9 ms·

How Sex Surrogates Are Helping Injured Israeli Soldiers

74 points by andrewl 6y ago

blue5 6y ago
Why is Jew crap posted here? Always these Jewish special interest stories that get zero comments.
sage76 6y ago
"You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman," she says. "You cannot ignore this part in our life. It's very important, powerful. It's the centre of our personality. And you cannot just talk about it. Sexuality is something dynamic, is something that has to be between us and other people." Unfortunately, the prevailing sentiment is that you fix yourself in all other ways first, and then this aspect will automatically be ok. I would disagree (EDIT: with the prevailing sentiment) but this is a minefield of a discussion.
- minikites 6y ago
  Which part do you disagree with, the prevailing sentiment or the article quote?
  - sage76 6y ago
    I disagree with the prevailing sentiment.
- tartoran 6y ago
  I agree with the sentiment. While this aspect raises the self esteem it should not be used to fill other gaps of unaddressed problems or problems lurking underneath the surface. But if feeling unwanted is part of the problem, this may well help people get better. And it’s not only sexual but merely human connection that helps an unbalanced psych enormously.
  - sage76 6y ago
    > And it’s not only sexual but merely human connection that helps an unbalanced psych enormously. Which is why if you read about what incels say, it seems they don't want to see escorts. Most of their problems seem to lie in feeling unwanted. My guess is they are largely a byproduct of an atmoized individualistic society. They lack human connection, and see romantic connection as the ultimate one, reinforced by the fact that people tend to have fewer/no friends as they age.
    - airhead969 6y ago
      Incels, I think, have a chip on their shoulders and negative attitudes. If they had better perspectives, I think they would enjoy life more and connect with others in healthier ways. It is true though that social media, glowing screen distractions, and changing beliefs based on corporate manufactured/reinforced attitudes to leave insecurities and unfulfilled wants tend to put distance between people in the real world. The challenge is to make the extra effort to break through all that. I've found there are plenty of cool people who still socialize, and not just at an ephemeral, chit-chat level. It's just no one else wants to make the effort, aeveryone is waiting for Godot, and so nothing happens without initiative.
      - sage76 6y ago
        > I've found there are plenty of cool people who still socialize Maybe it was just the circle I made, but people were exhausted from work and trying to survive. They barely managed time for self care. Could be an American thing. But I find it fascinating that everyone complains about loneliness and then when anyone makes an initiative to do something, people have a 100 excuses.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      >> Most of their problems seem to lie in feeling unwanted. And exactly because of that they are the least attractive to potential mates. And instead of facing that they attack idea in itself. Their problems are initially psych related and there should be a cure to them if enough attention was paid to them clinically. Their forums are not part of the solution, they are creating it. The terrible negative advice and toxic evolutionary dogma, the idea that they are excluded from the genetic pool by genetically superiors, ascribing them epithets and making it all a game in which they are the anti-protagonists themselves cannot lead to a healthy psyche but I haven't heard of any orchestrated effort to help them out, there are only secret agents monitoring for potential violence outbreaks in these communities. They are instead embittered, self hating and fueled with resentment daily on these forums by the self proclaimed leaders of thought in these forums. They feel like they are rejected from both women and men. They feel out of place from this world and the only solace they find on forums. These people need to be paid some attention to, to be taken out on trips, healthy communities to be made for them since they are not capable of creating themselves but this is a societal ill in many ways.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  "You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman," Oddly enough, the 1st time I came across this idea was as a high school student in Marvel Comics' Secret Wars -- when X-Man Piotr Nikolayevich Rasputin/Colossus was healed. After his healer repaired the damage with her glowy magic hands, she proceeded to have a relationship with him. Meanwhile at least one onlooker concluded, that in her culture, this was all just a part of the healing process, and felt sorry for Piotr who had the wrong idea.
black_puppydog 6y ago
So after seeing like 10 bbc links on the front page today I feel entitled to a cookie banner rant. WTF BBC!? You had a perfectly acceptable (by the already very low web standards) cookie page that simply informed and allowed an opt-in. Now I have to manually uncheck every single fucking tracking partner in a list of hundreds? Have fun without me from here on out. *ragequit*
tediousdemise 6y ago
At face value, this seems like mere prostitution. However, when viewed through a medical lens, you’ll realize that sexual satisfaction is an essential human need that can have a profound impact on our general health and wellbeing. A change in perspective and a little compassion makes a world of difference.
