I began to see the sheer breadth of people seeking connection — and the assumptions I’d internalised about desire, age, ability, and worth started to unravel. I spoke to clients in their 20s and clients in their 80s. One elderly gentleman in a wheelchair had his adult daughter arrange the booking for him. Another, a middle-aged man with motor neurone disease, needed help with logistics, but still sought intimacy. A respected psychiatrist would ask for “absolutely no talking”. A retiree just wanted to be cuddled and told that everything was going to be okay. Some requested elaborate fantasies. Others asked for nothing more than to feel normal – seen, desired, held.
It was, frankly, beautiful. And confronting. Because it shattered something I’d long believed: that only certain people get to be sexual. That desire is reserved for the abled, the attractive, the young. That illness cancels it out.
It’s fascinating that sex work is still illegal in so much of the world.
Only very backwards countries.
While I agree, people don’t often think of countries like Sweden as very backwards.
sex work isn’t illegal here last i checked, what’s illegal is buying sex
Which makes it illegal. If you prosecute either the customer or supplier of a good or service, you have made it illegal.
how does it make it illegal? it’s effectively a ban, sure, but it’s explicitly not illegal to sell sex, you cannot face legal charges for being a prostitute.