OAP home allows residents to book sex workers

So that's a no then.

Did you present any other studies?

No, I'd rather talk about how you misrepresented what she said.

"sex with a disabled person is disgusting"

It's quite an appalling thing to claim somebody said, when they actually didn't.

She didn't say "sex with a disabled person is disgusting"

She said "I'd also like to say that the notion of using disability as an excuse is offensive and appalling"

You have misrepresented her very badly.

I agree with her. If it's wrong to pay for sex, it's no less wrong just because the buyer has a disability.

And if a politician who wanted prostitution illegal publicly states "sex with a disabled person is disgusting" I for one would be a little concerned.

"she [RG] went on to say - "I'd also like to say that the notion of using disability as an excuse is offensive and appalling"."

These statements don't mean the same thing at all though do they?

If that better world wasn't a capitalist patriarchy, that might be a utopian possibility.

But as long as it is, paying for sex just props up the patriarchical model of sex where men's rights to have it are paramount. As long as we have a capitalist patriarchy, as a feminist I can never support that.

Badinage: anyone buying sex - or domestic service, or handcrafts - from a person who is being exploited and/or controlled by a criminal organisation is in the wrong and should make more effort to buy goods and services from people who have chosen to sell them.

But in a better world, people would be able to buy - and sell - sexual services in the same way that one might buy or sell personal music tuition or couture tailoring or performance art. A perfect world would not be one where people who want sex are expected to 'control themselves' to the extent of accepting that Society has decided for them that they are not entitled to sexual feelings, and most definitely not entitled to act on any sexual feelings they may have.

I don't disagree with any of that historical summary, but it is precisely because of that patriarchical and capitalist context that there can never be an equivalence between women paying men for sex and men paying for sex. Just as there is no equivalence between lap dancing/ stripping and Full Monty shows. The power dynamic is entirely different. That said, I would support the criminalisation of all sex purchase regardless of the sex of the punter. A woman sex tourist using her privilege to buy sex from an impoverished man in another country is no less abhorrent than a man paying for sex in the same circumstances.

Badinage, that's at least partly because it's only been in the past 50 years or so that reliable contraception -and economic independence - has enabled women to have more choice and more sexual autonomy. Women are still fed vast amounts of propaganda to the effect that they want 'love' (ie to be owned by a man and provide him with domestic service as well as sex) more than sex for the sheer pleasure of sex, and women who pursue casual sex with a variety of partners are still vilified, slut-shamed, blamed if a rapist targets them or at the very least urged to seek 'therapy' (ie someone to drug or coerce them into accepting the ownership of ONE man) to sort out their 'inability to commit'.

Less than a hundred years ago in the UK, women who liked sex, as opposed to accepting it while gritting their teeth, could get locked up in mental asylums and/or have their clitorises removed or damaged by 'doctors'.

Can you provide a verified quote please from a parliamentary or news source where Rhoda Grant said that?

The sex of the person selling sex isn't the defining issue here. It's the sex of the punter.

Just because the gutter press dredges up a few shock-horror stories about a few women paying for sex, doesn't get away from the fact that the vast majority of people who pay for sex are men, either with women or other men.

I'll tell you what's different about someone needing intimate care, their ceiling painted or someone to talk to. Both men and women pay for those services. What's different about prostitution as a service is that men pay for it and women (or men) provide it. It's based on the usual patriarchical model of sex, which is that men must have sex however they can attain it.

As usual, you conflate prurience about sex, with objections to the sex industry. I do wish you'd stop posting as though you're the only person in the world who enjoys sex and that everyone who objects to the sex industry is a prude who isn't nearly as enlightened as you. It substantially weakens your arguments and makes you look very foolish and bigoted.

That article completely ignores the humanity and autonomy and choices of sex workers.

Vitalstats: Well, no, objections to sex work on grounds of exploitation are not 'just a front.' There is serious exploitation and abuse of sex workers, and that's something that needs addressing.

However, prohibition and stigmatizing of sex workers is not the way forward.

Quote from Rhoda Grant (MSP who wants prostitution illegal in scotland completely, even among consenting adults).

"Sex with a disabled person is disugsting"

Says it all really. I think the whole "exploitation" argument is just a front. The real reason people want prostitution illegal is all because of morals and because they personally find the idea of sex with old/disabled people "disgusting".

Why are sexual acts the 'buying of a woman's body' when paying for other services that involve the functions of the body (such as manual labour, assisting someone to wash themselves or excrete) or the spending of time (listening to a person, performing tasks to benefit or please the person) are not? Paying someone to engage in sexual activity doesn't mean that you own the person, or the person's body, any more than if you pay to watch the person dance, or have him/her paint your ceiling. The service is rendered, the bill is paid, and the person goes home.

Not everyone would be happy selling sexual services, sure. No one should do it against his/her will. However, some people would find it less morally distressing to sell sex than to work as a bailiff - or to scrub toilets.

There does seem to be an idea that preventing people from having sex is some sort of Good Thing, that it's bad for anyone to have as much sex as s/he would like.

Somehow I get the feeling that even if money didn't change hands and care home residents were joining hookup sites and having visitors pop round for NSA sex, some of you would want that put a stop to on the grounds that it's... Eeew! Icky! Old people/disabled people having sex! Make them stop it.

That article really brings it in to sharp focus what is going on. Cuts to the chase.

Well exactly AbigailAdams. Perhpas they told everybody it was a 'special present from some nieces who had gathered together to give the old dears a special treat'. I suspect the red sock on the handle of the speschul lovin' room for speschul times rather gave things away too.

Thanks for this link JuliaScurr - it is spot on.