This essay first appeared on Cliterati on January 31st; I have modified it only slightly so as to fit the format of this blog.
Sometimes synchronicity (or coincidence if you prefer) helps me to make a point better than I could have made it myself. Less than 24 hours after yesterday’s essay “Skin To Skin” first appeared in Cliterati, this story was carried in The Sun and several other newspapers:
Prostitutes have been invited to a care home to have sex with disabled residents — sparking an investigation by the council. Hookers regularly go for “special visits” at Chaseley nursing home in Eastbourne, Sussex. They meet residents in a special room and a red sock is put on the door handle so staff know not to disturb them. Bosses say many physically and mentally disabled people have no other sexual outlet – and become so frustrated they often resort to GROPING staff…experts claim [access to sex is] a ”basic human right”…former manager Helena Barrow…said…“If we refused, we would not be delivering a holistic level of care.” Mrs Barrow, who now manages another care home in…Sussex, insisted residents always paid for the call girls themselves…A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said the local authority had been unaware of Chaseley’s policy of inviting prostitutes on site and “did not welcome” the idea. He said…“This has the potential to place vulnerable East Sussex residents at risk of exploitation and abuse.”
The Daily Mail’s version also included the myth that sex workers spread disease.
First of all, I applaud the caring people at Chaseley and their willingness to recognize that disabled people have just as much right to physical intimacy as everyone else, and that this right is no more removed by their residence in a care institution than any of their other rights would be; most of the comments on the story were also positive and supportive. The same cannot be said, I’m afraid, for the council, the newspaper (judging by the scare quotes around words like “therapeutic”) and a minority of the commenters, all of whom seem to believe that sex is not a need and that there is something lurid, amusing or even harmful about paying for sex. The council spokesman would never claim that the nursing home itself presented a credible threat of “exploitation and abuse” to “vulnerable residents”, but he thinks nothing of making the same specious claim about sex work, which is every bit as much a caring profession as nursing is.
While it is completely true that many of those who enter sex work are only interested in money, the same could be said about those who attend medical school. But this type of person will rarely be among the best in her profession, nor will she be the kind of practitioner who puts clients at ease and makes them feel that she genuinely cares about their welfare. In the case of sex work, those who are purely motivated by money are generally less successful and leave the profession sooner than those who view it as a calling; I reckon the equivalent in the medical field probably goes into administration, research or other areas involving less direct contact with patients. Those who feel drawn to the caring professions rather than simply settling for them, however, have many personality traits in common, and it shows in the considerable overlap between them. In the years I had my escort agency no fewer than three registered nurses worked for me (either for extra money or during sabbatical), and there were also a number of practical nurses, nursing assistants and nursing students; I myself worked as a nurse’s aide for about a year in the interval between my two degrees. I’ve also met or employed escorts who were studying medicine, veterinary medicine, psychology, physical therapy, radiology and social work, and spoken to more than one physician who did sex work while in university; in my experience, more sex workers have either worked in or studied some health-related field than any other area of expertise. Furthermore, a large fraction of my clientele were medical doctors, and I’ve never had a health professional react poorly or irrationally to my divulging my profession to them (though I have heard some sex workers say otherwise, especially in countries with a very pronounced whore-stigma).
Obviously, part of the reason for this must be that health professionals are much more comfortable thinking about, talking about and dealing with aspects of our physical nature than many others might be; they are less likely to be embarrassed by sexuality, and more likely to view sexual matters dispassionately and non-judgmentally. Also, health professionals and sex workers both are less likely to react strongly to biological factors that might disgust other people, and more able to put aside any revulsion or queasiness they do feel in order to get the job done. And successful practitioners in both fields either innately know, or have learned through experience, how to maintain the delicate balance between caring enough about their clients to want to help them, and remaining professionally detached enough to do be able to do their jobs properly without emotional complications. Good sex workers, like good health professionals, interact with their clients caringly, yet professionally; when they visit clients it is to take care of their needs, not to “exploit” them, “abuse” them or break up their relationships. Yes, there are unethical sex workers, but the same could be said of physicians. And when dealing with established members of either profession, one is no more likely to encounter improper behavior in the one than in the other.
If you want to meet uncaring, unethical but simultaneously sanctimonious people, British “local government” is the place to start.
Yet that myth is a bit blasted to smithereens when a care home (which certainly has a staff of medical professionals) believes that the girls are safe. Let’s be clear here – they wouldn’t do it if they thought there was a possibility they’d have to tell the kids … “Well Grandpa’s a bit grumpy today – he’s got the clap!”
