"This scenario, where a disabled man is judged to have lost sexual power because of his impairment and his sexual partner has carte blanche to seek solace elsewhere, has become known as the ‘Chatterley Syndrome’.
As Shakespeare observes, disabled men (and, to a lesser extent, women), are rendered impotent and sexless by disability, and thus are seen as unattractive and vulnerable to mockery and exploitation. As Cicero wrote: “In deformity and bodily disfigurement, there is good material in making jokes.”
This may explain an assumption often made in the past – that it was better to shield disabled people from reaching out for sexual relationships rather than risk the potential of being rejected. There was an expectation that disabled people’s sexual desires should be set aside and ignored, because they should not – or could not – be satisfied...
In some countries where legislation around sex work is permissive (e.g. Holland, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland), there is a flexible attitude towards services for disabled people. In Holland, as in Denmark, social workers ask disabled clients whether they need any support with their sexuality and may even fund limited numbers of visits by sexual assistants or sex workers...
In Australia, Touching Base works with dementia and disabled people’s organisations to develop consent guidelines. “There is a lot of discussion around consent at the moment,” Wotton says. “In terms of dementia, we are looking at what people used to do, when they are losing capacity."...
Alex Ghenis, an American disability advocate and former dating and relationships columnist, is unconvinced: “It commodifies sex in terms of an action. It makes it so society can check this box that men are getting laid, so we don’t have to have broader social change – we are giving them sex through a brothel, so we don’t have to change our social attitudes around socially excluded people with disabilities.
“And it pities and coddles us, as if we are being given things that will assuage us... rather than have society change around us,” Ghenis adds."
http://mosaicscience.com/story/sex-disability
In some countries where legislation around sex work is permissive (e.g. Holland, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland), there is a flexible attitude towards services for disabled people. In Holland, as in Denmark, social workers ask disabled clients whether they need any support with their sexuality and may even fund limited numbers of visits by sexual assistants or sex workers...
In Australia, Touching Base works with dementia and disabled people’s organisations to develop consent guidelines. “There is a lot of discussion around consent at the moment,” Wotton says. “In terms of dementia, we are looking at what people used to do, when they are losing capacity."...
Alex Ghenis, an American disability advocate and former dating and relationships columnist, is unconvinced: “It commodifies sex in terms of an action. It makes it so society can check this box that men are getting laid, so we don’t have to have broader social change – we are giving them sex through a brothel, so we don’t have to change our social attitudes around socially excluded people with disabilities.
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