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Journalism of Courage
In her sexual fantasies,she is a fit and impetuous blonde who dominates her male partners. In real life,she is a virgin who relies on an electric wheelchair,her body touched only by home care aides and medical personnel.
A disabled person is seen as a child, said the woman in the wheelchair,Laetitia Rebord,31. So inevitably,child and sex dont go together. A translator and teacher,she has a genetic spinal muscular atrophy that has left her entirely paralyzed,except her left thumb and facial muscles.
Rebord,who says she feels physical sensation acutely,has looked for sexual relationships through friends of friends and men on dating sites and even with male escorts. But her disability has scared many away,and she says she is now ready to pay for sex in Switzerland or Germany,where so-called sexual surrogates are legal.
Stories like Rebords are far from unusual in France,where behind a facade of sexual freedom,disabled people struggle to have a sex life. But their desires are often disregarded,and while prostitution is legal here,soliciting potential clients and serving as an intermediary between prostitutes and clients are not.
The issue of sexual surrogates came up in March,after National Ethics Committee,which advises the government on health issues,issued a report criticizing the practice as the unethical use of the human body for commercial purposes. The report,commissioned in 2011,was approved by government officials,including Marie-Arlette Carlotti,a junior minister responsible for issues involving those with disabilities,who called sexual assistance for disabled people a form of prostitution.
But encouraged in part by the publicity around The Sessions,a 2012 movie about sexual awakening of a disabled man by a sexual surrogate,some are demanding legalization of sexual surrogates.
Prostitution is a fake debate; the goals are different, said Pascale Ribes,who in 2011 founded the Disabilities and Sexualities Group,an association defending sexual surrogates in France. Sexual assistance is about allowing a disabled person who cant access sexuality in a satisfying way to reconnect with the body, Ribes said.
Her association is lobbying for a change in the law to allow disabled people,their parents,their friends or directors of approved institutions to arrange meetings with sexual surrogates,who typically charge around $130 a session. She speaks of the sexual distress of many of Frances 1.8 million disabled people of working age,especially women.
Aminata Gregory,66,is Dutch. She has been performing sexual assistance illegally in France for over a year. She was trained as a sex therapist in Switzerland,and her work mostly involves massages and erotic games without kisses on the mouth or sex.
