The Guardian: A sex worker gave my autistic son the gift of confidence – and I organised the encounter

[YouAreNotBatman]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/30/a-sex-worker-gave-my-autistic-son-the-gift-of-confidence-and-i-organised-the-encounter#comments

Look at the comments, everyone saying she’s a lovely and a good mother.

I’m so tired of this.
Sex works is real work, have OF, be kinky - or you’re a prude, porn porn and even more porn, poor innocent men - they have to have sex with a woman or else….

Hiw can anyone think this is progressive?

Also "the right to a sex life" is pissing me right off. If it's a human "right" for a man to stick his penis in a woman's vagina, and he can't find anyone who actually wants to do it, and he doesn't have enough money to pay for it, does that mean that he's going to have to go full rape otherwise he'll spontaneously combust??

No one has the right to someone else's body. No one ever died from lack of sex. Fucking incel apologists.

Probably because the discussion of the issues is the important bit not being the language police. Not everyone agrees with you. Your point is no more or less valid than anyone elses.

I disagree, I think its possible to think that people shouldn't have sex workers bought for them if they cannot consent to sex, or cannot understand whether the sex worker is consenting, and still manage not to speak about disabled people in ableist language, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

And my opinion on that is every bit as valid as your opinion that using ableist language is acceptable in this conversation.

It has to be an edit, right?
They removed any comment that wasn’t supportive, right?
I mean all the comments were saying what a beautiful story, good on you mom, thank you for this lovely story….etc.
I thought it was sarcasm at first.
How can someone be so lost?

The "sex worker" was neurodiverse too?

So if this was so confidence building for her son, why doesn't the mother steer him towards "sex work" too?

This is why many women feel we are not considered fully human in the eyes of society. People who consider themselves progressive support policies and practices that require an underclass of women to be support humans for sex, for surrogacy, for validation, for care.

How do you know that the neurodiverse woman in question had the mental capacity to consent? So much empathy for the man in question from some on here but zero for the woman- both neurodiverse!

@FlissyPaps well I'm female so try again.

People who consider themselves progressive support policies and practices that require an underclass of women to be support humans for sex, for surrogacy, for validation, for care.

This is so well put. It's sickening,

And this is position is classic Guardian.

If not wanting to be in a relationship with a man who thinks it's ok to pay a woman for sex makes me narrow minded and judgmental then I'll h I appily take that label.

That doesn’t change anything. Your statement still screams incel. Now it also screams internalised misogyny.

When people write gushing articles about how great it is that their daughter is being hired by men for sex in order to boost the confidence of said men...
Then maybe I'll believe that they think "sex work is work" rather than "women don't matter".

@FlissyPaps 😂😂😂

Yes so well put. May need to remember this one

@lollipoprainbow

In this situation, if the $1000 cheque bounces, “Anna” would likely view it as rape. It’s not true consent. It’s rape. The poor boy was also a victim in this.

How does this even help him? It’s not the act of having sex that he needs support with, it’s the ability to build relationships- start up conversations, get to know people and be genuinely interested in them, learn how to treat people well and also to make sure people treat him well in return… etc etc. It’s a gradual process and can lead to having a consensual sexual relationship in time (but that isn’t a guarantee or a right. It’s also not something your parents should be overly invested in!)

Education to support this is great, but a one off encounter like this seems, at best, so pointless. All it’s done is satisfied his desire for sex very temporarily. And possibly it’s done more harm than good; in a transactional situation like this, Anna may have performed acts she wouldn’t have chosen to had she not been being paid- and may lead this boy to expect any future partners to do the same.

His response afterwards- that he would like to repeat the experience, and the mother’s ‘hilarious’ comments about him saving up himself for the next time surely proves the point- this wasn’t a confidence building exercise where he now feels happier to go out and meet girls and pursue a consensual relationship, it was simply an exercise in paying for sex, which, surprise surprise he enjoyed and wants to do again, all he’s learnt is- he can pay for access to a woman’s body

The whole thing is so wrong.

He’s now learning to drive and to catch public transport, having finished high school. But navigating social relationships is harder than reading a train timetable or Google Maps. Physically and sexually, he is a young man, but his social skills lag by several years.

I hope one day he will find the right girl, his own version of Love on the Spectrum. But how can we healthily channel his sexuality until then?

[…]

So, when my son alluded to certain “activities” he’d obviously come across online, I was able to explain that, in real life, not all girls like that sort of thing. That good sex was about mutual caring and respect.

I’d suggested the idea of a sex worker to him a couple of years ago when he had trouble getting past his first rejection, his first broken heart.

It's such a shame. From these parts, I infer that he was getting there, in his own time.

First forays into investigating the world of sex, a first relationship, rejection, recovery, all the usual stuff. Maybe later and slower, maybe with complications, but all very possible to work through with understanding help — someone to talk to you about porn vs real life, someone to discuss flirting, dating and relationships with, someone to turn to when you're rejected, and all the normal parts of human sexual development that he could've made his way through, even if on a different schedule.

Now his mum's gone and jammed this massive stumbling block right in the middle of it, disrupting his sexual and personal development with a $1000 4-hour sextravaganza that no first fumblings with a girlfriend or boyfriend is ever going to live up to. From what little we can make out from the article, it seems he's now more interested in affording his next fix than in meeting a nice girl he can have a real relationship with. For a young autistic person, this kind of spanner in the works of their sexual development is likely to be extremely difficult to overcome.

I could almost understand it if he was likely to never be able to have the kind of relationships he might want or to be able to have loving consensual sex (though I wouldn't agree with it, for reasons other posters have gone into). But he was doing okay! Now he's just a punter.

The Guardian have form for pushing agendas.

What agenda do you think they are trying to push with this article?

brilliant!

What does female mean in this context?

All-round grim. And how demeaning to the neurodiverse - are they so very unattractive/inept that they need to pay for sex? Christ the kid's only 17 - it's not like that demographic is known for its social skills and good decisions, let him grow up a bit, in all probability he'd find a girlfriend the usual way.

How does this even help him? It’s not the act of having sex that he needs support with, it’s the ability to build relationships

THIS! ^

He's learning to buy another human being, and perform an animalistic, basically biological, act.

He's not learning how to be intimate, or to build and sustain a loving relationship - and THAT is what people (of both sexes) need for good mental and emotional health.

What is it actually going to do for his confidence that his mother has basically told him that nobody is going to willingly have sex with him, so his only option is to buy consent?

Absolutely awful and I can't find Anything positive about this situation at all, no matter what angle I try.

The Guardian have been disgusting me for a while and this is yet another sickening "cause" they're choosing to champion.

It's not just the Guardian. I have the Apple News widget—default settings, never even opened the news app, brand new Apple ID, never used the browser for anything aside from Mumsnet and GoodReads, no apps aside from the default ones, my telco app, banking app, and WhatsApp—and maybe once every 2-3 weeks I get a news highlight talking about how wonderful and empowering sex work is and how much money women can make by quitting your job and getting into the sex industry.

This started at the height of COVID. Really makes you wonder.