Disabled 'deserve' the joy of sex.

A blanket assertion that paid for sex can never represent anything other than a woman being demeaned is to partially play into this moral notion that sex for women makes them bad unless it is in wedlock and for having children.

How do you draw that conclusion? I don't nor do I know anyone else who does.

I'd say that all those things you mention (from rape to sex outside marriage) are different sides of the same coin. And that coin is called 'control of women's sexuality.' Paying for sex is just a different way of exerting the same control, since the person with the money calls the shots.

I do agree that if disabled people (or anyone else) experiences discriminatory barriers then those barriers should be addressed rather than condoning sexual exploitation.

I would like to see sex 'neutralised' in our moral environment. While women have been oppressed by rape and sexual violence down the ages, so have women also been oppressed by the moral outrage against women's expression of their own sexuality. Villified for enjoying consensual sex before marriage, cast out for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, 'reputation' ruined for enjoying sex with someone from a non-approved tribal group. A blanket assertion that paid for sex can never represent anything other than a woman being demeaned is to partially play into this moral notion that sex for women makes them bad unless it is in wedlock and for having children. men get raped. Gay men pay men for sex, women pay men for sex. Paid for sex is a more complex thing than it automatically equates with rape.

But none of that is specifically to do with disabled people, and in response to the link in the OP 'Dignity for the Disabled' could be better achieved by addressing the shameful process now in place to make disabled people beg for statutory support, and by stopping the ignorance and discrimination which disabled people face.

And by the way, one of my DC is disabled and I have listened a few times to people blithely saying they could never have sex with someone with that type of disability.

The prospect of your child never feeling sexually loved does make you wonder about our right to such important expression.

Its quite patronising, there are lots of married etc physically disabled people

so the 'we'll pay people to have sex with coz god knows no-one would otherwise' is horrible.

Thanks SardineQueen, we struggle a lot but just about cope. The problem is that all of DSs friends are also disabled in various ways, usually with learning difficulties of some kinds. Many of their parents have issues too. So we are all propping one another up, sometimes not very successfully.

Anyway, I will now bow out of this thread as I am derailing it really!

Sounds like you have a lot on your plate, hope you are OK

His partner and her family would be there
It wouldn't just be you!

We wld love DS to have a relationship, although he would have problems due to his social issues (ASD). We have to sort out his friendships almost every week! He loves children and longs to become a father. However, he tends to see children as things to be cuddled and hasn't quite got the idea of what parenthood is like!!

There would also be concerns of course as to how we could cope if he did eventually become a parent as he would need a huge amount of support and neither of us are well enough to be able to look after him, his gf and any children too!

That said, I would always stand up for his right to have a relationship if that was what he wanted, even if it would be very difficult for us to support him.

I think that the ideas surrounding sex and disability need serious countering - as seems to be happening in the last few years in the media.

I suspect your son is having standard young person angst although I don't know what his disability is if you don't see it as a bar to relationships etc then I suspect it won't be! All sorts of people out there happy in relationship and having children and having casual flings and all the rest of it. The idea that people with disabilities "don' have sex" is simply wrong I think. Some people might be squeamish about it but that's their problem and sod 'em frankly.

Gurl, precisely

I can understand that gurl. It must be very hard and I don't know what to say without sounding glib.

And I agree that the equality movement (whichever arm) is not about enabling people to perform illegal acts. In the UK anyway.

Also, DS1 is disabled (different thing to his Dad). He gets upset at the thought that he might never have a girlfriend or get married, although I can't see any reason that he might not. But he would not then have any right to pay for sex from someone.

I find the whole idea that the perceived rights of one group of people should be more important than the rights of another quite abhorrent.

I do sometimes get upset, frustrated and angry that my life has turned out like this. But I don't then feel entitled to either blame DH or mess up some other person.

Yes, I agree about the rather odd remarks that disabled people have a kind of right to break the law! Surely no one has the right to do that?

gurl of course it's relevant

Loads of people don't have a sex life for one reason or another
The solution doesn't lie in paying others to have sex they don't want

Gurl, it is relevant, IMO

Keith you said we have a civil right to commit a crime.
No one has the right to commit a crime, I would argue.

I'm in the odd situation that I don't have a sex life at all because DH is disabled. We have not had sex for nearly ten years now as he doesn't want to as he is afraid that he will become more ill. But I don't then think that I should have the right to pay someone else to have sex with me instead.

Actually, not sure that any of this is relevant to the discussion! Sorry.

I hope your wife is ok, Leithlurker

eggsackly, sunshine

Well I would love to stay and debate further but I have a wife coming out of hospital sometime tomorrow and beds will need changed, floors hooverd etc. So I need to get off to bed.

FWIW The disability movement owes a lot to feminism and should probably be much more like feminists in many ways, however we have diffrences not just in language but also in worls views, we do though have many more commonalities than areas of disagreement. Someone wanted to know if I supported prostitution, not unless it was "safe" but since that will never happen then no I do not. I do support equality though and that seems to be where we have something of a block. People keep repeating I want everyone out on the streets doing robberies or feeling up kids. Yea like all disabled people are just waiting to rob and mug old ladies. It is the operation of choice I am refering to the choice, the ability to do as one pleases as right or wrong as that is. People saying that it is patronising to think disabled people would pay for sex are in that phrase denying that some people disabled and no, do already pay for sex. Anyhoo goto go big day ahead.

There is certainly a debate to be had about why those with disabilities face more obstacles to having a sex life. But I fail to see why prostitution is considered a solution.

When the law quite rightly started to remove the obstacles faced by those with disabilities, it made society adapt. It created the opportunity for those with disabilities to take control of their own lives. Exactly as it should do. It didn't give those with disabilities privileged access to anything simply because they were disabled. You don't get a job because you're disabled but your employer quite rightly has to remove any obstacles (as far as is reasonably possible) that might prevent you from doing your job to the best of your ability.

If the same is to be applied to a sex life, then surely the correct approach is to break down attitudes that see those with disabilities as different to anyone else. Encourage more inclusion in wider society. Remove the barriers of segregation. Then people with disabilities will have just the same opportunity for a sex life as anyone else. Marking them out as different by giving them legalised access to prostitutes would seem to do the exact opposite IMO.

LeithLurker are you one of those people who think that female carers should have to turn the pages of disabled men's porn magazines for them?

I am familiar with all those documents. But there is no right to a sex life either - whether act or experience.

LeithLurker, do you support taxpayers money being used to fund disabled men's access to prostituted women in Australia?

What is your definition of disability, leithlurker.