- risyachka 6y ago
  I'd argue that the only difference between prostitution and not prostitution is mindset.
  - mesofile 6y ago
    In front of a judge, or just on HN?
    - treeman79 6y ago
      Could be both. To oversimplify, It is legal to pay someone for sex in a film as an entertainer. Just not in private. Other places have hour long marriages to get around the problem.
      - lostcolony 6y ago
        Yeah; our laws are weird. Pay a person to have sex = criminal; pay a person to have sex -on camera- = perfectly legal.
        kjeetgill 6y ago
        I get that you're just quiping but for anyone else that's curious, it's not as absurd as it sounds. There are a number of substantial differences. Intent and purpose are huge parts of many laws. The money flows in very different directions. Both actors are being payed and contribute to producing a sincere commercial good. No one is paying to have sex at all. There are enough laws around documentation and licencing that no one's out there running a brothel calling it a studio.
55555 6y ago
Let's be honest: there is prostitution in every country. The people getting this therapy aren't going for prostitution. They could get that elsewhere easier.
atxbcp 6y ago
For those interested in the topic of sex surrogates, I recommend the movie "The sessions" (2012, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/)
- airhead969 6y ago
  Cool. Netherlands has this benefit for disabled people. ATX = Austin?
boomboomsubban 6y ago
Soldiers make up just a few percent of her total clients, why are they the focus of the headline and the article? It's like they're trying to use "support the troops" to preemptively stop any criticism or distract from the complete lack of data backed benefits the treatment has been shown to provide.
- sfink 6y ago
  I think it's because they're the only ones whose therapy is funded by the state, which was the nominal focus of the article.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    The state funding is only mentioned in connection to soldiers, it doesn't seem like an independent focus of the article.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  one take is that it legitimized the subject in the eyes of prudish english/american audiences. I doubt that most of her clients are disabled either.
kryogen1c 6y ago
interesting angle, obvious in hindsight. i wonder if a medicinal approach to sex can help relax the US's puritanical views, similar to marijuana, and help open the doorway to recreational use. this feels very dangerous though. people are fundamentally animals and sex is tightly interwoven with evolutionary biology in a way that drugs are not. decoupling sex from social interaction may be axiomatically wrong in the same way that removing rewards for performance is axiomatically wrong - people are just wired that way. no one wants to be CEO of an international company and get paid the same amount as an 18 year old data entry assistant. i think there is a similar pressure regarding mate selection and sex that exists regardless of culture.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  "rewards for performance is axiomatically wrong" I do not find that self evident, our society does not resemble a meritocracy. But lets accept the premice - what plausible way is there for this "very dangerous' to manifest? We've had arranged marriages too, do they cause disaster?
- fidesomnes 6y ago
  caring too much about others proclivities is a poor substitute for the sin of disrupting access to supply (sex) and demand (release).
  - airhead969 6y ago
    Banning sex work, abortion, alcohol/substances, books, free speech, and LGBT+ are just ways for the moralizers to control others with their Gilead, totalitarian aspirations.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
It seems self evident that a sexual disfunction sometimes needs to be dealt with directly. Our society is about as competent at dealing with this hush-hush topic as medieval peasants were with hygiene
fidesomnes 6y ago
Most unfortunate title of 2021.
dmos62 6y ago
It's nice to see an article about sex on HN. Took me a second to realise that that's a pretty rare topic on here.
endisneigh 6y ago
The sentiment around sex work is so fascinating. What difference does it honestly make if you're having sex because you're attractive or because you paid? Either way both people are incentivized and have consented. If prostitution were legal and accepted in the USA, I'd bet it would shoot up to #1 of all the "vices" (e.g. gambling, smoking, drinking) within a year.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tartoran 6y ago
  Part of the picture is not only the sexual contact but other psychologic innerworkings. The longing to feel wanted/desired is a big part of it and paid intercourse cannot offer that.
- rglullis 6y ago
