but if you used a super click-baity title like “THE LOBSTER CLAW DIARIES: The True Lives of Living With EEC” with a picture of someone with actual lobster claws photoshopped over their hands as the cover image, it would probably get a lot of attention 😉
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Thanks so much! Writing is really just a hobby of mine at the moment. I do get to use my writing skills in my day job, though not as much as I use them here.
The lobster claw dairies is funny. I might have to rename my blog that! I would love to make my stories and my friends stories into a book. Maybe I will get around to it one of these days.
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