Tell them you love me

[SureJanOK]

Hi,

Anyone watched this documentary on Sky?

It's about a Professor in the USA who works with this non-verbal man who has cerebral palsy to help him communicate using a discredited technique called "facilitated communication". (She "supports" his arm whilst he types) They "fall in love", have sex and she ends up in jail. (She was married with children at the time).

Her position is that he is an intelligent man who just needs help to communicate but the experts say he has the intellect of a baby.

I've always been on the opinion that (mentally and/or physically) disabled people deserve to have romantic and physical relationships (I have a distant relation who has Down syndrome and lives with another person with Down syndrome as if married) but I was absolutely staggered by this programme.

Not even once did the Professor seem to have the faintest idea about ideas like consent, abuse of power etc.

I can't work out whether she truly believed he was understanding, consenting etc or whether she is an out and out sexual predator.

And the poor chap now - does he miss her?

Interested in anyone else's thoughts.

I watched this recently. It left me feeling quite disturbed and conflicted.

I do believe that she had absolutely every conviction that she was right, he loved her and sex was consensual. However, when you see the trial and at the end when you see just how poorly he is, I was left thinking wtf was going on in her mind?! And the injuries he was left with after they had sex - no, that's just not right. Twisted, is what it is.

I think she also got away with a lot more as an intelligent white woman than she might have as say a black male without a PhD.

What she should have done, of course, if she realised she was "falling" for the man, is remove herself from the position of trust forthwith!

Even if he did "love" her, it would only be in the same way that, say, psychiatric patients often fall for their psychiatrist as they are the "only person" to understand them/care for them. It's not as if poor Derrick had a lot of choice as to who he could fall in love with.

Not to mention - did she give no thought whatsoever to her existing children? Is she even allowed contact with them anymore? I think it's telling that her ex-husband referred to her as a pathological liar.

You're absolutely correct. Also, it is much like a teacher abusing a pupil. It's unacceptable. I agree she should have stuck by professional standards and walked away.

That poor family had enough to deal with, without her delusions.

She literally didn't mention "ethics", "code of conduct", "position of trust" or "abuse of power" or anything like that even once. The interviewer should have asked her about it.

It made me think of a ouji board - it was clearly HER guiding the communication. How interesting that he had an interest in discussing the finer points of African-American literature when with her but couldn't even identify a picture of a fridge when he was with his doctors.

In fact, she's the sort of woman who would fall in love with a man on death row. Because it's all "against the odds" and romantic and he's a captive audience who won't be able to, for example, cheat on her.

Of course I myself have ended up with carpet burns after sex (when I was much younger!) and that in and of itself doesn't mean I wasn't consenting.

The chap apparently masturbates now...is his mum right in that it would have been kinder for him to have "never known" anything about sex?

She's a monster and if it was the other way around, more people would be outraged.