  The sad thing about this type of article is that we have a perfectly legitimate case for people whose work happens to involve sex - in a fully responsible and measured way - and it becomes as a hook to make a shallow "all sex work should be normalized". > What difference does it honestly make? Is that a cheap rhetorical question or do you don't see the moral issues of legalized prostitution? Just to start with the basics: how "incentivized" is someone who grew up with poverty and/or abuse and started prostituting themselves? How can we prevent young vulnerable girls getting lured into it? What is a woman that entered into the oldest profession to do after she reached an age where she is no longer attractive and can not compete with the hordes of young girls who see it as a way to make a lot of money for little "work"? Let's think a bit further: how about the health and their own relationship with sex for a woman that turned to prostitution? Don't you think that dealing with all sorts of Johns (who are likely to have their own issues when relating to sex) leads into prostitutes having their own sex issues? "Well, porn has faced the same challenges, got regulated and now it's a huge industry", you might say. Yes, it's true. The questions are then: do you really want to turn everything into an "industry"? Are we better of as a society after that porn became something to be mass-produced and mass-consumed? For every Mia Khalifa that managed to turn her life around, how many other women got ground up by a life-changing decision they would make when so young? Do we want to have even more of the political-bureaucratic machine responsible in telling us what is acceptable and what is not? > If prostitution were legal and accepted in the USA Plenty of countries where it is legal and it still doesn't hold a candle to drinking or smoking.
seattle_spring 6y ago
Really disappointing to see this article flagged. Even more disappointing reading some of the dead comments. Edit: at least they're dead comments I guess.
ilaksh 6y ago
For me, I am looking forward to advances in robotics and AI over the coming decades to help meet needs like this. Because, although there are certainly some women (and men) who seem to adjust to this type of work, and certainly the brutal economic realities make it problematic to deny the option of sex work.. my impression is that it is usually damaging socially and psychologically to those in the field. So I view the prevalence of prostitution largely as a symptom of economic deficiency. I'm not saying that this particular effort isn't nobel in a way or that this work should be illegal. But I don't think it's a black and white issue the way some people seem to think. It's not just a matter of glorious freedom versus religious prudishness or something like that. Soldiers need not just sex but true intimacy. It's really questionable whether that can truly be provided on a for-hire basis. And also hard to believe that constantly simulating intimacy with different men does not take a toll on a person's psyche.
- airhead969 6y ago
  You can't force intimacy, but you can foster it by facilitating dating opportunities. I guess there could be subsidized RGFE sexual-emotional prostitution where someone visits and acts as therapist, companion, and such. I wouldn't judge, moralize, or worry about what consenting adults choose to do. These sort of Big Mother vague concerns are often the slippery-slopes used to rationalize telling people what they can and can't do.
  - ilaksh 6y ago
    It's not about telling people what they can or can't do. But yes in fact we should worry when prostitution increases because it correlates with destitution and desperation.
    - airhead969 6y ago
      That's a sweeping, negative generalization and suggests women don't have a choice. There are millionaire prostitutes who are entrepreneurs. Some do it to pay for college and other expenses when service worker jobs pay nothing. Looking down on sex workers from a view of pity and paternalism is a problem.
klmadfejno 6y ago
I went into this thinking sex surrogates were fine. I came out less convinced somehow. * It's weird that some people aren't comfortable talking to doctors and therapists but are ok with sex surrogates * It's much weirder to me that a couple would rather do this than just try to learn things together * Some of this seemed to be about occupational therapy and learning how to live your life again. But it seems like most of these surrogates aren't trained in any way. They're just willing to have sex with people. And some of them have no hope of being independently capable, like the guy who was totally paralyzed. My bullshit detector says that even if everyone in this article is being entirely honest, there's going to be a lot of this that is just normal prostitution with people who aren't viewing themselves as a charitable tour guide of sexual confidence but are instead willing to fuck for cash.
- foogazi 6y ago
  > but are instead willing to fuck for cash. And what is the problem with that? Sex is not charity, there is always something in return, why not cash?
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    I'd say portraying people as doing work for virtuous reasons when in fact its because they need cash has tended to result in abuse, be that prostitutes, or soldiers or whatever.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
airhead969 6y ago
I don't see the problem. The Netherlands subsidizes sex for disabled people. Making a basic human need into some sort of taboo fetish as too many countries do goes against human nature. The French and Japanese I think have it about right.
- tasogare 6y ago
  > The French and Japanese I think have it about right. What?? Prostitution is legal in France BUT proxenetism is not, and buying sex isn’t either, making it very hard for sex workers to work under a roof and advertise their services. It exactly creates the conditions (trafficking) that the laws are supposed to fight. In Japan prostitution is nominally forbidden and actually tolerated, and other sexual services are available as well, which is indeed a good solution.
  - airhead969 6y ago
    It -> sexual mores, not prostitution.

