“Hugo” is the pseudonym of a disabled reader in the UK whom I asked for his perspective on the intersection of sex work and disability. As regular readers know, I am an advocate for the right of disabled people to hire sex workers, and I have written on the subject a number of times. But since everything I can write myself is from the sex worker’s perspective, I felt it was important to also present the view from the clients’ side.
Sex is everywhere; it is pleasurable, and as natural as breathing. Sex is also life-affirming and helps human beings connect to one another on a spiritual level; it releases endorphins that reduce pain, it eases frustration, and it reduces the effects of loneliness and depression. Sex is even a soporific that can help with sleep problems. It’s at the core of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (under the banner of physical needs). Sex is the reason why the human race continues to exist.
NEWSFLASH: DISABLED PEOPLE LOVE SEX, TOO. Since the arrival of the internet, it has become easier for a lot of people to have a lot of sex, but this is not always so for disabled people like me. I am reminded of the scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where all the golden ticket winners enter the room where everything is made of chocolate and they can eat everything; I feel as though I am in that room and I am the only one not allowed to fulfill my natural appetites because I am different. Can you imagine someone telling you by the time you are in your mid-thirties you may never see a naked woman again, or share a bed with a lady for intimate experiences? In the past I was able to see escorts on a few occasions; these sessions helped with my depression and pain, and even with my self-esteem (I often feel ugly because women don’t choose me). But now I can no longer see escorts; because of my worsening physical condition I am reliant on other people, and they tend to impose their moral value system onto the proceedings. Unlike the able-bodied, I cannot even be in charge of my own sexuality; I am totally reliant on other people as to whether I will experience any earthy pleasures before I pass away. I can barely even masturbate any more, except when I happen to hit my prostate from a certain angle. Because of this degeneration in my physical condition, the future scares me. I would have loved children, but alas that can never be; I must face the march to the undiscovered country alone.
I understand that able-bodied people tend not to look in the direction of disabled people for mates; I cannot imagine a woman thinking of emptying her dream man’s catheter. The biological imperative drives people to desire strong physical specimens in order to produce healthy offspring (damn that prefrontal cortex), and even fairy tales teach everyone from a very early age that good people are attractive and well-formed; anyone who is different, with a withered hand or a crooked nose, is always a witch or some other wicked character. Difference equates to undesirability, both biologically and socially. We can intellectualise this argument all we want, but as I type this tears are rolling down my cheek and I need a cuddle…or any human contact at all. But neither society nor its leaders care about that; people with disabilities are dehumanised to a set of symptoms, living packages to be physically maintained but nothing else. Nor do feminists give a damn about their disabled sisters; they just sit there sipping their gin and tonics fretting about “glass ceilings” and “objectification” while disabled women are denied both employment opportunities and sexual opportunities.
The female body is such a rarity to me; I appreciate every inch of it in every shape and size, and I tremble at the thought of touching a naked woman. Can you imagine never again feeling a woman’s lips on yours? It’s maddening to need human contact, but to be shut off from it; I sometimes cry myself to sleep, and have even been driven to suicidal thoughts. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a disabled person with a particular kink; it must be soul destroying. But those in power never experience need; they’re able to have all the sex they want, which is why they have such a blinkered attitude towards the sexuality of disabled people and other sexual minorities. The saying is that one should never judge anyone else until one has “walked a mile in his moccasins”, but politicians never even have to walk a mile in their own shoes, let alone anyone else’s. Sex workers and disabled people really have a lot in common; we are both marginalised groups who are misunderstood by society and maltreated by the powerful for being different. Have you ever seen a disabled person as a sexual being with the same urges? Sex workers do; they understand our needs and are willing to provide for them, so in my eyes they are the most human and understanding of people, and I will always stand in solidarity with them.
In conclusion, I would like to thank Maggie for letting me post on the best and most informative blog on the internet.
I can only imagine what it would be like to be in the author of this post’s shoes.
I saw a doco recently that touches on this topic.
The doco was made about a sex worker who works with disabled people in Australia. Trailer can be seen at http://www.scarletroad.com.au/trailer/
DVD can be purchased there as well.
Copy from a TV channel that screened it said “Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression, Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton works with many clients who have disabilities. Filmed over a three year period, the program follows Rachel in her relationship with John, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago, and Mark, a client with cerebral palsy, and reveals the therapeutic aspects of human touch and sexual intimacy.”
The program mentioned a training program – Professional Disability Awareness Training (PDAT) – for sex workers only – more information can be found at:
http://www.touchingbase.org/workshops-and-training/pdat
You get to see the mums of a couple of Rachel’s clients. One of whom organized for an overnight session with Rachel to be a present to her Cerebral Palsy son. And another who organized for her Down’s syndrome son to lose his virginity to Rachel.
Rachel Wotton is one of my heroines; I’ve been wanting to see Scarlet Road since it came out, and if you look under “Organizations and Allies” in the right-hand column you’ll see a link for her charity Touching Base there. 🙂
Fabulous essay
He brings up a good point … disabled women.
I haven’t heard a lot about them. On this subject – it’s usually disabled men and their sexual needs.
What do we know about disabled women and their needs?
