Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

Why is 'sex' equated with help with masturbation? Why this focus on male orgasm throughout most of this discussion?

Agree with leith lurker - lack of sex doesn't mean you are just missing out on an orgasm. That's a very sad, narrow and limited view of what the sexual experience can mean for many.

But fair to say, worrying about paying for sex is probably going to bumped off the list of concerns for many disabled people soon, to be replaced by worries about eating or keeping warm.

Sashh: I think your safe to spend your hard for for and soon to be replaced DLA on your needs whatever they are. If you check back I did ask X if she had an issue between earned income and other income like benefits, pensions, expenses from the house of lords etc.

Seriously though and as a side bar to this discussion, if those who think disabled people should do anything other than pay for sex, need fear no more. The ability to pay for a lot of stuff will soon be removed from disabled people. Of course the amount spent by the tax payer dealing with higher rates of depression, body image disorders, anti social behaviour linked to feelings of alienation and isolation. These are not just emotive words but we only have to look at history to see how many diffrent types of people have reacted to being positioned as less than human.

I have no problem with people spending money they have earned on prostitutes or even wives from a political point of view.

So back in January when I had a part time job it would be OK for me to pay a sex worker but now I'm out of work I can't spend my DLA on one?

OK that's me told.

Are you at Treloar, lala?

Youmake melala: The problem with support workers being involved in the the process is twofold. One, the "term support worker" covers a range of jobs so we would need to be clear which support workers we are talking about. Also clients with support workers expect them to behave in a professional and careing capacity, this is not the same as sex friend. masterbating a client would in some, possibly a lot of cases cross the boundary between routine depersonalised relief and so still leave the client emotionally unsatisfied. Surrogates at least engage the person as a human not a just a biological function.

2nd. You say yourself that in your own workplace that young adults no matter what type of impairment ot even level of impairement they have, are intent just as non disabled youngsters are of finding someone to be intimate with. No one here has suggested that paying a prostitute is going to give anything other than the most fleeting glimpse of what it might be like to share intimacy with someone. A properly trained sex surrogate such as the one featured in the film "The sessions" which is spoken about in one of the articles I linked to, does at least engage not just the physicle but emotional and mental aspects of the clients sexual desire and needs. Often allowing the client to see that using prostitutes is not any kind of answer for their own needs. This might sound fine and dandy, but these surrogates are still paid, they have more than one client, they do not see themselves as prostitutes but I am sure people from across the political and social spectrum will still apply that label. Again your discomfort about prostitution is rooted in some stereotypical notion of what sexworkers do, where they work, how they work, and how sex should be defined. Not trying to pick a fight only suggesting as others have said that the whole issue of prostitution is always put in to very black and white which get us no where.

I guess either you are ok with prostitution or you're not. I'm not...for anyone. Many people find it difficult to get sex partners, both disabled and not but I can understand those with physical disabilities are overrepresented in this group. Is paying for it, the answer? I don't think so. But this does not mean I find the idea of disabled people having sex disgusting

I would be supportive of the idea of support workers assisting masturbation, though. I've worked in independent living homes and have supported service users prepare for personal time with correct positioning/ removing splints etc (not contravening any guidelines I hasten to add!) but going one step further by facilitating with sex aids etc. by trained staff would be a viable option. I think this is different to the proposals in the OP and a is helluva lot more dignified.

I currently work in a college for young adults with physical disabilities and learning difficulties and it's like a soap opera with all the relationships and drama It's quite difficult balancing safeguarding the students and enabling a personal/social life due to the presence of learning difficulties. Does this scheme just deal with physical disabilities?

that in most cultures men want a lot more sex than women do so men tend to have to pay to get it whereas mostly women can have it when they want it despite female salaries, equality and the like.

Xenia, I am no anthropologist, but I don't think women in most cultures have the freedom to have sex 'when they want it'! Have a little think and it might occur to you that this has generally been a male-only privilege. 'In most cultures', that is.

Ah it sounds like the sex workers are paid direct or my extensive research suggests so.
www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4767106/investigation-into-nursing-home-for-allowing-prostitutes.html

Sadly a lot of even supposed real love is transactional. Go into a bar as a man in your dirty paint covered overalls and then return in a very expensive suit and compare the attention you get from girls once they think you're rich. It does not quite apply in reverse although sometimes I suppose it might.

Right? It is not a legal right that any of us will be provided with sex or partners by the state. I suppose some organisations might promise it to you - I think the Moonies provided loads of spouses for mass weddings and in North Korean prison camps temporary spouses are provided so workers can be bred but on the whole there is no regime I can think of that provides people with spouses as of right which may be why so many countries have dowries - if you pay enough some man takes a daughter off your hands.

