When do you give up?

now?
when you lose your passion?
never?
or, you don't even start?

That's a question I ask myself every once in a while, when do you give up or do you? Since I'm one of those girls who has multiple projects on the go, I am often wondering what is the right thing to do. I am a visionary - a starter - I love when I get new ideas and then I start a new project and watch it grow from being an itty bitty idea, to a giant idea, to being in progress to actual completion. And then I make a decision about whether I'm going to do it again, continue it or put it on the back burner for another time or move on to the next big idea that interests me.

I'm always so hesitant to give up on a project because you never know when it's going to sprout and then explode into that awesome masterpiece you want it to be. Well, that just happened to me. About three years ago I had an idea - I wanted to know if men in wheelchairs could have sex. Seriously, I wanted to know. Don't you? I met a producer at a business mixer who said he was looking for more projects to work on and so I went home and thought about things and said to Max, my husband, "What do you think about a tv show about people with disabilities and sexuality?" He had this curious look on his face and said, "hmmmm, you may be on to something, not sure, but why not ask." So I did. I phoned the producer the next day, set up a meeting and away Max and I went.

I said to him, "Hey, have you ever wondered if men in wheelchairs could have sex?" And I just about saw him fall to the ground. He said, "Wow, yes I have, can they?" And I said, "I don't know, but why don't we do a documentary about it and find out?" And that was the start of SexAbility.

Next thing you know we were raising money to produce the pilot, finding show guests who were passionate about sex and wanting to share with others about how they overcame their challenges to have a great sex life, doing focus groups, meeting Dr. Shaniff Esmail (sexual health professor at the U of A), we were in full production mode and creating something we had never done before. And yes, this was a risk to my ego - although I believed in the project and knew what I was doing, a lot of people thought I was creating disabled porn. And although they wouldn't say it directly to me, I heard about it behind my back, but I didn't let it stop me. I perservered, even though I knew people didn't totally understand the project, no matter how many times I explained it.

A few times we had some bumps and challenges, but ultimately, we got the half hour pilot done and ready for market and that was two years ago. Eventually, someone else piqued my interest and then I started doing other things and kind of put SexAbility on the back burner. But then, yesterday I got an email from my production partner who said that he pitched it to a distributor of his and they love the show and want to be our exclusive distributor and market it to their networks. I'm very excited about it because a few times I thought the project was dead and both times it got revived for some reason or another.

What is also really cool is that Su Ling Goh did a story on me, Dr. Shaniff Esmail, the Canadian Paraplegic Society and SexAbility - she did such a great job on it that she won "honorable mention" for a prestigious radio/television award. I blogged about it a long time ago. I'm so proud that she won this award - it shows that this topic is really touching and makes people think.

What I found so interesting is that in a lot of cases, people with a disability can have a better sex life than people without. hmmmm, interesting isn't it? I thought so too. But, people with a disability have to find different ways to achieve their happiness and so they communicate more and they have to open themselves up to learn more about how "else" to be satisfied sexually, the desire for great sex doesn't go away just because they have a physical disability.
 
So, on another note, my friend told me about a guy she found on Youtube - his story is soooooo incredible, it makes you realize how we all need to appreciate our lives more and quit with the "poor me" pity parties.  Check this out, a man with no arms and no legs and WOW!, that's all I can say about this guy, Nick Vujicic.

So, the moral of the story is - when do you give up? I still don't know the magic answer to that question, but I'm glad I didn't give up on SexAbility - it could be on TV very soon and lots of people will be inspired to communicate more with their partners. And I'm so proud of myself and Max for taking this idea and making it a reality.  So, do you want to know if men in wheelchairs can have sex? Yep, some can. You'll have to wait for the documentary to come out on tv to know the rest - it's a fascinating story, well worth the wait.

Kel