Robert Andy Coombs photographs the intersection of disability, queerness, and sex. BY DAVID W. MCMILLAN ike many of us, Robert Andy Coombs muses about wet dreams. He won- ders if his brain is still connected to his genitals because, no matter how hot or steamy the fantasy, he still never comes. “I have sex dreams. I’ll be dream- ing, and stuff will be going good, but my mind stops me,” Coombs laments. “I can’t orgasm in my dreams.” Even though the 34-year-old’s brain and genitals are still connected to his body, after experiencing a spinal cord injury in 2009, they became somewhat disconnected: not only can he can no longer feel his penis, but also the soft caress of a hand across his thigh or an impassioned slap on his butt. But that hasn’t stopped Coombs from finding a new way to express his sexuality, even if it transcends his entire body’s ability to perceive it. “It’s visual. For me, my whole life is visual,” he says. “After my accident, I knew photography was my way of getting out there because I don’t think anyone like me has a mind like me, as far as when it comes to visualizing.” Robert Andy Coombs is a Miami-based artist ex- ploring the intersection of disability, queerness, and sexuality with his photography. His largely autobio- graphical work features shirtless men, full-frontal nudity, and touch — lots of touch. While it might sound like soft-core pornography, experientially it is anything but — even if he endured another spree of post takedowns on his Instagram account. “It’s an ongoing thing. [Instagram] pats themselves on the back for being a creative outlet,” he says. “But when it comes specifically to queer, disabled, or people of color, we’re constantly being banned and silenced, and our content is getting flagged and deleted.” As a disabled gay man, Coombs just wants to know, “How am I supposed to have safe sex if you can’t talk about sex with me?” oombs was born in Norway, Michigan, on the Wisconsin border of the Upper Peninsula. The region’s forests are cut with rivers’ and lakes’ dark shades of blue-gray that feed into the crystal clear expanses of Lake Superior. The first 18 years of his life were spent, as he says, “just frolicking around in the woods, sometimes clothed, sometimes not.” Nature is a persistent theme in Coombs’ work, and he incorporates the colors of the waters of his youth into his images. After all, it was in these woods where Coombs began experimenting with photography un- til he eventually moved onto portraiture in high school, where he was a competitive swimmer and gymnast — and gay. “I learned very quickly as a young kid in a rural town who, like, definitely knew he was gay from a young age that you kind of have to make it work,” he says. After high school, he moved the short stint to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to pursue a bachelor’s in fine arts on scholarship at Kendall College of Art and De- sign (KCAD). He didn’t come out until his sophomore year, which he says in hindsight was more challenging than adjusting to his forthcoming paralysis. After coming out, Coombs lived as a “privileged, cis, white, gay dude in Grand Rapids.” His art was queer and about his body. He says it “didn’t go beyond the vanity.” But then, roughly two years later, on a beautiful spring day in 2009, the former gymnast set the springs on a familiar outdoor Supertramp rectangu- lar trampoline and started flipping ten feet in midair, completely weightless and free. Weeks before, he had been photographing himself on the trampoline with his friends, wearing nothing but underwear to document “the male body flying and falling.” This day was different. Why he landed upside down may never be fully understood, but Coombs was Coombs even as he landed on his head instead of his feet. “My body bounced. I saw my arms drifting in front of my face with no control,” he recalls, “and my body just let out, like, the gayest scream.” oombs spent a month in the intensive care unit, and he stayed at the hospital for another six weeks before he could go home. Essen- tially, his mid-cervical spinal cord had been badly bruised — what’s known as a “complete” injury — re- sulting in a form of paralysis known as tetraplegia. Due to his condition, Coombs is unable to voluntarily recruit the muscles that would otherwise move his legs, hips, trunk, and arms. But while most areas of his body became insensitive after the injury, others became am- plified, especially near his shoulders and neck. All people with tetraplegia have some degree of arm paralysis, but the severity of Coombs’ tetraplegia requires him to use a “sip-and-puff” power wheel- chair, an assistive technology that sends signals to the device by inhaling, exhaling, and moving his tongue. His arms and hands cannot operate a joystick, click the shutter on a camera, or embrace a loved one. “The chair and all these different apparatuses around me — they’re very intrusive. They kind of block people from interacting with you,” he says. “That was the hardest part: having to find new ways to interact with people physically. This is why touch- ing and intimacy are so important to my work.” No person’s life is the same after a spinal cord in- jury, but Coombs set out to make it work with his pho- tography and reimagined how to interact with people. Coombs’ condition impacts many bodily functions we take for granted — peeing, pooping, orgasm >> p8 77 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | MIAMI NEW TIMES NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 APRIL 7-13, 2022