Gosh I am sure none of us think Spero or an OAP of 80 or an obese woman of 30 stones is disgusting for wanting to be held and have a partner. It is not illegal to pay for sex in the UK and indeed some women as well as men use escort agencies either for sex or companionship.

What is interesting is what Hakim calls the sex deficit - that in most cultures men want a lot more sex than women do so men tend to have to pay to get it whereas mostly women can have it when they want it despite female salaries, equality and the like. Obviously as a feminist I would rather that were not so but it is.

I suppose there must be a risk that if your local council arranges it they then move into breaking the law in the sense that a prostitute is allowed to charge for sex but if another lives of her earnings or pimps her etc then they do break the law. Your local council surely is at risk if they use the prostitute as a subcontractor? Has anyone looked on line to find the contracts which may be published by local authorities for these services I wonder. I think every contract worth £10k a year now has to be published by the state.

I agree, it is difficult to call something a 'right' if it depends on active participation by another who has to volunteer their body. There is always a risk of a dangerously unequal power balance.

But as others have pointed out this happens ALL the time. Plenty of wealthy, ugly men who have very pretty young girlfriends. Both are getting something out of that transaction.

And its not a right. that would be the wrong word, but it is something you can either get for free or for money, depending on what the people involved agree to

If theyre both consenting, then i dont have a problem with it.

If you think that disabled people find it just as easy to find lovers as non disabled people then youre kidding yourself, and you CAN rent peoples orifices to wank into if you want to. hell you can even rent a womb to gestate for people and everyone thinks thats a marvellous thing to do.

I think things would be better if we all had the courage to have an open and honest discussion without first filtering our views through some pre determined prejudice which just gives rise to some knee jerk response that benefits nobody.

To that extent I agree with name change guy that this discussion has been tainted with automatic assumptions about male privilege, the whole discussion apparently turned into a charicature by some of just about disabled men who wants to ejaculate all over some poor down trodden women, forced into prostitution to pay the rent.

Surely we are all mature and intelligent enough for a more nuanced debate. Life is not about crisply drawn charicature but real people who have feelings and wishes and hopes.

I am just thankful that as a single mother who works full time I haven't had much of a libido for quite a long time so I have never seriously engaged with consideration of should I pay for sex.

But if I wanted to, and someone was willing to take my money in exchange for some bodily contact, really what is so disgusting and shameful about that? Are you telling me that my wish to hold another human body is disgusting? Am I disgusting?

It may be a poor substitute for a mutually committed and loving relationship but it does seem that some people would wish to deny disabled people even that poor choice.

I certainly would not be happy with a housewife who earns her allowance her husband gives her by providing him with sex using some of the husband's earnings to buy herself sexual services from a paid male (or female) sex worker although I suppose you could cost it out - see if the cleaning and sex services she provides her man in return for being kept provide an excess over her room and board such that she could spend that how she chooses may be.

Unearned income is still your own income so I would not have problems with people spending that. To achieve fairness you would either have to give every 16 year old + in the UK say 2 hours of free sexual services provided by the local council or no one. That would have an equity about it I suppose although I ma not sure what the take up rate would be.

I suspect there are many many more people over 75 - 100 who want sex and are very lonely and cannot get it so I do not really see why the state would provide those services to someone disabled but not to an old person who might equally have sexual needs but cannot find a boy or girl friend.

Anyway I'm doing a very boring job (work) so I suppose I'd better get back to it.

So there you are then Xenia you have no problem at all, you are happy that people pay for what they deem as their "pleasures" from the money they earn. Would earn be same as income I wonder?

I have no problem with people spending money they have earned on prostitutes or even wives from a political point of view. If they put the spending down as office expenses then yet of course they should not. Most spending on prostitutes in the UK is not put through as business expenses although I think some Saudis wanted women in return for an arm's contract.

Perhaps we have found a better role for the workfare millions rather than shelf stacking. They might have more fun and would be able to engage in caring duties and learn techniques which enable them to nab a very rich man in due course. I jest...

I would imagine there are plenty of husbands who are faithful who get no sex (see many many mumsnet threads and yes sometimes it is the other way round but rarely) and plenty of people who are not disabled who are unable to find a partner in the usual way. I do not think the disabled are particularly in a category where it is so important they are provided with sex tax payers should pay but if they want to pay themselves out of what they earn they can.

Xenia prepare to get outraged, but I think the tax payer already does pay for the ugly, the fat, the rich, and the disabled to pay for prostitution. Tax cits for the rich leave more disposable income to spend on sex workers. MP's and members of the house of Lords have frequently been caught in the act with male and female prostitutes, members of the armed forces have for many, many years been regular visits to brothels in this country and abroad, all at tax payers expense!