I know I “flirt” with older ladies in the gym. Even if they look good, I figure most men don’t even look a them. I have heard older women say … “Men don’t even notice me anymore”. That must be a hard thing to deal with. Which is why I flirt with them … just to give them a bit of a thrill that someone noticed them.
“I sometimes cry myself to sleep, and have even been driven to suicidal thoughts.”
The opposition say things like “no-one has ever died due to lack of sex” but I do wonder how many suicides are due to sexual deprivation.
very powerful and (in the right way) tough essay, Hugo. Realistic but also heart-wrenching. It brought tears to my eyes.
Not nearly as disabled as Hugo must be, I understand where he is coming from, so to speak. I have also the good fortune to have found a sex worker with the heart and intelligence to take care of my needs. Priceless to have someone who helps me keeping my mental and sexual sanity in balance.
Providing sexual services to disabled people is probably not every sex worker’s vocation or talent. It requires somewhat ‘higher’ human sensitivities than regular sex work, a sharp attention to the partner and his/her needs, patience (forget the clock if needed), good knowledge of the person’s specific abilities and inabilities, and most of all love for that specific human being as well as the absence of any kind of regular expectations.
I’m sure there are plenty of sex workers who can fit the ‘job description’ if they would find the motivation and put their mind to it, but I wonder how many go actively out of their way to find that disabled client who needs them. As far as I know the category is still small, and God knows the need (or call it ‘market’) is enormous.
Those who do take care of disabled people will personally get an emotional reward and unique sense of satisfaction that is difficult to describe.
They don’t just bring temporary pleasure and relief. They help filling a gap, an often black-hole kind of emptiness, in someone’s human dignity and self-respect – which brings, I’m told, more satisfaction and fulfillment than one gets from providing good services to an able client.
A sex worker committed to caring every now and then for a disabled person’s need can experience how truly healing and durable the impact of erotic and sexual acts and pleasures can be. Sex work becomes a whole different ‘game.’
Thank you, Hugo, for sharing this urgent, painful cry uttered with such dignity.
one the our local sex workers recently decided to only work with disabled clients. So I do know that people like that do exist
Amen, brother. Amen.
This is indeed a very important and insightful post, but it left me with some questions.
“Can you imagine someone telling you by the time you are in your mid-thirties you may never see a naked woman again, or share a bed with a lady for intimate experiences?”
Who told Hugo this? His caregivers? A therapist? Whoever it was, that question leads into a bigger one: what level of control does Hugo have over the people chosen to care for him? He stated he has no children, are these caregivers his family? Were they appointed by some government program (which gets into another discussion about the efficacy of such programs)? In short, are they people who can be replaced with individuals who are more understanding to his needs?
It left me in mind of that movie “The Sessions”. I realize the story (even if based on a real occurrence) was surely full of typical Hollywood hokum (I myself haven’t seen it) and I know it’s been addressed previously how Helen Hunt’s character is a whore even if she would never admit it.
(Just as a quick sidebar, does anyone know if the real people that story is based on ever ended up being victimized by the state for “facilitating” or “committing” prostitution?)
However, it appears to me that such an arrangement with a ‘sexual surrogate’ is perhaps the only exception a prohibitionist may (very, VERY grudgingly) be talked into making. Because here is perhaps the only situation where it could be argued that the man is not ‘taking’ anything from the female, because he is unable to exert control over the situation.
Maybe it’s a dumb argument when you consider prostitution should never be criminalized in the first place, but if something like that would allow Hugo to have his needs met in the here and now….
Arch-prohibitionist Sheila Jeffreys has actually stated on-camera that a paralyzed man paying for sex is committing violence against women. Of course, this woman is so deranged she says penis-in-vagina sex is “unnatural”, but it goes to show that no belief, however bat-shit crazy, is too extreme for prohibitionists to hold.
Touche, Maggie. I had the less bat-sh*t prohibitionists in mind (the ones that actually like sex but are repulsed by the idea of paying for it) when I posed that idea. I think my other questions still stand, if only for clarification about Hugo’s circumstances (unless answering them would pinpoint his identity, in which case I understand if they can’t be answered).
The bat-sh*t aside, after I wrote that last post I had another thought (and I’m sorry if it’s already been thought of elsewhere by you or someone else): maybe this is where the path for decriminalization begins, by fighting for the disabled to be able to pay for sex and building from there.
It’s where the fight to end marijuana prohibition started. Medical marijuana, we were told, was the camel’s nose under the tent, and that soon there would be legal pot for fun.
And it’s happening. Slowly but surely, it’s happening. Sometimes, it’s GOOD that the camel gets into that tent.
Excellent essay, Hugo.
Maslow’s hierarchy is a theory, and of course there are those who don’t agree with it. I learned about it when doing a course with the UK’s Open University years ago. It’s generally regarded as leftish. They reproduced the diagram, but ‘sex’ was missing from the bottom line.
[…] why I was so happy to read the guest column by Hugo on Maggie McNeill’s blog. Clients of sex workers are perhaps the most stigmatised and […]
Spanish minister of interior affairs announces that its necessary to put an unbearable pression over the client of prostitutes:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/09/inenglish/1423491929_711568.html
It seems that we face the same problems tough we live in different countries.
So maybe we should think in a way to coordinate our efforts.