OAP home allows residents to book sex workers

Well, I hope when I visited my uncle in a care home, no-one assumed he was paying for my presence!

Sexual assess to another human being is not a right.

Kudos to your DH's grandmother Beach, but factualy she has no ownership of the home, she has the ability to control what happens in her private space but not what happens in other residents private space.

Something that keeps cropping is how one side has rights but never both sides. So we always have an imposition of will and morality, on others, I wonder if that would have been recognisable to your DH's Grandmother as the thing she was fighting to stop.

The problem is though OLKN - she isn't stupid.

She knows that 'my niece is visiting' is bullshit.

She knows that 'what you don't know won't hurt you' is shoddy entitled crap.

I don't see why any of the other residents need know anything about these visits at all. "My niece is visiting" used to be the line.

I don't have any living grandparents.

My DH does though - his grandmother lives in a care home. She is mega - she set up the first feminist organisation in her region, was an active participant of the French resistance and was gang raped by soldiers during WWII.

I think she has the right to spend her final years in a safe fair and equal environment where she doesn't have to put up with the male entitlement of her fellow male residents to bring prostitution into her home.

You cannot at all be comfortable badinage or else you are able to claim full knowledge of every resident, their politicle, religious, and moral beliefs. For example as solid gold points out a resident arranges for a visit in their own space not in a communal space of a medium. The person in the next room may have a strong and fundamental religious belief and be extremely upset by the presence of someone who says they can talk to the dead. You would resolve this by having a blanket ban on anything taking place that is likely to upset someone instead of allowing people who are competent if not able to make private arrangements that unless some incident happens will remain entirely private.

Solid your points about the need for affectionate touch and how it is very close to being authoritarian to determine for large numbers of people what they need and what they must do with out, yet allow other humans to act in any way they like.

Badinage: sex workers, especially those who are in the business of their own free will, and most definitely those who consider themselves as healers, are discreet (not least because they are aware that many people have a hostile attitude towards them and they would rather avoid verbal or physical abuse from randoms). They are not morons. They would not be rampaging around a care home in lingerie brandishing dildos and lube.

Great posts badinage.

If you're moving the frames of reference to beyond this particular case where the defining characteristic was that the care home staff did the procuring - and now want to discuss private arrangements between a resident and supplier, the care home staff are still meant to comply with health and safety and conduct risk assessments, especially if the service performed is going to be unsupervised. Part of that risk assessment is whether the presence of the service provider would cause discomfort and generate objections from other residents. This is why a prostitute trading on the premises would be unlikely to pass those tests. The same policies would apply to woo pedlars and harmless idiots, as well as charlatans who are out to exploit. The policies are there to protect residents and not just the perceived rights of the few.

So I'm very comfortable that those policies are in place, because they serve to protect elderly people from con-artists and charlatans and preserve the rights of all residents to a degree of comfort and security in their own home. Many elderly people would feel discomfort and insecurity about prostitutes entering their home and trading sex. They have rights too.

Also, while I agree that no one has the right to have sex, I think it's an important human right to seek ways to get your sexual needs met. I don't think it's at all acceptable for someone else to decide that a person's sexual needs are irrelevant and they should just accept that they will be celibate for the rest of their lives.
Please bear in mind that most human beings need affectionate touch to thrive, to the point where isolated people are often advised to book something like an aromatherapy massage, just so that someone touches them in a well-intentioned fashion.

Badinage: So what about, for instance, woo-peddlers and charlatans visiting the residents of care homes at the residents' request? Some of these people are well-intentioned idiots and fairly harmless, some are out-and-out con-artists and some are harmful. How much policing do you think should be done of visitors to residents who may be physically in need of constant care but mentally fully competent?

Yes this thread is about a specific issue involving care workers procuring prostitutes for some men and overriding the safeguarding practices and policies that are in place to protect all of the residents' rights who are in their care. Society currently DOES exercise its right to stop people in care homes using prostitutes, through those policies - which quite rightly apply to ANYONE allowed unsupervised access to residents in a shared home.

That's why there's a bloody inquiry. They fucked up.

I don't agree with prostitution. But I have no right to stop an able bodied man from using prostitutes, and therefore have no right to stop a less abled man from doing so.

This debate is about whether WE have a right to stop people in care homes using prostitutes, not whether its their right to use them.

I disagree that there's 'nothing wrong' with selling sex but the reason this is a feminist issue and presumably has been posted on this board is because the vast majority of people who feel entitled to buy sex are men. Prostitution merely reinforces patriarchical attitudes that men have a right to sex however they can attain it; either through assault or by purchasing it. Sex is not a 'right'.

