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Sexuality Research and Social Policy
Published in: Sexuality Research and Social Policy 2/2019

02-02-2019

Disability Rights Meet Sex Workers’ Rights: the Making of Sexual Assistance in Europe

Author: Giulia Garofalo Geymonat

Published in: Sexuality Research and Social Policy | Issue 2/2019

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Abstract

The last decade has seen an expansion in initiatives promoting the development of special sex services oriented to people with disabilities, which in Europe are increasingly labelled ‘sexual assistance’. These have become the object of political and media attention, and arguably call for a critical analysis incorporating both disability and sex workers’ rights perspectives. Based on an 18-month embedded participant observation, I explore the case of a grassroots organisation which brings together sexual assistants, disabled activists and (potential) clients, and their allies in Switzerland. Opposing ‘therapy’, ‘charity’, and ‘care’ approaches to sexual assistance, members of this organisation work within their own model of ‘ethical’ services. While they place sexual pleasure at the centre of this approach, in practice, they promote forms of self-regulation aimed at limiting the risks of sex services, connected in particular to intimate violence, stigmatisation, sex normativity, and the role of intermediaries. Clearly rooted in a disability rights perspective, this grassroots initiative does not only concern sexual assistance but more largely sex services. In this sense, this study invites us to look at sexual assistance as an interesting space for alliance between sex workers’ rights and the rights of people with disabilities, as a uniquely politicised group of (potential) clients.
previous article The Moral and Political Stakes of Health Issues in the Regulation of Prostitution (the Cases of Belgium and France)
next article Negotiating Professional Identities: Male Sex Workers in Slovenia and the Impact of Online Technologies

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Metadata
Title
Disability Rights Meet Sex Workers’ Rights: the Making of Sexual Assistance in Europe
Author
Giulia Garofalo Geymonat
Publication date
02-02-2019
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Sexuality Research and Social Policy / Issue 2/2019
Print ISSN: 1868-9884
Electronic ISSN: 1553-6610
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-019-0377-x

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