I would also say the fact that you had many Doctors for clients destroys that notion too.
Fuckin’ doctors – they were the first ones to always tell us to stay away from the hookers when we hit the beach. And those dudes were ridin’ dirty the whole time!! 😛
A friend of mine who is a RNA and a prostitute on the side says (somewhat) jokingly that the reason she chose these two particular professions is because she can handle body fluids and not get queasy.
I do think she has a point that anyone caring intimately for another person’s needs (sexual, medical, behavioral) has to be able to see a body up close in all its horror and glory (from well sculpted bods to oozy penis sores and mental states ranging from the inane to insane) and still see a person of value with needs connected to it.
Exploitative doctors are a far greater threat than any sex worker.
There is a limit to what a sex worker can offer in order to extract money from the client (unless he falls in love with her, which is a whole different game). But a doctor can use your very life as leverage to extract his fees from you and/or your insurance company.
From personal experience, I have met far more uncaring, careless, or even incompetent doctors/medical technicians than I have sex workers. In addition, no prostitute has ever treated me like an idiot when I tried to have some control over what was done to me.
You aint lying! Once, when I was preparing for a mega operation I asked about pain relief since I knew from experience what it would be like recovering. Anyhow the first dr I spoke to gave the OK for a morphine pump the second dr I saw an hour before the op argued that it wouldn’t be necessary. Hours AFTER the op when I was coming round I was screaming my head off (as I predicted) right in front of a nurse who specialised in pain relief and lo and behold she dosed me up with morphine and arranged a pump for me. Hours after that the same dr who told me a pump wasn’t necessary stormed into the ward furiously spluttered something about me not needing it. I however didn’t care as I was too doped up and just laughed at her. Silly little woman.
Agreed on abuse of leverage and possibly the uncaring/careless/incompetent bit, but I have an objection to this line:
“No prostitute has ever treated me like an idiot when I tried to have some control over what was done to me.”
The comparison doesn’t really hold, in my opinion. A prostitute can reasonably assume you know better than she does what you want. A doctor is going to assume the opposite with regard to his patient, and usually he’s going to be right. That is not because he’s magically authoritative; it’s because most people *are* idiots, and a large majority of “self-directing patients” are the sort who think an hour on Wikipedia coupled with Great Uncle Bob’s advice makes them an expert on health.
I’ve dealt with that sort of crap in my own profession and try to have as much sympathy as possible for doctors who treat me as stupid by default. There are far, *far* more councilmembers and newspaper journalists claiming they know what they’re talking about, than there are people who actually know what they’re talking about. Assuming that any given patient’s self-diagnosis and self-prescription is likely to be medically irrelevant and ridiculous is justified until proven otherwise.
Sure, the doctor is going to know more about medicine than I do, but the bottom line is it’s my body. If every time I took my car in for a tuneup or oil change, my mechanic started nagging me about how I should slow down and put less wear on the transmission and brakes, I’d fire him and find another.
Ultimately if you respect the rights of another person, you must accept that “what’s best for him” means exactly what HE says it does, even if his priorities are nothing like your own. In the freedom movement this principle is called consumer sovereignty.
{nitpick}You probably can’t “fire” the mechanic, as you probably don’t own the auto shop. What you can do is take your business to another mechanic at another auto shop. The mechanic you are no longer giving your business to still has his job.{/nitpick}
If the patient brings up the latest snake oil remedy on the net, then yes, the doctor has the right and duty to ignore the “suggestions”.
However, I have seen numerous doctors who will discount my comments regarding my own body or my personal experience with the efficacy of common remedies on my system. The same has happened to other members of my family.
For example, I once went to two different doctors with a pain in the lower abdomen. Both doctors diagnosed things like colic and gastric upset, despite my protests that according to all I have read it felt suspiciously like appendicitis. I was sent home with some medication, and in the early hours of the morning, my appendix ruptured and I ended up in Emergency near death.
On a more mundane level, due to treatents received in my early teens, certain kinds of antibiotics do not work well on me. But I have yet to meet a GP who will accept my word on it and they will insist I take the very same antibiotics, only to be forced to change when the infection gets worse. Similarly, paracetamol has little effect on me, while aspirin or a combination of aspirin and paracetamol does work. But whenever I am in hospital and have a bad headache, I have to fight like hell to get pills I need.
