Sex and the School Board Candidate

Angela J. Bray campaigned for a seat on the Niagara Falls School Board in New York — but lost. I wouldn’t be surprised if the openness she displays about her sexuality as a disabled woman convinced voters to cast their ballots for someone else. Headlines in local newspapers certainly didn’t help: “Disabled Model, Sex Coach Running for School Board,” and the tamer, “Falls School Board Candidate Bares Her Soul: Born with Disabilities, Bray Speaks Her Mind.”

“My skeletons are all on Facebook, not in my closet,” the 37-year-old told a reporter for the Buffalo News. A wheelchair user since she was a teen — she was born with bone and joint deformities and has recently been diagnosed with MS — Bray campaigned on the issue of making the school district “more transparent, officials more accessible and the schools better for all children — not just the disabled ones.”

Sounds good, but what really stuck in voters’ minds apparently were Bray’s admission that she wrote erotica, some of which, it was reported, landed in Hustler Magazine. She told a reporter she started writing it when her then-husband lost his job and she needed “to make ends meet for my family.”

Bray also told the media that she provides sex coaching over the phone, particularly “with people who are gay and have not yet come out.” She talked to Penthouse Magazine about one-night stands for an article on sex with women in wheelchairs, and was interviewed by People Magazine for a story on weight loss — she says she once weighed 300 pounds. She’s posed for photos while scantily clothed, admitting during the campaign that “her openness about sex, photographs and writings might become an issue in the race,” with all that displayed on her web site and available to anyone on the Internet.

With the election behind her, Bray remains a member of the board of Independent Living of Niagara County. She’ll likely continue talking about sexuality — hers and other people’s, urging “other disabled people to not be hesitant to show people who they really are. We can be sexual creatures’,” she has said.