To wonder what you think about people with disabilities buying sex

[huha]

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

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

I have no issue with sex work or sex workers if the sex worker has made the choice to do it.

And how many do you think have? A real choice, where they entered the trade as an adult and not a child and have a range of alternative career options that wouldn’t leave them or their families impoverished? As a global percentage of women in the sex trade?

for that matter, £5k per IVF because a 39 year old suddenly decides she ‘needs’ a baby, despite never trying before.

Are you really equating a woman expecting society to spend money treating her medical condition (infertility) to society getting women to be paid to have sex with someone they would not normally go near?

Money is a resource. Women are not.

Infertility is a medical condition. Celibacy is not.

‘Whataboutery’ seems to be a very modern excuse for hypocrisy. It is not ok to be hypocritical in your attitudes in a self serving way.

You're distracting from the actual topic of discussion Larry and I won't engage further. That was a fucking bizarre direction to go but hey, enjoy your privilege to bypass consent with your dirty money.

Infertility is NOT a medical condition, especially due to age. It means you cannot become pregnant; you are not sick.

Defining it as medical condition is just redefining pregnancy as a medical need; it isn’t, any more than the right to a sex life.

The way it’s presented, as performing a ‘service’ for disabled men, is a PR strategy. It sanitises prostitution, just by changing the words.
Just like ‘sex work’. ‘Sex work’ is a ‘profession’. Just a job like any other.
Is it hell.
PPs on here saying this is fine are using this sanitised language.
If it’s a normal job then would you be ok with your daughter doing it? I don’t mean as her career necessarily, just to pay her way through university.
If not, then have a think why you wouldn’t want her to do it.

"Or, for that matter, £5k per IVF because a 39 year old suddenly decides she ‘needs’ a baby, despite never trying before"

I fail to see how that is equivalent in any way to buying a woman's vagina, or arse, or mouth solely for your pleasure.

Equally, if you are selling a package holiday where you know hotel workers are kept in a compound and worked 70-80 hours a week to service the needs of your client, is that so much better than pimping?

One wrong doesn't justify another one. You're effectively saying 'look people are really exploited there, so it's ok to exploit people here'

And again, sorry but they are not equivalent situations either.

“En passant, re your earlier comments, young gigolos (and the Gambian beaches) are increasingly used by rich older women to fulfil their sexual ‘needs’.”

Yeah sure. And this is relevant to the particular subject under discussion exactly how?

You forgot to ask how many people are using Apple devices to take part in this discussion, by the way. And you didn’t ask where we all buy our clothes.

Sometimes it's best to ignore the derailers and whataboutery lot.

Infertility is a medical condition because it can be treated. With medicine and medical procedures.

Celibacy is not a medical condition because the "treatment" is buying a woman's body.

There's something called sexual surrogacy which I understood to be more about having sex with people who for various (physical/mental) health reasons weren't likely/able to have relationships with people. But it was more than a simple sex service. A bit more intimacy coaching too, depending on the client. And while sex is on offer, it's not the sort of thing people could be trafficked into, as they're a another side to it. These people have some understanding of the physical/intellectual issues involved.

I haven't clicked on that link so I don't know, what it says. It doesn't sound similar at all!

And I was in a marriage where I couldn't have sex for 8 years, bar twice. (I didn't know it was going to go on that long, but that's a side issue to this). Not having sex when I had a sex drive was utterly horrific. It was truly torturous and changed who I am. Differently abled people also have sex drives. Nobody has a right to someone else's body, for sure, but there are people who are genuinely happy to provide services to people so they don't have to suffer more on top of what they're already dealing with. It's not something I could do, but it's their choice. As long as both are TRULY consenting adults, more power to them.