For once, I agree with Krulac……about doctors. V.W. Singer is correct about the healthcare industry and quite a few doctors to who take the brunt of criticism for the exploitive nature of the beast. However, largest share of the healthcare dollar goes to blood sucking non-physician administrator. Physicians long ago and collectively abandoned their role and responsibility sort of a reverse concept of unions. Finally, Alexis says it best as to why, “…and still see a person of value with needs connected to it.”
Alexis, Maggie, and the enlightened staff of the Chaseley nursing home remind me grace, goodness and communion exist in the world far from any church, priest or bishopric.
Of course, this is totally unscientific research, but nurses and medical assistants have always seemed to me the most accommodating to carnal desires. One of them told me it’s because “we’ve seen it all!”
Nurses … mmmm! Reminds me of my days as a single surfing guy when I lived in 2121 Ala Wai – which also seemed to serve as a barracks for all the nurses in Hawaii! AWESOME … PARTIES!!!
Another similarity between the two professions is that the arguments once used against nursing have been recycled to be used against sex workers. These include the claims that nurses were uneducated, desperate, diseased, that the work was undignified and that no man would want to marry them.
The laziness and lack of originality of the prohibitionists is quite striking.
Yup. Similar prejudices for women who went into teaching at first, primarily that they were non-women, unfit for marriage & motherhood, desperate, etc. Lots of crossover with sex workers and teachers as well.
And now they are practically crying out for male teachers….how times change.
The best doctors are the ones that admit they might not have all the answers (weird concept I know) and don’t have a massive god complex. They’re the ones that always listen to the patient and check their ego at the door before deciding which is the best course of action for the patient.
In the Navy … we didn’t have doc’s aboard ship. Only corpsmen. If I ever had to see a real doctor … I knew it was going to be a screwing for me (like the time one of the doc’s found a herniated disk in my neck and tried to put me on limited duty. I beat that – but it took disobeying orders from that doc and then going to Commodore’s mast to explain myself).
I use a Nurse practitioner. I love her to death and she’s very open minded. I had a shoulder problem last year – and I went to another nurse practitioner for orthopedics and he cured me with one shot with a big … long needle.
Scablifters?
When my dad was in the navy I think there was a culture of manning up and not going to the docs since it meant fessing up and admitting “how did you get your jaw broken” and putting your career on the line. Once he said his back was nearly pitch black from where he fell overboard onto the edge of another boat and going to get medical attention would have meant admitting that he had been drinking heavily the night before.
Of course it didn’t take long for Krulac to reveal his frustration. Did Master Chief fail to give you a 4.0 in leadership and nip in the bud your path to CNO? How much did the VA rate you for your cervical disk upon retirement/separation or do your corpsmen and nurse practitioner buddies take care of the radiculopathy with homeopathic remedies too?
My GP told me a joke during a visit.
“What’s the difference between God and a surgeon?”
“God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.”
Eastbourne is known as God’s waiting room. I don’t think it was ever likely that the blue rinse brigade were going to approve. It’s not without precedent they have done the same in the Netherlands and in the UK a female doctor was criticised years ago for masturbating a male patient who suffered extreme premature ejaculation. Despite the fact that it worked and he could engage in sex whereas he couldn’t before she was struck off but numerous doctors have advised patients to use the services of a prostitute.
As an aside, the Daily Mail is not exactly known for it’s liberal attitude to sex… or anything else.
To be honest the whole of Sussex in general is God’s waiting room.
Brighton is in Sussex, and is a lot more fun than that.
But to be fair most of East Sussex regards Brighton and Hove as akin to Sodom and Gomorrah. 🙂 One would hope that Brighton might have been a bit more rational.
You’re right, last time I was there I saw a lot of Golden Calves when I was visiting Kemp town and the Laines!
Really? Surely, you mean Milton Keynes?
I’ve not been to Milton Keynes……good thing or bad thing?
Golden calves – Milton Keynes’ inexplicable Concrete Cows in a field on the A422.
Cheltenham’s The Minotaur and the Hare was the weirdest architecture I ever saw.
And most of Wessex.
Hospitals and Harlotry, what a perfect marriage. Imagine being a bed bound patient who thinks you’re only going to be getting a sponge bath by that hot nurse. You do get that sponge bath (hygienic purposes, and for a subtle method of inspection), It’s at the unexpected moment when her clothes come off that the fantasy is realized. A 14 year old terminally ill patient dying of cancer, and as a virgin? It doesn’t matter if the chemo has messed up his ability, he’s got naked boobies in front of his face, to fondle – yay!
