Memoir: The last taboo

“Who do you want to have sex with?”

Looks at the symbol for “Woman”.

In the end, I enlisted the help of M - who had grown up in the hostel with J. M’s family had bought an overseas model communication system pre-programmed with words that he accessed by pressing on a keyboard. This enabled him to form a sentence. He then hit a button to activate a voice. M came back to me after his chat with J. With his left hand, he steadied his right arm and then used his right thumb to laboriously press each word out on the keyboard.

He-wants-you-to-help-him-get-laid.

I asked M how I was supposed to help. He looked at me as if I was simple, and said “Pay!”

Apart from any personal politics I might have had about engaging with the sex industry, there then needed to be a number of discrete, informal conversations with one or two other staff involved in J’s life.

One concern was whether or not J understood what seeing a sex worker involved. There were exaggerated fears of his vulnerability to contracting an STI, or receiving a service he hadn’t asked for, and experiencing it as a sexual assault. It seemed ironic that those staff who most questioned J’s ability to make an informed decision were themselves quite misinformed about the operations of the sex industry.

There was an unspoken assumption that because J was physically dependent, he was also emotionally and intellectually dependent. The reality was he had lived in institutional care his entire life. All of his daily living activities were performed by paid staff, and while he did develop attachments to people, he didn’t seem to suffer too much when they moved on. I felt sure an experience of unrequited love wouldn’t hurt him as much as living his entire life in a state of unrequited lust could.

“There isn’t a policy for what you want to do.” J and I sat on either side of the manager at a meeting for the final decision.

“You,” he pointed at me, “are putting yourself at risk of being charged as an accessory to a crime if anything terrible happens.”

“And you,” he pointed at J, “are putting yourself at risk of disease, financial ruin and god knows what else …” he trailed off. “You know, it won’t be like the movies, son.”

J looked left for “Yes”.