Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

SGB - totally agree, everyone has the right to seek sex.

Not seen anyone suggest different, though.

It does matter to some people, a great deal, and to be written off as sexual beings - because of the squeamishness of mundanes and people who are absolutely obsessed with the heteronormative concept of sex as indivisible from 'love' rather than an activity people can happily engage in for all sorts of reasons including status, fun, curiosity and money - is actually a really horrible thing.

Fucking brilliant. I salute you.

(My last was in reply to spero at 00:17)

Yes, for me, even so.

I know I might be wrong about this. It's not like it's something where I'm thinking 'ha, it's so easy', not at all.

I also wonder (very, very ignorantly here) - if we did live in a society where it was accepted that, with disabilities 39-47 you got state-paid sex therapy, wouldn't you end up with a culture where people assumed disabled people weren't able to have sex with anyone untrained, or that no-one except a therapist would have sex with them? Like when people used to assume that the only parents who would want to bring up a child with disabilities, would be people who couldn't otherwise find a child to bring up? I mean - we're still seeing that legacy, right, from when parents were encouraged to put a baby with severe disabilities in a home to 'protect' his or her siblings. I cannot see it's had a positive effect, and i worry this would be the same?

I agree with SGB.

You certainly can enforce an absence, many threads on her about the motional abuse by parents when there is an absence of warmth and love.

And no I do not apologise for the word forced, I am also sorry if peoples sensitiveness are bruised, but the bottom line is that the Chinese forced abortions on women. Some cultural practices force girls to have FGM, these are wrong and an abuse of power both by the state and society.

If prostitution did not exist or if the law was changed to criminalise the buyer. The effect would be to force many more disabled people in to celibacy. In other words the state colluding with society would remove the freedom of choice and the autonomy of the individual. If this is not on the same par as fgm then your right of course you are, but the roots are exactly the same. The subjugation of one part of the community by another. It is only in the last 30 years that both the state and society stopped colluding in denying disabled people the human right of freedom of association, the freedom to live where they want to live, the freedom to vote. Again maybe not on a par with fgm in terms of physicle damage but every bit emotionally and mentally debilitating with the same intention of denying them full status as equals.

People seem to be getting confused about terminology again (as invariably happens on threads to do with the sex industry). I fully agree that no one has the right to have sex with another person unless the person is willing/a willing person is available. But I do think that human beings have a right to seek sex, and not to be told that they should just learn to do without it, because it doesn't matter. It does matter to some people, a great deal, and to be written off as sexual beings - because of the squeamishness of mundanes and people who are absolutely obsessed with the heteronormative concept of sex as indivisible from 'love' rather than an activity people can happily engage in for all sorts of reasons including status, fun, curiosity and money - is actually a really horrible thing.

It's not wrong to have sex for money any more than it's wrong to play a musical instrument for money, or cook a meal for someone who is neither a friend or a relative. Exploitation and coercion in any industry need to be fought against, but prohibiting the entire industry is never going to improve the lives of those forced into it by economic circumstances or criminal predators.

Even it it was seen more in a therapeutic context? As a way of helping disabled people attain a better self image?

It is appallingly sad.

I do see that.

I think that any situation where someone pays for sex, makes the idea of paying for sex more acceptable.

Perhaps if we lived in a world where prostitution wasn't the way it is, it could theoretically work, I don't know. But I'm sure it can't in our world, because in our world, people will always justify abuse of women with this sort of thing. IMO.

Linus, are you actually trying to dictate the circumstances under which it would not be acceptable to sell one's body for sex? Rent, for fuck's sake..must be enjoying it (that rules out most able-bodied married women, then). Who are you to set the parameters of what constitutes non-exploitative sex?

Individuals deny sex - which they have every right to do. That they do so often in a deliberately cruel way is a reflection of the way that people generally think of disabled people which must be a societal problem, the way we organise ourselves, what is given prominence and respect.

I went to a Romanian orphanage in 1991. People there still threw stones at the disabled children. We are not so very far from that even now.

I repeat, I genuinely do not see how professional and trained sex surrogates can be seen as endorsing rape. So that is how I deal with that problem.

But who is denying sex?

Either it is society, or it is the responsibility of all people - collectively - to give you, or me, or anyone who can't get it, sex.