Fratello Cesare Bonizzi (my choice for the next Pope) talks about the importance of sex for mankind. My aunt who is a sister in a religious order believes that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus and shares Fratello Bonizzit view that sex is necessity. But whether you dress it up in religion or science it is surely self evident that sex is both a human right and necessity. I have arranged for prostitutes to have conjugal visits with inmates in Italian prisons with little difficulty but the same would be impossible in any British prison because of the prevailing close minded bigoted attitudes, never mind that every academic study I’ve ever read on the subject concludes that conjugal visits make prisoners more cooperative and less violent.
WTF?! You talking about THIS guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Bonizzi
Hell ya! He’s got my vote too!!! 😀
A Heavy Metal Monk … now a Pope like that might take back Europe (especially NORWAY and SWEDEN)!!
Yeah, he’d be hugely popular and definitely be more fun to watch on the balcony of St Peter’s 🙂
Stefi,
The treatment of “Criminals”, (all of them are lumped together, so there’s a major flaw right away), is unsympathetic. People will assume that if someone is in prison, whatever sick treatment he may be the recipient of is much deserved.
One example that I’ve observed among conversations is in relation to peedoughphilia. Child rapists are seen with the same glare as those who are pedophiles, but instead of rape, they get off by “Child Pornography” (which applies to anyone under 18). The thought behind it, I assume, is that if someone has such urges, and fantasies about something such as that, then they will eventually do it. To me, It’s no different than assuming that a heterosexual man who REALLY loves brunettes in sundresses, fantasizes about them so much, will go out and eventually rape a woman of that description if he cannot achieve special time with her in an “appropriate” way.
To me, these are not the same men. One has raped a kid, the other has fought his urges and fantasies and has not so much as inappropriately touched a child, but he does look at images of children in private. Whether these images are illegal, or legal (some kids magazine), is the same to me as a heterosexual man, like myself, enjoying the visions of an adult pornographic magazine, or, for lighter material, a swimsuit magazine.
“Child Porn” is another definition that can continue to expand, from anyone under 18, to, potentially in the future (to wipe out all normal men) anyone with a youthful appearance. You know, people don’t fully mentally and physically mature until they’re in their 60s, so if you don’t like that Betty White money shot – Betty White in her “Golden Girls” days – you’re a pedophile.
I think the viewing child porn is more complex than that. The real problem is lack of clear legal definition of what constitutes an indecent image, and in what circumstances viewing it would constitute an offence. Germans have a culture of nudism and think nothing to putting pictures of their naked children on the net, and that can sometimes be used as wanking material. So is that an indecent image?
What about a 13 year old boy looking at images of his 12 year old girl friend sent him of her fingering herself? It doesn’t cause her harm or violate her privacy. If they were sent unsolicited is she to be prosecuted for dissemination?
What about a 40 year old man actively acquiring that same image? His acquiring and viewing that image may not constitute an obvious harm to the girl but it violates her privacy if she hasn’t consented to his viewing of that image, which in turn may cause her harm.
If they were sent unsolicited is she to be prosecuted for dissemination?
Well, in the state of Utah, two teenagers – 13 & 12 respectively – had consensual sex. So the prosecutor charged them both with statutory rape. Said that is was like dueling where both persons involved are actually perpetrators. So the likely answer to your question is “Yes.”
(Not that agree that that is what should happen. I wonder if the “playing doctor” thing I did with the neighborhood girls when I was 7 or 8 would be prosecuted today? Likely, the answer to that question is also “Yes.”
andrew, do you have a link to the story of the statutorily raping underaged duelists? Such a link would help with some of the arguments I get into.
Stefi,
“Germans have a culture of nudism and think nothing to putting pictures of their naked children on the net, and that can sometimes be used as wanking material. So is that an indecent image?”
Well if it’s normal there, then I think that would be a no. If you applied that to here in the states, there’d undoubtedly be problems for the parents who posted them on their social website wall.
Principally, it isn’t vastly different from what I’ve known parents to do, which is to show baby/toddler photos of their children – who are currently significantly older – to embarrass their kids and look back with nostalgia themselves.
.
And that’s pretty freaking cool about Cesare Bonizzi.
