Ask Beastly: How Do I Navigate Kink as a Deaf Man?

Your body knows what to say.

Hi,

I'm deaf, gay, in my late twenties, and into various kinks. I read that you're partially deaf. Could you share more about how you've navigated that aspect of yourself in queer settings (kink or otherwise)? Do you tell people you're going to hook up with or have met at sex parties that you're partially deaf?

I'm deaf enough that I can't "pass" as hearing for very long, and I never know when to tell people I've just met in person that I'm deaf. I tend to avoid gay bars, and I'd like to go to some kink events like MAL or Fist Fest, but I have anxiety about communicating effectively with other people or being rejected for being deaf. I hate the apps, but they are what I usually use because it's easier to start with a text-based conversation and weed out people who have an issue with me being deaf, but I know I'm missing out by not going to in-person events. 

On a related but slightly different note, have you found ways to incorporate your deafness into kink play? For instance, I'm friends with one dom guy who will type sexual commands on his phone instead of speaking, and while it started as an accommodation, it's become a pretty hot thing that I think we both enjoy. 

Thank you for all that you do.

Hello my comrade,

I was born with no auditory nerve on my right side; I am completely deaf on that side, so I am half-deaf.

A Deaf person once reprimanded me: I cannot call myself Deaf with a capital ‘d’ because that is for fully deaf folks. I have been scolded and dismissed by Deaf people for being half-deaf but not knowing sign language. In a gay bar recently, a Deaf guy asked why I was "desperate" to not be one of them, as if I have any say in my disability or the tribes associated with it. My hearing parents did not send me to a Deaf school—none were available in the Deep South or in the small African village where I spent part of my childhood—and no one ever thought it necessary to teach me sign language. It seems I am not incapacitated enough to be included in Deafness, nor am I a hearing person. So I’m halfway: half in the hearing world, half out, and accepted by neither community. I admit, sometimes my broken ear makes me feel like an anomaly on this earth, unable to belong anywhere.

We don’t quite know why, but my remaining ear (“my last ear,” as my audiologist likes to call it) is losing hearing faster than it should. So, as I age, I will creep slowly into Deafness. And honestly, it terrifies me. It feels like a sluggish dying. Conversation in quiet places, once easy, grows harder. And I’m scared. It seems almost cruel to give a boy who loves to sing—who loves music and dancing and parties—a ticking clock on the things he loves most, but God does love his little torments.

Hearing people forget that hard-of-hearing folks exist and always manage to act surprised and annoyed when they must interact with us. They make our lives harder with every loud, drunk laugh. I do not know how many restaurants I have sat in, unable to hear my friends, reading the menu to avoid looking lost and confused—all because someone wants to blast music over the room at maximum volume.

Like you, I cannot pass. I turn my head and cup my ear when someone speaks. But I am not trying to pass: being half-deaf has shaped all of me, and I like how I am. As a child, adults repeatedly told me to lower my voice because I was talking at the volume I could hear—twice as loud as everyone else. So, I started artificially dropping my voice at a young age, and now I have a naturally low voice that many guys find sexy. My hearing shaped my sex life: in social situations, I have to constantly focus on what others say. When I grow tired of this, I slip into a disconnected, drone-like headspace; great for a sex club. I love sex spaces that don’t need much talking.

I don't like apps either. In-person events always work better for me. When I use apps, I never tell hookups I’m half-deaf. So far, no one has taken issue with it. However, I recognize that being half-deaf is different from being Deaf. Still, I think people should lead with what they fear being rejected for. Put the things you cannot compromise on at the fore and weed out the trash with as little work as possible.

I am overly transparent about my HIV status so that people who will reject me for it see it right away. I don't want to fuck them and would rather they block me. Use your deafness the same way. That is not to say you should see it as an illness—that is decidedly not what I mean. See it as something you cannot hide, apologise for, or compromise on. You are Deafness, personified. I am HIV. These are not afflictions: they are us. HIV is now as much of a defining feature of my being as my deaf ear. It’s something about me I can’t change. To reject it is to reject me. Why on earth would I want someone like that in my bed?

When someone rejects us for these things, they reject us as people; they deny our personhood by reducing us to basic features—things we cannot change—that they find unpleasant. As a rule, we don't fuck people like that.

I cannot navigate in-person events as effectively as a person with hearing. All the events you listed are loud. In most social settings, I wear an earplug to protect my good ear. With just the one, I suffer from auditory overstimulation: too much sound makes me lose balance. Plugging it helps me stay steady. Even so, I prefer in-person events more because they are genuine. Apps are a facsimile of being sociable; in-person interactions are the truth. In real life, risks are higher—you can't put your best face (picture) forward as you can on an app—but the rewards are deeper, the connections richer. You are forced to navigate a crowd of animals, all with different bodies and abilities, with every tool in your arsenal: your mind, your body, some luck, and that special elixir called charisma.

I understand why you like the apps, I understand why you want more in-person events in your life, and I understand the challenges that come with them. I don’t know if I have any solid rules or tips to offer that can make in-person events easier for you. I think in-person events are tricky and challenging for everyone, regardless of ability, but certainly for some people more so than others. All this said, in-person is better, and like any skill, you will only improve with practice.

You are not alone. There are so many Deaf and hard-of-hearing folks in kink—enough to suggest we are drawn to its ritual, its clear communication, its scripts, because this is easier terrain for us to navigate. I love the “written commands” practice you describe. Kink fosters so many wonderful things like that.

Fetish attracts so many disabled and neurodivergent folks in part because it provides a space in which written commands, passed like love notes from dominant to submissive, work beautifully—a space in which the roles are clearly defined, boundaries and limits are expliticly stated, and all that murky guesswork of so-called “regular” sex and dating gets clarified into set behaviors and expectations.

I love kink for many reasons, the least of which is because I am kinky. One thing I love about it the most: There is no ability (or disability) qualifier, no prerequisite, and no gate. If you want to be one of us, you already are. Welcome home.

Love, Beastly

P.S. If you want to read a longer, more sexually graphic essay about my hard-of-hearing experience, pick up The Experiment Will Not Be Bound, available now from Unbound Edition Press.