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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder what you think about people with disabilities buying sex

537 replies

huha · 19/05/2018 06:01

Here is a link: tlc-trust.org.uk

I personally was at first 😲😲😲 but now am thinking 🤔...maybe this is a good thing?? AIBU?

OP posts:
SilverDoe · 20/05/2018 22:12

habenero I find your posts crass and ignorant, and very worrying. A large percentage of prostitutes are victims of trafficking, or are drug addicts doing what they can to sustain an unbreakable habit. The fact that they are “still doing it” is not indicative of it being a positive choice in their mind, or even a choice at all.

It is not comparable to choosing a dangerous job. Can I ask if you are a man or a woman?

Murane · 20/05/2018 22:20

@Bowlofbabelfish that was the key point that jumped out at me too - vulnerable adults with mental impairment are not capable of consent in the same way as a child is not. There's a big difference between offering sex services to a physically disabled adult with no mental impairment, and offering the same to a mentally impaired person. The latter is totally wrong.

habenero20 · 20/05/2018 22:24

I find your posts crass

There was nothing crass in my post.

A large percentage of prostitutes are victims of trafficking, or are drug addicts doing what they can to sustain an unbreakable habit. The fact that they are “still doing it” is not indicative of it being a positive choice in their mind, or even a choice at all.

I don't dispute any of that. I never said it was a positive choice. And I don't know the statistics, but I imagine most are not being physically forced to do it. But I do know that some are forced into and that should absolutely be stopped.

What I am saying is that most are in the unfortunate position of not having a better choice. So, let's be mindful that we may be making this choice even more dangerous then it has to be by not allowing them to work together or any of the other barriers we put up to making it safer. What seems like a very hard thing to do is make prostitution go away.

huha · 21/05/2018 06:08

*@Mogleflop *
Sorry, but I can't quite explain how angry I am to see my condition (autism) being used as an excuse to justify the necessity of prostitution. What the actual fuck OP?

Really? You're going to get mad at me for stating the facts? I don't make the rules. I'm just telling you what they currently are. And regardless of what you or anyone else thinks or says, sex is a basic human right. Sex workers are legal and protected. They aren't always actually having sex with their clients. Look up sex surrogate.

OP posts:
huha · 21/05/2018 06:11

Plenty of people lack social skills and relationship expertise, lots of them find someone to put up with them.

And with this statement you miss the point entirely.

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2018 06:13

Sex is not a human right.

SilverDoe · 21/05/2018 06:19

Sex is not a basic human right!!!!

WTF

SilverDoe · 21/05/2018 06:21

And what do you mean by “regardless of what anyone else thinks or says” - this is literally just your opinion. Can you show me the human rights law that detailshow access to sex is a basic human right? Omg words fail me... Hmm

BertrandRussell · 21/05/2018 06:25

“And regardless of what you or anyone else thinks or says, sex is a basic human right.”

I beg your pardon? What did you just say?

YouAreNotImportant · 21/05/2018 06:35

No sex isn't a human right ffs.

This is just the same old misogynistic nonsense dressed up as being some sort of social compassion (in a very patronising way) or fight for equality when the bottom line is still that some people think it's fine to coerce sex from others.

And it isn't. Not under any circumstances.

StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2018 06:42

Yes I'm guessing if we dig further sex will be a man right but not a woman right.

huha · 21/05/2018 06:43

Errrr...yes it is. It's documented. Along with oxygen, water, and food. Sex is a basic human right.

I'm staying a fact. Sorry if you disagree.

It is illegal not to support disabled people to enjoy the same pleasures as others enjoy in the privacy of the their own homes (Equality Act 2010, Human Rights Act 1998).

Sexual expression and intimacy are recognized as a basic human right and need. (easecanada.org/about-ease/)

OP posts:
Mogleflop · 21/05/2018 06:44

I have to get ready for work. I'll come back later to try and describe how utterly awful, patronising and disablist it is of you to use autism explicitly as your example for why we should be happy to use fellow humans as prostitutes.

As for "sex is a human right", it absolutely isn't.

huha · 21/05/2018 07:02

I'm being factual @Mogleflop based on MY experiences and research. If you read up on the research, you will see that it is a well know fact that individuals with developmental disabilities such as autism benefit from sexual surrogates. I am not repeating my opinion, I am representing a fact.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/disabled-people-sex-surrogates-experts-centre-for-autism-national-autistic-society-sexual-health-a7839181.html

"In Prof De Than’s view, decriminalising brothels run as cooperatives of sex workers and legitimising sexual surrogacy in the UK, would be “major improvements” for both the safety of sex workers and for people whose disabilities inhibit sexual expression."

