When I was in my early 30s, I practiced yoga at a studio in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. On most days, I walked there with two friends — one who was in her 20s and one about my age — but occasionally we each got to class on our own. There was a construction site across the street as part of the growing onslaught of gentrification in the neighborhood. My friends would often complain about being harassed and catcalled by the construction workers — even more so when they wore their yoga clothes. I passed the site day after day without incident.

When I was younger, in my 20s, I was a thin, slight woman. I have also always been beautiful and a nice dresser. I also happen to have cerebral palsy, which affects my motor skills, balance and speech, as it does with most people who have it. It is typically caused by damage to or malformation of the brain during birth or infancy. In my case, my mother’s umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck in utero. As my mother was unable to have an emergency cesarean section, I was strangled by the cord, and born clinically dead. The temporary lack of oxygen caused damage to a portion of my brain.

Cerebral palsy is not uniform and manifests in a number of ways. It might affect all limbs severely, or just one side of the body; or the effects may be slight, making the disability barely perceptible. It can affect strength, balance and movement; some with the condition may not be able to walk unassisted or care for themselves in typical ways.

To put it bluntly, people with cerebral palsy appear to have strange movements. Since they are not in full control of their muscles, they may have facial expressions or spasticity that most people find surprising, if not unattractive.

People with cerebral palsy are often mistaken for having a mental impairment, although the two are not necessarily linked. I have a speech impediment and awkward gait. My disability is visible, but not necessarily significant. I do have some physical limitations, but am able to do most things that a typical person can do. My primary difficulty has been with people’s negative reaction, or what disability-studies scholars call the “social construction” of disability. This primarily means that the main challenges disabled people face come from societal prejudice and inaccessible spaces.

Recently, the popular feminist Jessica Valenti published a memoir titled “Sex Object,” which focuses on the toll the “male gaze” has taken on her. She wrote an article on this theme for this paper, “What Does a Lifetime of Leers Do to Us?” Ms. Valenti describes a life of sexual harassment beginning at adolescence. She writes of what seems like countless instances of men exposing themselves to her on the New York City subway. She describes constantly thwarting unwanted advances from men in all areas of her life. Ms. Valenti currently has a 5-year-old daughter, and she wrestles for a way to prepare her child for an onslaught of male harassment. She takes for granted that this will happen.

My experiences have been quite different, nearly the opposite, of Ms. Valenti’s and that of most women. I was never hit on or sexually harassed by my professors in college, or later, by my co-workers or superiors. I have not felt as if my male teachers, friends or colleagues thought less of me because of my gender. I’ve never been aggressively “hit on” in a bar, despite the fact that I have frequented them alone throughout the years. In fact, I’ve rarely been approached in a bar at all.

I do remember being sexually harassed by a man on the street. Once. I was 18 years old. I was waiting for a bus, and a man pulled up and offered me a ride in his car. When I declined, he got hostile and asked me if I was wearing panties. I was more startled than anything, and I left the curb to go to the nearby movie theater where my friend worked. I didn’t tell my friend what happened, but waited with him for the bus. This was very frightening, but I wouldn’t say the incident traumatized me, nor is it something that deeply affected my life. And it happened only once.

Let me rephrase that: It happened only once while I was visibly inhabiting my own body. Virtually, it has been another story.

In 2013, I began experimenting with the dating website OKCupid because I wanted to explore this concept of being desexualized. I created a provocative profile. The photographs were recent, but in photographs, I look “normal.” I did not mention that I have cerebral palsy. I wanted to use the opportunity to explore the sexual world as an able-bodied woman, if only online, and see what all the fuss was about.

As a pretend, able-bodied woman, I received all kinds of messages. Men wrote stupid things, aggressive things and provocative things. Often, while I was in a dialogue with a man who didn’t know of my impairment, I would disclose it, and almost always, the man vanished, no matter how strong the connection had been beforehand.

After a while, I changed the profile to reflect that I have a disability. Fewer men wrote. Sometimes, no men wrote, depending on the content. But over all, the messages changed. They could be called more respectful. The men who wrote primarily wanted to know how my disability affected me.

This all feels like a political act, and in some ways it is. Strangely, my disability makes me feel as if I have license to play with and deconstruct sexuality in ways I might not have the bravery to do as an able-bodied woman.

I watch men on the street. I will watch a man visually or verbally harass women who pass him. I am invisible enough to do this. Sometimes men look at me, but the reaction is different. There seems to be some level of shame or confusion mixed with the lust in their eyes. Does this mean that I am lucky? Am I blessed to be sexually invisible and given a reprieve from something that has troubled women for centuries?

It certainly does not feel that way. On one hand, I know that I am “lucky” not to be sexually harassed as I navigate the New York City streets. But I am harassed in other ways that feel much more damaging. People stare. People insist that I have God’s blessing. People feel most comfortable speaking about me in the third person rather than addressing me directly. It is not uncommon that I will be in a situation where a stranger will talk to the nearest able-bodied person, whether it be a friend or a complete stranger, about me to avoid speaking to me.

I also do understand what it feels like to get attention from the wrong man. It’s gross. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary and tedious. And in certain cases, traumatic. But I still would much rather have a man make an inappropriate sexual comment than be referred to in the third person or have someone express surprise over the fact that I have a career. The former, unfortunately, feels “normal.” The latter makes me feel invisible and is meant for that purpose.

I like it when men look at me. It feels empowering. Frankly, it makes me feel like I’m not being excluded.