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Original poster

Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

408 replies

fllowtheyellowbrickroad · 11/04/2013 21:43

m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/sex-workers-disabled-people

Has this already been done? Will put together something literate soon. An currently choking and splitting too much.

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 15/04/2013 00:18

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.

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:18

This reply has been deleted

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Leithlurker · 15/04/2013 00:19

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.

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:21

I agree with SGB.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:22

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?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:22

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

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:22

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.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:23

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

Not seen anyone suggest different, though.

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:25

I haven't been arguing that it is a 'right' that should be State funded. I am saying there should be the opportunity if people wish to spend their money that way. In the current climate I don't think sex can make it on the heirarchy of needs the state should fund - not when people don't have anywhere to live or enough to eat.

I see the risk in what you describe - there is always the law of unintended consequences for everything - but as so many disabled people are denied an active sex life, it is probably not a huge risk.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:26

'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.'

Confused

Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me.

Children are children. They deserve care. This has nothing at all to do with sex and comparing sex with care of children is, well, distasteful to say the least.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:28

spero - no, I know, sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you had been arguing those things. I was trying to imagine what the implications would be, what kind of society it'd be, that's all.

I mean, obviously it cannot be ad hoc - if at the moment someone pays a prostitute, they are very likely to be paying an abused woman, possibly a woman who's been trafficked.

In order to have sex therapists who were definitely not abused or trafficked, I think there would need to be an infrastructure, right?

I follow what you say about risk and it not being a huge issue comparatively. Sad

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:28

sorry LRD but in reality people havebeen saying disabled people do not have the right to seek sex, because they re denying the one realistic route for many should even exist i.e. to pay someone.

It really isn't fair to say - o but I am not denying your right to seek sex! When the opportunities of successfully finding any are so limited if not utterly out of reach. You can't go to a night club and shake your thang in an iron lung.

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:28

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?

LRD, can't you see that behemoth of an elephant in the room? Some disabled people are not getting sex and they would rather like some.

AnyFucker · 15/04/2013 00:29

Nobody has suggested anything different

It seems if you oppose disabled people having the "right" to buy sex for the exact same reasons as the able-bodied you are at risk of being seen as disablist and "squeamish" about the concept of disabled people shagging

Absolutely not so, and really fucking patronising towards people with disabilities, tbh

If I were disabled, and some do-gooder tried to tell me I had more right to engage the services of sex workers because of my disability I would be enraged

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:30

Yes, totally an infrastructure, in fact it would be a good opportunity to shake up the whole therapy industry and have some proper robust state regulation and checks. Far too many crap therapists out there. I imagine a dodgy sex therapist could do enormous harm to a vulnerable disabled person.

AnyFucker · 15/04/2013 00:31

Lots of people without disabilities are not getting sex either

you are making this into a divisive issue, cuckoo

I know lots of disabled people who are getting plenty of sex with consensual partners, and no money changing hands

Leithlurker · 15/04/2013 00:31

Oh Pleeeaaasee, LRD you have seen the threads as have I were a poster has a fucked up life because their parents either withheld love and affection from them, or treated them less well than other siblings that is enforced absence, denial if a change of word helps it works the same.

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:31

Well AF you are not disabled are you?

I am feeling rather befuddled at the notion that I am patronising myself here.

I don't speak for all disabled people but I imagine I have rather more insight and experience over 40 years than someone who isn't a disabled person.

AnyFucker · 15/04/2013 00:34

Because I am not disabled I don't deserve an opinion ?

Really.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:35

spero - sorry, I really still do disagree that paying someone is a realistic way for anyone to get sex.

If you think there needs to be an infrastructure - that's why I was talking about government and state-sanctioning. That's all. I am not recommending it, I'm saying, these (from my POV) would be the risks. But you're right, there would be huge potential for abuse of the system on both sides.

I'm really sorry, I really am not trying to be an arsehole, but I do honestly and truly think that no-one has the right to sex. If seeking it is harder for some people, that is shit, for whatever reasons that might be - and I would suggest that being a Muslim or Hindu woman is, at the moment, a leading difficulty in having consensual sex. But, while shit, it doesn't mean it's ok to do this. Sorry, but I just don't think it is.

I am thinking about what you are saying, I am not just dismissing it, honestly.

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:35

Fucker, why am I being divisive? Because I am furious at some of you lot? Because I am swearing?

Lots of people without disabilities are not getting sex either. Oh, so that's okay then. Disabled people should just shut up and only ask for things they want if the rest of society is getting it too.

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:35

No AF that is not what I said.

I was taken aback that you said my arguments were patronising to disabled people.

You are allowed any opinion you chose. But some opinions carry more weight than others because they are informed by actual experience.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/04/2013 00:36

LL - no, parents withholding love and care from a child is not the same as abusers witholding sex from an abused person.

HTH.

CuckooBird · 15/04/2013 00:37

I know lots of disabled people who are getting plenty of sex with consensual partners, and no money changing hands. Oh, right. You see, Spero? You have absolutely nothing to worry about. your needs are being met vicariously through other, obviously luckier, disabled people. For fuck's sake..

Spero · 15/04/2013 00:39

I don't know how I can say this more clearly. I will try one more time before bed.

No one has a right to sex.

But we all have a right to chose what we do with our own bodies.

And if someone agrees to have sex with me for money, and that person is freely, willingly consenting, without any exploitative pimp lurking in the background then I don't understand why me and her/him can't just be allowed to get on with it, as consenting adults with moral agency.

I see there is a visceral distaste for prostitution in any form, and I can understand that. Just as I hope others can understand my position.

Not asking for special privileges or pleading for the disabled. Just some compassion and recognition that sometimes life deals us a shit hand and it jmay not always be good enough to say shut up and put up with it.