The distinction in this case is that the care home workers procured prostitutes without reference to the other residents, the Council or to their procurement and safeguarding policies. Those policies are in place to protect all residents' rights and not just a minority of male residents who feel entitled to buy sex. Those policies apply to all other non-gendered trades such as hairdressing, chiropody, counselling or reflexology.

Are you by definition arguing that care homes and councils shouldn't have safeguarding and procurement policies for those trades either and that any pedlar selling their wares should be allowed unfettered access to care homes then? Because that is the logical extension of your argument.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sessions_(film)

That is exactly why your point GayleFarts about No one has the right to pay for sex always, always, always derails and shuts down discussion. Some here want to talk about having sex, elderly people, disabled people, single people, those left alone by the death of a partner, those left with obvious disfigurements through accident or violence that means they cannot just go out to a nightclub and have a ONS.

The trope about no one has the right to expect sex is where I think the issue lies, part of being human is wrapped up in sex and pleasure. Some can and do make a decision to abstain for a number of reasons. Others feel they are not fully human as they are not able to participate in that side os their life and the common experience of the majority of other human beings. So again let me ask if the act of having sex is so open and available to the majority sometimes in harmful and dangerous situations, why are we demanding that those with no option not be able to engage in safer and controlled ways that does not exploit any one. It can be done, the Netherlands and other countries' have made provision for sex surrogacy.

And solid is right, if a resident is not vulnerable the care home has no right to tell them who can visit them or what they can do, as long as it's not illegal or infringing on the rights of other patients

And I'd be interested in any responses to the person who pointed out - if their mental capacity is such that they can't "help" but abuse the staff, are they really in a position to consent to sex?

Well I think that comment was aimed at something I said, which was in 10 years of working in nursing homes it wasn't the residents who were compos mentis who did the groping. ( although I'm sure this isn't always the case) so it's not always as easy to say care workers should not have to put up with sexual harassment and the resident should be asked to leave the home.

If someone lacks capacity they would not be paying for sex, for one thing they dont tend to have money on them. Its kept in a bank and a family member usually is in control of finances. also visitors are monitored, so someone else organising a prostitute Or sex therapist would be difficult.We had more cases of vulnerable adults having money/ possessions stolen than anything else. but there were two occasions where visitors were barred from patients rooms because we thought something of a sexual nature had occurred and the resident lacked capacity

The same idiots pro prostitution are dominating this thread now. I refuse to read their trite comments and won't return to this thread.

It is a disgusting idea. No-one has the right to pay for sex!

WRT vetting of people allowed to visit care homes: unless the residents are officially listed as 'vulnerable' and unable to make responsible decisions, it's not up to the carehome staff to police their choice of visitors. They might want to see (and pay for the services of) mediums or aromatherapists or music teachers or religious representatives, who may be crooks or predators.

And it isn't inherently wrong to exchange sex for money. Sex is just another recreational activity that some people are more interested in than others. With any other recreational activity, whether you spend/earn money by doing it is seen as up to you.

I'd be worried about some of the prostitutes taking advantage and wangling money and gifts from their 'clients'. I know one elderly chap who hired a (qualified, from a reputable agency) nurse to look after him when his wife died. She was a complete gold-digger and got a flat and uni tuition fees for her kids out of him before the family realised what was going on. As soon as they mentioned the word 'police' she was off like shit of a hot shovel.

if their mental capacity is such that they can't "help" but abuse the staff, are they really in a position to consent to sex?

This. I've worked in old people's homes and have been abused by residents. I have been punched, kicked, spat at, sworn at, as well as being felt up, had men (and one woman) walk right up to me while masturbating ... it kind of goes with the territory and, while a good home will do whatever they can to lessen the risk, it's always there because for some people with Alziemers this behaviour is a symptom of the disease. Often, it's behaviour such as this that is the reason relatives can no longer cope with caring for the person at home.

It's not just their capacity to consent to sex that needs to be considered. It's their capacity to understand that they are paying for it. Chances are, paying for sex is something this person would never have considered doing before they got ill.

And then, are we really saying that it's OK to expect a prostitute to have sex with someone who cannot control their behaviour? Who cannot help being abusive? Sounds a bit risky to me. What do you think, OLKN? you seem to have it all worked out.

"if it's not OK for an able-bodied man to pay for sex, then it's also not OK for someone who is old or disabled to pay for sex."

Good point OHF which is why, for me, this thread is about prostitution, whoever has the cash.

"I mean, I'm horrified that people drink to excess... but since it's legal it's hard to make, say Aunt Maud, stop doing it in the privacy of her room, however I feel about it. "

Difference is your Aunt Maud is only affecting herself and her immediate family, not a generally vulnerable and exploited group of women.

And I'd be interested in any responses to the person who pointed out - if their mental capacity is such that they can't "help" but abuse the staff, are they really in a position to consent to sex?