Has society "matured" about sex assistants for people with disabilities, as Sophie Cluzel claims? The secretary of state reopened the debate this weekend, saying "very favorable that we can support (the) intimate, emotional and sexual life" of people with disabilities.
It therefore contacted the CCNE (National Consultative Ethics Committee) on the subject. The issue had already been debated in 2012, but the same committee had issued an unfavorable opinion. However, the practice, although minimal, has since developed in France, taking advantage of a legal vagueness. We take stock.
- What is the situation in France today?
There is no law in France governing the use of a sex worker by a person with a disability. Insofar as this service is priced, it is today assimilated to prostitution, which is not illegal. On the other hand, the law condemns pimping, that is, helping a person to prostitute or profit from prostitution, and, since 2016, clients who use prostitution.
However, since 2014, the association Appas (Association for the promotion of sexual support) has been offering training in sexual support, the objective of which is clear: "enabling people with disabilities to have access to a life intimate, sensual and / or sexual ”. According to its president, Jill Prévôt Nuss, around 80 people in France have followed this training, of which around twenty work as sex workers today, for remuneration.
"Under the law, these people are guilty, and so are we, since we are considered pimps," she assumes. On the eve of the very first training, in 2014, the manager of the hotel that was to host it changed her mind, fearing prosecution. But it was the Appas which brought the matter before the courts: the judge of summary proceedings of the Strasbourg tribunal de grande instance agreed with the association, which never again had any problem in finding reception places for its training.
She has also never known any problem with justice, while the government is aware of the existence of these formations, says Jill Prévôt Nuss. "Honestly, do you know someone who is going to put a disabled person in prison for having used paid sex?" “, Questions Fabrice Flageul, a guide trained by the APPAS.
- What is the government proposing?
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Concretely, Sophie Cluzel has not specified what form she wishes to give to this sexual support for disabled people. But the Secretary of State seized the CCNE on the subject, deploring that certain disabled people are "condemned to live in an abstinence not chosen", whereas "sexual health is an integral part of health, well-being and quality of life as a whole ”, as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Referred to in 2012, the CCNE then considered that it was not "possible to make sexual aid a professional situation like the others because of the principle of non-commercial use of the human body".
Sophie Cluzel clarified that it was not a question of "opening a prostitution network". But can the recognition of sex workers for people with disabilities be done under the current prostitution law?
Other practical questions also arise: who would be the beneficiaries? Would it be limited to physical disability? From what "degree" of disability should we be entitled to this assistance?
- How does it work abroad?
As the Secretary of State pointed out, several European countries already regulate the use of sex assistants. This is particularly the case in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.
In Belgium, a hundred people offer this service. They all received training, during which university professors, doctors and psychiatrists taught them the specifics of the sexuality of people with disabilities.
Similar training is offered in Switzerland by the association Corps solidaires. Delivered in 12 days, spread over a year, it offers theoretical courses in law, sexology, ethics ... But also practical courses in verbal and non-verbal communication, massage and body relaxation. Training similar to that offered in France by the APPAS.
- What do the main stakeholders think?
For Alice Vigne, sexual assistant in France for several years, it is necessary to give a legal framework to this practice, which according to her goes beyond simple sexual intercourse. "It is above all a question of asking these people what their desire is: to watch a film together, to receive hugs, to have sexual intercourse ...", she explains. “People with disabilities are often constantly manipulated by the medical profession, but they are not active in the relationship. It is a question of giving them the possibility of becoming actors of the intimate relation. "
For certain associations such as Clhee (Collective fight and handicaps for equality and emancipation), on the other hand, sexual assistance is not the right answer to bring to people with disabilities who have difficulty accessing an emotional life and sexual.
In a press release, published on their website and entitled "We are not" undesirable "", the Clhee explains its opposition to the legalization of sexual assistance: "It is part of both the liberal economic logic which makes sexuality a commercial service, of which it offers us to be consumers, and in a Judeo-Christian vision which once again places the disabled person as an object of charity. "Sexuality should however be free and not commercial, imply reciprocity in desire and an egalitarian exchange. A reciprocity which cannot exist either in the commercial relationship or in the charitable relationship ”, estimates the association.