The fact that not just the media coverage but almost all the discussion on this board on these particular subject is aired, tends to be aimed at male "entitlement". I am sure we will soon be joined by those who will say that I and others who support the idea that disabled people should have access to a sex life, are all rape apologists, or that men are paying to rape women.
Spero please do stay if only because this argument as Namechange guy benefits from your input. I have been arguing this corner for a long time and have been marked down as a apologist for the sex industry, and a supporter of human trafficking and other such claims. In fact just the other day one of the more prolific posters said that my view on anything was rendered invalid because of my arguments on this topic.

Incidentally now would be a good opening for me to say very clearly that I think prostitution is not the answer, I am much more in favour of the dutch model, or in fact a surrogacy model. If the transactional aspect is the problem that can be overcome by society changing it's attitude to what sexwork is, I would have said a therapeutic slant would be acceptable, but one of the articles raises a very good point about, medicalising the issue, however I think other therapeutic services like massages, aromatherapy, or some of the talking therapies could open the door to impaired people themselves changing their view on it becoming "medicalised" if it's called a therapy.

Spero what are your thoughts on how things could be better?

As I said above if men (or to a lesser extent women) have money then they are never short of girl friends or wives whom they do not in the traditional sense pay although they certainly do pay in terms of keeping that non earning but pretty thing. I have never really seen the difference between prostitution and being a kept housewife except that the prostitute does not have to clean his dirty underwear I suppose.

As for sexual attraction those who cannot attract others may find they choose to pay for sex, whatever their gender or go without. As long as tax payers do not pay the disabled, the unattractive or anyone else can pay for sex. Apparently men pay prostitutes because they go away - they are paying for them to leave in a sense, the lack of complication although most men and women prefer sexual intimacy with someone they love and most men don't use prostitutes.

Darkeys it is a good question and one that has no easy answers so much will depend on the relationship, the level of impairment, the willingness of both partners to find ways that are not traditionally part of a sex act in order to achieve satisfaction.

Even though severely impaired people have little or no feeling, or ability to move independently, what they are most affected by is the lack of identity as a sexual being, the feelings of low self esteem and failure that arise from not being able to please someone else or give someone else pleasure. If partners can conceive of a way to share the physicle pleasure of the non impaired person with the one who IS impaired at least on a emotional and cerebral level they are participants and can feel good about themselves in that respect.

If though you are asking is this a one way street where only disabled people have their sexual needs met, then no I do not believe it is. But in the scenario in the other thread, the male was already in a relationship. I and other are specificly talking about those people who never get to form a relationship partly as a result of societies unwillingness to face up to the fact that people with a wide range of impairments are seeking to have fully meaningful and independent lives which include experiencing sex.

Tabard you are not addrerssing the issues that i and others are putting forward, even to the point of still making assertions that others not I have said are much more complex than you are making them out to be.

Spero - I think that's because all the media coverage is about disabled men, and because there are a lot of able-bodied men who use prostitutes but hardly any women, as far as I'm aware. If you know of examples of women (disabled or not) using sex workers then do say, it would add a valuable new dimension to the discussion.

Yes, I am also rather creeped out by rich old men with shiny young brides. But then, I am perfectly happy being celibate for years on end, and just can't imagine picking up (let alone paying) a man to fulfil my sexual needs. So I'm sure that affects my perspective here.

Spero - I meant 'page', not 'pain'.

Spero, I can just about feel your frustration through the pain. But bear with this thread please, it's really interesting to hear your viewpoint.

The disgust towards disabled men you mention is not disgust (if that is the right word) with their disabled-ness, but rather with their male-ness. This board will tend to hone in on male privilege first and foremost in any discussion. The exchange of money between an adult couple for sex will primarily be viewed as a man paying for a woman's time/body, rather than the other way round, hence the assumptions and attitudes that you have detected. The fact it might happen the other way round is a bit troublesome for feminist theory, I think.

I personally think that it is not up to anyone to decide what anyone else does and doesn;t want to do with their bodies.

'What I find hardest to understand about men who use prostitutes is how they can be happy to have sex on someone who doesn't fancy them and is only doing it for the money.'

i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/10/12/article-1076718-021386A1000005DC-929_468x688.jpg

That pics is of Bernie Ecclestone and his former model ex-wife. Thing is, Bernie is worth a billion quid or so. Do you think this ever crosses his mind? Fact is, factors other that 'phwoarr!' frequently come in to relationships with a sexual element.