MEMBER ARTICLE: Adapting to the Scene as an Amputee
from
Recon News
09 November 2018
By Recon member miltop
In 2014, a really bad car accident and the resulting surgery complications cost me my right leg. I've always been very active so losing my leg really threw me for a loop. Being the naturally aggressive guy I am, I took my recovery as a challenge and within six weeks I was back on my feet again with a nice purple prosthesis. I really didn't have any limits on what I could do. I figured out how to drive, went back to work full time, and thought that I would assume my old life in the Master/slave community. I found out the first part was going to be the easiest. What was difficult was getting back into the swing of being a very dominate top.
I will admit the first problem I ran into was of my own making. I realized that while out in public, at work or in a non-sexual social setting I was perfectly comfortable with being an amputee, but when I had to interact with people that I had once considered my community I was uncomfortable and unsure of myself. That was a really uncomfortable feeling.
I wasn't sure how much, if anything I should share with my potential partners before we met about being an amputee. I found I was very wary about how people would view me as a top if I only had one leg. Gone was the confidence that I had always enjoyed, and it was replaced with self-doubt and feeling self-conscious. Interestingly, that self-doubt never entered into any other part of my life other than my sex life.
During the process of talking myself off the ledge of self-doubt, I did my usual damn the torpedoes exercise and decided I'd might as well jump back into it and see what happens. I am still not sure whether that was actually a good plan or not, but it has brought me to a certain understanding about our community and their view of people they view as different.
As a community, regardless of our fetish, I think we have all thought at some point that people wouldn't understand our particular tastes or desires when it came to interacting with men who have interests that aren't necessarily mainstream. I decided that I should be more confident and that my community would more likely than not understand more than most that different didn't mean less. I was wrong.
That assumption was put to the test right off the bat when I contacted a guy not far from me that I thought might be a good connection. I had not yet modified my profile to indicate that I have a prosthesis and thought that my approach would be to tell him before we actually met. When I did tell him that I had a prosthesis, that it didn't limit me, that it was purple, and that I wanted him to know ahead of our actual meeting, I received a terse message back that although he didn't care that I had a prosthesis he did care that I didn't tell him upfront. Obviously, it did matter, regardless of what he said.
Deciding to avoid that uncomfortable situation again I changed my profile to clearly indicate that I have a prosthesis but to also make it clear that it wasn't a limiting factor in my life and that I was a very active top with no limitations. I quickly found that my cruises fell off pretty fast and that guys I would reach out to would either not respond or worse yet would make some comment about not being interested in a cripple. While being ignored is par for the course for all of us, it did seem to happen more often once my profile indicated I was an amputee. What bothered me were the comments that they couldn't be interested in a cripple. I certainly didn't see myself that way but I'm worldly enough to understand that there are going to be jerks around that don't really have any sense. It still bothered me.
I also found a set of men who seemed to be very interested in the fact that I am amputee. That initially made me uncomfortable. It was something that I didn't really like about myself that seemed to be fetishized. Those discussions were initially pretty uncomfortable for me and often involved requesting pictures of my leg, questions about how it feels, and what guys have done with it. At some point though I began to think about their questions in a different way. I started to understand that being an amputee was a physical attribute that was interesting to a set of men. Just like I like someone may have an interest in hairy guys, hung guys, tops, bottoms, big guys, skinny guys, I had an attribute that for whatever reason was interesting to these men. When I realized that I got a lot more comfortable and started to feel like myself again.
I am really lucky. I'm a healthy, creative, and active top. My amputation hasn't limited my life. I am still the aggressive ex-military Dom guy that I've always been. I work, travel, and just like everyone else here, I am looking for that connection with a guy who shares my interests and desires. I've also discovered that there are a lot of really great guys who don't care whether I have one or two legs. Those are probably the best connections I've made and the kind of guys who are more focused on the mental connection that we seem to be really good at making in this community. I am lucky that time and confidence has brought these guys into my life.
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