If it is society, then fine, let's educate society, let's break down these ideas that idiots have.

If it's people - then how do you cope with the fact that they have to consent, and they have to consent in such a way that doesn't condone rape of other people?

Sorry you won't accept that. Peoples experiences mould them in many ways, not all of them pleasant.

No

I don't accept that

I would only accept the misguided use of terms like "forced" from an uneducated person, an immature person, someone who has no understanding of the issues

I don't accept it, and no-one else should

Disability is not a get out clause for using such terms, if the understanding is there

I don't believe that is the case on this thread, so no special considerations from me, sorry

Thanks Cuckoo.

Its not just about being denied sex, I think this is the point LL has been making.

Denial of sex is part of being denied your humanity. I won't have sex with you because you are disabled - I won't marry you, I don't want a family with you, I don't want my friends to see me with you...

Its all on a continuum. Yes, that sounds pretty bleak, I am not trying to claim my experiences are universal to all disabled people. They are not. But I know I am not alone.

So it pushes big buttons and does cause a fair amount of introspection and probably self pity. Which will influence use of language and examples given which may strike someone without that particular back story as ill judged.

Thank you AF:, point taken.

Spero, I have only read the first page of this thread but after reading your comments I need go no further. I welled up reading your posts; not because I pity you but because I can feel your rage at having to deal with some of the arseholes on here and in RL who would dare to pretend they know what the fuck they are talking about with regards to being a disabled person denied a sex life.

I don't feel uncomfortable about it - I'm sorry, maybe I should, but I don't.

I can't know how what you describe feels and I respect that you are talking about something I can't know about. And that is disgusting that someone slept with you for a bet. That's appalling.

But, sorry, 'forced celibacy' compared to FGM or abortion really bothers and upsets me. And I think it touches on a central issue here.

The only way celibacy could be 'forced', is if you think sex is a right. And if you think sex is a right, you are faced with a problem, because sex is about consent and rape is about the right to have sex.

I am not trying to say it's not shit, and I do understand where you are coming from, and I honestly don't know where I'd stand on all of this if I were disabled. It'd be absurd for me to pretend I did.

What I do hope I wouldn't do, is to compare a lack of sex to someone aborting a pregnancy against the mother's will or peforming FGM.

I can understand why LL uses the word 'forced' when talking about celibacy and I would ask for some understanding from the able bodied.

I can see why you feel uncomfortable with it, but for those of us who grew up knowing that we were treated as something 'other' and were not able to join in with the rites of passage that others seemed to attain so effortlessly... it makes you hurt. Celibacy is not something we have chosen, I can see how it feels like something 'forced' upon you.

Yes, yes, I know I am not alone, I am nothing special, LOTS of people don't get to have sex with anyone they really like. But the problem with a visible physical disability is there will be lots of people as you grow up quite keen to point out to you WHY they wouldn't have sex with you. I don't know what kind of pain those sorts of people are in and I don't really care. They seem to want to hurt and to rub your nose in why you are different.

It can be very difficult. Someone at college slept with me for a bet. That hurt quite a lot, as you can imagine.

so I think we all need to cut each other a little slack.

cross posted with LRD

and several others who are rather aghast at the term "forced" being anywhere near appropriate

LL , several different people have said now how uncomfortable your repeated assertion that "disabled people should not be forced into celibacy" makes them

you might want to modify your language, if you are concerned that people are getting the wrong impression from your posts

because how would you visualise your solution to that dilemma ?

"forced" or undoing that scenario no more signifies a consensual transaction than "prostituted woman" does

don't you get that ?

'lots of people CHOOSE not to have sex, having no choice being dictated to as to what is permisable is how forced anything, celibacy, abortion, FMG works.'

Did you mean to compare celibacy to abortion and FGM?

That is disgusting.

There is an obvious and basic difference between being forced to do something, or having something done to you, and a lack of something.

Celibacy is not 'forced' on anyone. That is not what the word means.

FGM is forced on women.

Abortion is forced on women.

Celibacy is an absence of sex.

You cannot force an absence on someone, can you?

I've not read 'So much pretty' - I will look out for it, thanks.

Linus where have I said or how have I given the impression that my stance differs from spero's? We have both said time and again that both partners need to be willing, is this another attempt to suggest I condone rape?