74 points by andrewl 6y ago

Why is Jew crap posted here? Always these Jewish special interest stories that get zero comments.

"You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman," she says. "You cannot ignore this part in our life. It's very important, powerful. It's the centre of our personality. And you cannot just talk about it. Sexuality is something dynamic, is something that has to be between us and other people." Unfortunately, the prevailing sentiment is that you fix yourself in all other ways first, and then this aspect will automatically be ok. I would disagree (EDIT: with the prevailing sentiment) but this is a minefield of a discussion.

minikites 6y ago
Which part do you disagree with, the prevailing sentiment or the article quote?
- sage76 6y ago
  I disagree with the prevailing sentiment.
tartoran 6y ago
I agree with the sentiment. While this aspect raises the self esteem it should not be used to fill other gaps of unaddressed problems or problems lurking underneath the surface. But if feeling unwanted is part of the problem, this may well help people get better. And it’s not only sexual but merely human connection that helps an unbalanced psych enormously.
- sage76 6y ago
  > And it’s not only sexual but merely human connection that helps an unbalanced psych enormously. Which is why if you read about what incels say, it seems they don't want to see escorts. Most of their problems seem to lie in feeling unwanted. My guess is they are largely a byproduct of an atmoized individualistic society. They lack human connection, and see romantic connection as the ultimate one, reinforced by the fact that people tend to have fewer/no friends as they age.
  - airhead969 6y ago
    Incels, I think, have a chip on their shoulders and negative attitudes. If they had better perspectives, I think they would enjoy life more and connect with others in healthier ways. It is true though that social media, glowing screen distractions, and changing beliefs based on corporate manufactured/reinforced attitudes to leave insecurities and unfulfilled wants tend to put distance between people in the real world. The challenge is to make the extra effort to break through all that. I've found there are plenty of cool people who still socialize, and not just at an ephemeral, chit-chat level. It's just no one else wants to make the effort, aeveryone is waiting for Godot, and so nothing happens without initiative.
    - sage76 6y ago
      > I've found there are plenty of cool people who still socialize Maybe it was just the circle I made, but people were exhausted from work and trying to survive. They barely managed time for self care. Could be an American thing. But I find it fascinating that everyone complains about loneliness and then when anyone makes an initiative to do something, people have a 100 excuses.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    >> Most of their problems seem to lie in feeling unwanted. And exactly because of that they are the least attractive to potential mates. And instead of facing that they attack idea in itself. Their problems are initially psych related and there should be a cure to them if enough attention was paid to them clinically. Their forums are not part of the solution, they are creating it. The terrible negative advice and toxic evolutionary dogma, the idea that they are excluded from the genetic pool by genetically superiors, ascribing them epithets and making it all a game in which they are the anti-protagonists themselves cannot lead to a healthy psyche but I haven't heard of any orchestrated effort to help them out, there are only secret agents monitoring for potential violence outbreaks in these communities. They are instead embittered, self hating and fueled with resentment daily on these forums by the self proclaimed leaders of thought in these forums. They feel like they are rejected from both women and men. They feel out of place from this world and the only solace they find on forums. These people need to be paid some attention to, to be taken out on trips, healthy communities to be made for them since they are not capable of creating themselves but this is a societal ill in many ways.
stcredzero 6y ago
"You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman," Oddly enough, the 1st time I came across this idea was as a high school student in Marvel Comics' Secret Wars -- when X-Man Piotr Nikolayevich Rasputin/Colossus was healed. After his healer repaired the damage with her glowy magic hands, she proceeded to have a relationship with him. Meanwhile at least one onlooker concluded, that in her culture, this was all just a part of the healing process, and felt sorry for Piotr who had the wrong idea.

black_puppydog 6y ago

So after seeing like 10 bbc links on the front page today I feel entitled to a cookie banner rant. WTF BBC!? You had a perfectly acceptable (by the already very low web standards) cookie page that simply informed and allowed an opt-in. Now I have to manually uncheck every single fucking tracking partner in a list of hundreds? Have fun without me from here on out. *ragequit*

tediousdemise 6y ago

At face value, this seems like mere prostitution. However, when viewed through a medical lens, you’ll realize that sexual satisfaction is an essential human need that can have a profound impact on our general health and wellbeing. A change in perspective and a little compassion makes a world of difference.