People talk about it being a free choice but no one wants their mother, sister, daughter or wife becoming a prostitute or ‘intimate therapist’ or whatever euphemism is used to disguise what’s going on here. Women’s bodies should not be for sale and it’s horrifying to read that some people believe that men have such an inalienable right to women’s bodies that it’s society’s responsibility to provide them. What do these people imagine a typical route into prostitution is? How do people justify the exploitation of women as warm objects provided to men on the grounds of male mental health? A lot of people suffer unfairly in life and I have every sympathy for them but it doesn’t mean they get a woman supplied to them - whether they are disabled, an ‘incel’ or just uninterested in treating women as people.

You are totally right art

Real consent comes from mutual desire. You can't buy it and many punters wouldn't want to. It would remove the power dynamics.

And to clarify surrogates are men and women and not all provide heterosexual services either.

I don't think there are that many of them though!!

What you're nearly all missing her is the fundamental point that people with disabilities have the legal and moral right to access the same services as able bodies people. In this instance we just happen to be talking about sex.

Some of you also seem to labour under the misapprehension that sex worker are all trafficked slaves with pimps and heroin addiction.

You've all over looked, or chosen to ignore this post from lululola - My friend is an physiotherapist in a care home abroad which houses predominantly disabled males, many victims of accidents. They offer intimate therapy from registered sex workers. The state or family pay for it depending on the funding. - I can take this one step further, a colleague on her SW placement n a care home, had persons who acted as 'fluffers' to enable the sex act to take place.

What you're nearly all doing is discriminating against the person with disabilities, if you offered those opinions about any other section of society you'd immediately (and rightly) be labelled as holding an ism - sexism, racism etc.

Bertrand,

Hypocrites detest being called out, hence the strong reaction.

And yeah, all of your examples you mentioned ARE relevant.

But carry on servicing your own ‘needs’ and feeling self righteous at the same time.

(And I have never personally paid for sex).

I was a bit shocked when I read the first couple of answers.

I agree with PPs that sex is not a human right.

Women being thrown under the bus, again, to service others. I'm sorry for people who have disabilities that make them unable to find sexual partners, however the answer to that is not to use prostituted women. Nobody has the right to sex.

I listened to Woman’s Hour a couple of weeks ago. There was a woman being interviewed who had been trafficked from London to Ireland.
She was snatched off the street, threatened and put on a plane. It took her years to escape. All that time she was working as a prostitute. She would have seemed compliant because she had no one so had to go along with it.
Many women who make the ‘choice’ to be a prostitute have had horrible experiences of sexual abuse when children. So effectively they’ve been groomed into it. Therefore it’s not really a choice is it?

people with disabilities have the legal and moral right to access the same services as able bodies people. In this instance we just happen to be talking about sex

No-one should be accessing sex as a service.

As a disabled person @NewYearNewMe18 it is more offensive to me to say "yes you can use prostitutes without judgment, unlike everyone else, who know deep down that it's not okay. You, bless you, you have needs."

I also don't think anyone healthy would pick this as a career and a lifelong ambition. If they did I'd worry for their mental health and life experiences which had put them there. There isn't a real choice here.

I think it's fine.

And sex has always been a commodity. Naive to think otherwise. Marriage, position, money, babies, security, love, a visa: men and women have always traded sex for these things.

And there is always exploitation. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But it is very easy to get on a high horse and judge others.

Didn't click the link and that site may well be horrible but the principle is essentially that we buy what we need.

NewYear I don’t think anyone, able bodied or otherwise, should be able to buy sex. I don’t think women’s bodies are commodities at all, in many circumstances. I’m as horrified by the description of that care home as any brothel and I’m particularly troubled by the justification of it as validating the belief that men need sex and therefore must have it provided any which way. There is a real tendency at tendency at the moment for people to attempt to shut down discussions (especially of women’s freedom) by accusing them of various -isms or -phobias and it’s very transparent.

People are exploited globally in many industries. That doesn’t mean I think we should use their plight to justify exploiting others or exploiting them more.

people with disabilities have the legal and moral right to access the same services as able bodies people.

Trains, buses, shops, workplaces, entertainment venues, etc? Yes. Obviously, yes.

Sex with prostitutes? Fuck no.

Sex is not a moral or legal right and it's not a service to be bought and sold.