It was a rhetorical question because in most countries you’ll find there is no clear answer because these laws are so vague. Also I wasn’t suggesting what would happen in Germany as much as that you can access German websites and download those images in whatever country your in. whether you are charged with an offence if your found with those images is really down to the prosecutor. In the UK, whether an image is indecent or not is a jury point, which I’ll come back to but the sentencing guidelines are as follows.
Level one – suggestive images involving erotic posing but no sexual activity;
Level two – non-penetrative sexual activities between multiple children or masturbation by a solo child;
Level three – non-penetrative sexual activities involving both adults and children;
Level four – Penetrative sexual activity involving one child, multiple children or both children/child and adult(s);
Level five – Covers sadism or penetration of, or by, an animal.
The age of the child is also an aggravating factor for sentence. With a definition of child being raised from 16 to 18 in 2003, despite the fact that the age of consent is 16.
So coming back to the jury, they are not going to convict anyone for having indecent images of their 16 year old girl friend because she’s over the age of consent but a number of witless solicitors (glorified paralegals) have allowed clients to accept police cautions for these offences. And whilst I agree with a lot of what you said earlier, I do think it should be a crime to have an indecent image of child under the age of 14, if an indecent image was clearly defined as a child masturbating, masturbating another, performing or receiving fellatio or cunnilingus, or engaging in vaginal or anal intercourse. Where I think things are less certain is when the child is over 14.
“The real problem is lack of clear legal definition of what constitutes an indecent image”
Any law that precisely defined obscenity would be obscene, but the blue noses can’t let that stop them. So we get “I know it when I see it” Supreme Court decisions upholding laws that would be void for vagueness in a different context.
Dear Ms. O’Neill:
I am wondering since you have extrapolated and displayed this article on your blog would there be more extensive discourse and conversation about this in facilities that would serve geriatric populations due to the fact that people are living longer. Also would there be more or less of a demand for this due to the fact that women tend to live longer than men? Although this wouldn’t necessarily be an issue that you would consider, are more facilities starting to enter this service into the bottom line for cost of care, if this service is legal in the country that the facility would be located?
Also Ms. O’neill have you had extensive conversations with members of the medical community on this subject and if so since they tend to be more liberal and realistic with their views what has been the feedback that you have received on this subject?
“,,,in my experience, more sex workers have either worked in or studied some health-related field than any other area of expertise.”
That has been my experience as well.
I’m glad you posted this. I wrote something on my blog recently about the similarities between how nurses and prostitutes come to the profession, and I’ve been meaning to ask if you saw any overlap between sex workers and the (other) caring professions. So thanks for answering.
The one I linked on my Offsite page?
Oh yeah. I never noticed that page before. Thanks.
🙂
Maggie, if the nursing home is only hiring prostitutes for male patients, is there any resentment on the part of female patients?
I’m sure there are a few prudes who don’t like the men having sex, but fortunately the staff understands other people’s lives aren’t their business.
Maggie, let me rephrase the question. Let’s assume that the eldery women at that nursing home are not prudes, but are upset that the staff is getting prostitutes for the men and not for them, too. Does the sex drive of women decline after menopause to the point where they not only do not want sex, but don’t need sex either?
(Then again, I am assuming that the prostitutes were only helping the men. It’s possible that they were also helping the women, too.)
Men and women are not interchangeable. Women are far, far less interested in sex for sex’s sake, even less so with someone they’d have to pay; that’s why men can’t make it as heterosexual prostitutes. Out of the already-tiny fraction of women who would be willing to pay, far fewer would do so if anyone would know about it; of that even smaller group, most would lose the interest after menopause; and of the infinitesimal number that remained, they’d have to overcome their fears of being taken advantage of while helpless by a strange man. The number of women remaining after all those factors are applied would be so small and so incredibly unusual no predictions could possibly be made about their behavior.
It’s such a small number that the demand (if there is any) would be easy to satisfy. As long as there isn’t any “no female clients allowed” policy, this isn’t a problem.
I have no problem with your attempt to prove sex work is one of the “caring professions” but I have to point out the irony here.
You’re using a bunch of personal anecdotes as statistical evidence, while in the very next article you publish, you complain about people’s mathematical illiteracy.
You seem to be the only one who has trouble telling the difference, which is unsurprising considering your agenda.
Praising statistical outliers, perhaps.
I’ve mentioned before that I would be in favor of a legally recognized right of confidentiality between sex workers and clients, just like with doctors and patients, lawyers and clients, and so on.