risyachka 6y ago
I'd argue that the only difference between prostitution and not prostitution is mindset.
- mesofile 6y ago
  In front of a judge, or just on HN?
  - treeman79 6y ago
    Could be both. To oversimplify, It is legal to pay someone for sex in a film as an entertainer. Just not in private. Other places have hour long marriages to get around the problem.
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      Yeah; our laws are weird. Pay a person to have sex = criminal; pay a person to have sex -on camera- = perfectly legal.
      - kjeetgill 6y ago
        I get that you're just quiping but for anyone else that's curious, it's not as absurd as it sounds. There are a number of substantial differences. Intent and purpose are huge parts of many laws. The money flows in very different directions. Both actors are being payed and contribute to producing a sincere commercial good. No one is paying to have sex at all. There are enough laws around documentation and licencing that no one's out there running a brothel calling it a studio.

55555 6y ago

Let's be honest: there is prostitution in every country. The people getting this therapy aren't going for prostitution. They could get that elsewhere easier.

atxbcp 6y ago

For those interested in the topic of sex surrogates, I recommend the movie "The sessions" (2012, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/)

airhead969 6y ago
Cool. Netherlands has this benefit for disabled people. ATX = Austin?

boomboomsubban 6y ago

Soldiers make up just a few percent of her total clients, why are they the focus of the headline and the article? It's like they're trying to use "support the troops" to preemptively stop any criticism or distract from the complete lack of data backed benefits the treatment has been shown to provide.

sfink 6y ago
I think it's because they're the only ones whose therapy is funded by the state, which was the nominal focus of the article.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  The state funding is only mentioned in connection to soldiers, it doesn't seem like an independent focus of the article.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cblconfederate 6y ago
one take is that it legitimized the subject in the eyes of prudish english/american audiences. I doubt that most of her clients are disabled either.

kryogen1c 6y ago

interesting angle, obvious in hindsight. i wonder if a medicinal approach to sex can help relax the US's puritanical views, similar to marijuana, and help open the doorway to recreational use. this feels very dangerous though. people are fundamentally animals and sex is tightly interwoven with evolutionary biology in a way that drugs are not. decoupling sex from social interaction may be axiomatically wrong in the same way that removing rewards for performance is axiomatically wrong - people are just wired that way. no one wants to be CEO of an international company and get paid the same amount as an 18 year old data entry assistant. i think there is a similar pressure regarding mate selection and sex that exists regardless of culture.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
"rewards for performance is axiomatically wrong" I do not find that self evident, our society does not resemble a meritocracy. But lets accept the premice - what plausible way is there for this "very dangerous' to manifest? We've had arranged marriages too, do they cause disaster?
fidesomnes 6y ago
caring too much about others proclivities is a poor substitute for the sin of disrupting access to supply (sex) and demand (release).
- airhead969 6y ago
  Banning sex work, abortion, alcohol/substances, books, free speech, and LGBT+ are just ways for the moralizers to control others with their Gilead, totalitarian aspirations.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

It seems self evident that a sexual disfunction sometimes needs to be dealt with directly. Our society is about as competent at dealing with this hush-hush topic as medieval peasants were with hygiene

fidesomnes 6y ago

Most unfortunate title of 2021.

dmos62 6y ago

It's nice to see an article about sex on HN. Took me a second to realise that that's a pretty rare topic on here.

endisneigh 6y ago

The sentiment around sex work is so fascinating. What difference does it honestly make if you're having sex because you're attractive or because you paid? Either way both people are incentivized and have consented. If prostitution were legal and accepted in the USA, I'd bet it would shoot up to #1 of all the "vices" (e.g. gambling, smoking, drinking) within a year.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tartoran 6y ago
Part of the picture is not only the sexual contact but other psychologic innerworkings. The longing to feel wanted/desired is a big part of it and paid intercourse cannot offer that.
rglullis 6y ago
The sad thing about this type of article is that we have a perfectly legitimate case for people whose work happens to involve sex - in a fully responsible and measured way - and it becomes as a hook to make a shallow "all sex work should be normalized". > What difference does it honestly make? Is that a cheap rhetorical question or do you don't see the moral issues of legalized prostitution? Just to start with the basics: how "incentivized" is someone who grew up with poverty and/or abuse and started prostituting themselves? How can we prevent young vulnerable girls getting lured into it? What is a woman that entered into the oldest profession to do after she reached an age where she is no longer attractive and can not compete with the hordes of young girls who see it as a way to make a lot of money for little "work"? Let's think a bit further: how about the health and their own relationship with sex for a woman that turned to prostitution? Don't you think that dealing with all sorts of Johns (who are likely to have their own issues when relating to sex) leads into prostitutes having their own sex issues? "Well, porn has faced the same challenges, got regulated and now it's a huge industry", you might say. Yes, it's true. The questions are then: do you really want to turn everything into an "industry"? Are we better of as a society after that porn became something to be mass-produced and mass-consumed? For every Mia Khalifa that managed to turn her life around, how many other women got ground up by a life-changing decision they would make when so young? Do we want to have even more of the political-bureaucratic machine responsible in telling us what is acceptable and what is not? > If prostitution were legal and accepted in the USA Plenty of countries where it is legal and it still doesn't hold a candle to drinking or smoking.

