Three Way News

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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Titillation

I mention this story out of Switzerland (via City Pages for two reasons:

A welfare group offering sexual relief for the disabled plans to take the service a step further by training professional "assistants" to provide full intercourse. The idea of professional sexual services for the disabled has been revived following a failed scheme in Zurich three years ago that had to be scrapped after a public outcry.
At present three men and a woman offer an erotic touching service, but more assistants are being trained to offer full sex at SFr150 ($123) per hour.
"The big difference between the assistants and prostitutes is that the assistants show tenderness and are conscious of the needs of the disabled, rather than rushing and just taking the money," Zemp said.

First, it hits at a nexus of compassion, exploitation, and marginalization that almost boggles the mind. Surely there's some compassion in offering human sexual contact to some people with physical disabilities. But doesn't that compassion automatically result in the exploitation of the sex workers? And couldn't such a service act to further isolate these individuals from the larger society?

Also -- and this doesn't count as a reason -- it's about sex, and sex is interesting to everyone.

Second, apparently I could hire a highly trained Swiss sex worker for just over half the hourly cost of the plumber who royally screwed me yesterday.