"the “right for a person to have fun in their preferred ways, with others or alone, as long as they are not hurting others,” is a requirement of the sexual autonomy and expression rights detailed by the European Court of Human Rights."

Do you think that people with physical disabilities are the only ones who have sexual desires?

OP posts:
Bowlofbabelfish · 21/05/2018 07:02

Supporting someone to enjoy the same blah blah blah in their own home does not mean procuring prostitutes.

Being given a women to fuck is what these incel idiots believe in. Women are not prizes given out to men for merely existing. No one has a right to demand sex from anyone else. Sex requires two - if one person thinks they have a right to it they need to find a WILLING partner. Not a bought one, not a coerced one.

Thought experiment: if people have a right to sex, and no one wants to have sex with them, where does that leave you? Because the only way forward from that is buying sex or coercion.

YouAreNotImportant · 21/05/2018 07:03

Being able to express your sexuality e.g by being openly gay is a human right.

Having someone else make you orgasm isn't. You should have educated yourself before starting the thread.

PoorYorick · 21/05/2018 07:22

If you and another consenting adult want to have sex, of course you have the right to do that. You also have the right to pursue sex, without being an arse about it.

But nobody has an actual right to sex in and of itself. If that were true, I could just go to the police or a solicitor, tell them nobody is agreeing to shag me and demand that they facilitate my human rights. Presumably from anyone I choose....

KataraJean · 21/05/2018 07:27

The key point in what you say huha is ‘as long as they are not hurting others’

The debate in this thread is about whether providing sex (via prostitution) hurts others. The consensus is that it does.

There is demonstrable harm in supporting a practice which relies on trafficked, impoverished or otherwise already harmed women (for the most part) supplying sex. The circumstances which mean they are selling sex constitute coercion.

The SAHM comparison above is a red herring - if a husband said, I will only give you bed and board if you have sex with me or perform sex acts on me, we would recognise this as coercion and abuse. If society fails women to the extent that the only or best means of survival is selling sex (which is not a commodity, they are selling access to their bodies, let’s be clear), then that is coercion and abuse.

The second harm is done to women as a group because prostitution perpetuates the idea that women are sex objects and their human rights are lesser than the man who desires sex. The Ghana example is a red herring because the only reason it is news is because it is so unusual.

The third harm may be done to disabled people by the assumption that this is what they want.

I also would be wary of research which promotes sex surrogacy, it does not mean it is value free and there is no agenda behind it. It still devalues women/female bodies.

RebelRogue · 21/05/2018 07:30

as long as they are not hurting others,

Prostitution hurts others. Hurts the women and girls that are doing it. It even hurts women and girls that aren't doing it.

ArcheryAnnie · 21/05/2018 07:48

I'm very late to this thread, but:

  • that site linked to by the OP is just a pimp site with "caring" language, except that the only people it professes to care about are the clients, not the exploited women who it hires to sexually service those clients.
  • if you think that "sex work" (the new woke name for prostituted and exploited women) is a job like any other, then you are deluding yourself.
  • it's incredibly disablist to present disability as a barrier to having a fulfilling sexual relationship. If you think that disabled people (men, because bet you a dollar most of the people using that service are men) are so inherently unsexy that the only way they can get sex is by paying for it, then that's your problem.

tl;dr I think anyone buying sex is BU.

ArcheryAnnie · 21/05/2018 07:50

Errrr...yes it is. It's documented. Along with oxygen, water, and food. Sex is a basic human right.

I'm staying a fact. Sorry if you disagree.

Saying "fact" doesn't turn a load of bullshit into an actual fact. Sex isn't a basic human right.

Bowlofbabelfish · 21/05/2018 07:58

Please show us the bit of the UK legislation that says that having sex is a human right.

Not ability to express sexuality
Not right to private life
Not right to engage in intimacy with partner

Etc. The right to have sex with someone. It doesn’t exist. If it did, how would those someones to have sex with be provided?

UpstartCrow · 21/05/2018 08:02

If sex is a basic human right then so is a kidney.

FermatsTheorem · 21/05/2018 08:14

Other posters have got it right: there's a right to pursue a consensual sex life free from interference from third parties (including the state). There is no right to sex, period, because what would happen if there genuinely was no-one in the world who wanted to have sex with a given individual - how would their "right" be fulfilled without rape? You can't have one person's right which depends on the suspension of another person's right for its existence.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 21/05/2018 08:22

Errrr...yes it is. It's documented. Along with oxygen, water, and food. Sex is a basic human right

As other posters have said

Nope

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