seattle_spring 6y ago

Really disappointing to see this article flagged. Even more disappointing reading some of the dead comments. Edit: at least they're dead comments I guess.

ilaksh 6y ago

For me, I am looking forward to advances in robotics and AI over the coming decades to help meet needs like this. Because, although there are certainly some women (and men) who seem to adjust to this type of work, and certainly the brutal economic realities make it problematic to deny the option of sex work.. my impression is that it is usually damaging socially and psychologically to those in the field. So I view the prevalence of prostitution largely as a symptom of economic deficiency. I'm not saying that this particular effort isn't nobel in a way or that this work should be illegal. But I don't think it's a black and white issue the way some people seem to think. It's not just a matter of glorious freedom versus religious prudishness or something like that. Soldiers need not just sex but true intimacy. It's really questionable whether that can truly be provided on a for-hire basis. And also hard to believe that constantly simulating intimacy with different men does not take a toll on a person's psyche.

airhead969 6y ago
You can't force intimacy, but you can foster it by facilitating dating opportunities. I guess there could be subsidized RGFE sexual-emotional prostitution where someone visits and acts as therapist, companion, and such. I wouldn't judge, moralize, or worry about what consenting adults choose to do. These sort of Big Mother vague concerns are often the slippery-slopes used to rationalize telling people what they can and can't do.
- ilaksh 6y ago
  It's not about telling people what they can or can't do. But yes in fact we should worry when prostitution increases because it correlates with destitution and desperation.
  - airhead969 6y ago
    That's a sweeping, negative generalization and suggests women don't have a choice. There are millionaire prostitutes who are entrepreneurs. Some do it to pay for college and other expenses when service worker jobs pay nothing. Looking down on sex workers from a view of pity and paternalism is a problem.

klmadfejno 6y ago

I went into this thinking sex surrogates were fine. I came out less convinced somehow. * It's weird that some people aren't comfortable talking to doctors and therapists but are ok with sex surrogates * It's much weirder to me that a couple would rather do this than just try to learn things together * Some of this seemed to be about occupational therapy and learning how to live your life again. But it seems like most of these surrogates aren't trained in any way. They're just willing to have sex with people. And some of them have no hope of being independently capable, like the guy who was totally paralyzed. My bullshit detector says that even if everyone in this article is being entirely honest, there's going to be a lot of this that is just normal prostitution with people who aren't viewing themselves as a charitable tour guide of sexual confidence but are instead willing to fuck for cash.

foogazi 6y ago
> but are instead willing to fuck for cash. And what is the problem with that? Sex is not charity, there is always something in return, why not cash?
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  I'd say portraying people as doing work for virtuous reasons when in fact its because they need cash has tended to result in abuse, be that prostitutes, or soldiers or whatever.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

airhead969 6y ago

I don't see the problem. The Netherlands subsidizes sex for disabled people. Making a basic human need into some sort of taboo fetish as too many countries do goes against human nature. The French and Japanese I think have it about right.

tasogare 6y ago
> The French and Japanese I think have it about right. What?? Prostitution is legal in France BUT proxenetism is not, and buying sex isn’t either, making it very hard for sex workers to work under a roof and advertise their services. It exactly creates the conditions (trafficking) that the laws are supposed to fight. In Japan prostitution is nominally forbidden and actually tolerated, and other sexual services are available as well, which is indeed a good solution.
- airhead969 6y ago
  It -> sexual mores, not prostitution.