Creative
Emily works with a variety of creative mediums to change the discourse surrounding intimacy, especially within the context of disability and sexuality.
EMILY’S FIRST BOOK
Dating “Disability”
Intimacy issues are widespread. What if being a person with a disability made you more equipped to thrive in intimate relationships, rather than inhibited you? And what if the skills I've learned from my lifelong physical disability could help all of us have stronger intimate relationships?
AS SEEN IN
L.A. Affairs: I’m a disabled woman. Is that a dating deal breaker?
I was 8 years old when a rupture in my brain stem left me in a wheelchair, unable to speak, partially paralyzed.
I needed emergency brain surgery and then years of therapy to learn to talk again and walk again.
Today, I’m very lucky. I have my own consulting business, but I walk with a limp and I have no mobility in my left hand. I’ve also never found love…
Bold Beauty Project
Photograph By Dawn Bowery
Emily collaborated with photographer Dawn Bowery to create a portrait that questions the impact of labels. How do their projections affect us? How do we decide which labels are right or wrong? Why decide? This portrait, coupled with a narrative Emily wrote on the impact of sexual labels, was displayed in several exhibits in Los Angeles and New York City in 2023. More information on the exhibits can be found here.
Once upon a time, over Saturday morning coffee, I sheepishly confessed to a romantic crush that I was an almost forty-year-old “virgin”. (Yes, we do exist outside the movies.)
As I look back, I find it amusing how I stared at the table during my proclamation (as if it could have given me more courage in my emotional nakedness). At the same time, I’m amazed I managed to maintain a straightforward delivery when sharing my shame with a man I wanted to…ya know.
What strikes me most however is that I clung to a label that shouldn’t have even defined me. I rejected the label “disabled” growing up - I didn’t want it to box me in. And yet decades later, I still allowed the projection of an antiquated Virgin Mary archetype to have power over me.
I want to extend my deepest gratitude to those who helped me with this project. I could not have broken out of the unwelcome labels I carried without the wonderful coaching of Londin Angel Winters. In addition, this project would not have been possible without the talent of Dawn Bowery as well as the incredibly solid support of Justin Morris. All my love to each of them.