How sweet of Julie Bindel to mention the TLC Trust in today's Guardian, just when we are launching it! See http://www.guardian.co.uk/
It's an article with the usual old arguments against prostitution, featuring Pamela Stephenson Connolly and Julie Bindel (The Guardian, Friday 25 September 2009)
Julie's description of our website as "a pro-sex industry campaigning organisation" is totally misleading, as we are much more than that, so I wrote a comment to complain:
The TLC-trust.org.uk webside puts disabled men and women in touch with responsible sex workers, therapists and teachers. We also run a service to make phone calls to book appointments for disabled people with speech impairments who cannot use the phone and for care workers who are banned from making these calls on their behalf.
Yes, big charities, local councils and social services providing "homes" for disabled people, on one hand sing of their equality policies that empower their residents to make informed choices about how they live their lives and then block them from finding sexual outlets. They know that some disabled people don't have the strength or body movement to masturbate, so what do they think they are going to do when they get horny?
The TLC-Trust.org.uk website has been commended around the world - from Annie Sprinkle to AC Grayling. It is run by volunteers, Sex workers register for free, in fact no charges are made to anyone.
On 13th November, the Royal Society of Medicine will be running a conference on sex and disability which will include discussions on sex work, disability and the law. Delegates will have the chance to see a tantric sex worker making love to the head of a quadiplegic man who has no feeling below the head, and cannot reach up to touch his head. They will see a deafblind man enjoying a striptease, using finger language interpretation. These performances were arranged by the TLC Trust.
Things are moving on, at last, thankfully."
If you would like to know more about the TLC-Trust website, read on:the website for disabled men and women
to access responsible sex workers
After five long years, four very determined volunteers have at last completed the TLC website, www.tlc-trust.org.uk, for disabled men and women to access responsible sex workers.
The site is the inspiration of pioneer Dr Tuppy Owens, founder of Outsiders, a charity for disabled people to find partners. She is helped by Pru, a very clever sex worker who specialises in disabled clients, a brilliant webmaster and a lovely disabled advocate.
Tuppy had written a paper for ICOP 1997 (International Conference on Prostitution) in Los Angeles, entitled “Disabled People Make the Best Clients”. This paper gave sex workers some basic guidance on having sex with a disabled man or woman. It was circulated worldwide and the idea for an organisation to provide such a service gained momentum.
In the womb-like Harley Street abode of Professor Petrushka Clarkson, a very grand, learned institute was dreamed up, with training programmes, certification, a board of disabled experts, academics and, of course, sex workers. Petrushka promptly died and it became evident to Tuppy that nobody really wanted to give their time, name or money to such a cause. Much more importantly, she discovered sex workers feel perfectly capable of running their businesses, and feel zero inclination to give up their independence by being trained.
Tuppy decided that a website was the answer. She could write guidance, she could invite donations, and sex workers who wanted more disabled clients could be provided with a free space their their profile, which disabled people could freely look at.
The website was called TLC, short for Tender Loving Care. Generously funded by Dr Linda Cusick and Dr Petra Boynton, a webmaster was hired to create the site. Then he disappeared into thin air.
At the Outsiders funder, the Night of the Senses 2008, one of the guests, Ian Hudson, approached Tuppy with an apology that he'd noticed that the TLC site was not working very well. She told him about her dilemma and Ian, being a gentleman, replied “If I may be so bold, may I offer my services?” He was on!
Ian made the site beautiful. The sex worker approve new profiles. Tuppy expanded the site include other services such as massage therapy, sex therapy and training. This was not to dilute the sex work content but to provide a wider choice.
Tuppy appointed the site's “Resident Pimp” the famous spinal injured wheelchair user, Gregory Sams. Greg makes phone calls on behalf of disabled people who cannot communicate over the phone, and for their care workers who are banned from making such calls.
During 2008. the profiles became more and more minimal, often using a language quite offensive to disabled people. So Tuppy created a model profile: “Lulu of Liverpool”. Lulu provides, for example, details of local disabled parking, exact widths of doors to her bathroom etc, and confirmation that she has both a separate room for the disabled person's PA to wait in and a hoist installed above the bed. Lulu lists her skills of using alternative methods of communication. Lulu states what kind of client she enjoys seeing: people who make her laugh and enjoy her body. Most importantly, Lulu uses respectful language when referring to disabled men and women.
The site encourages feedback on its forum and provides a space for sex workers to write about their experiences with disabled clients.
It has been very interesting to observe which residential homes and care work agencies will allow their disabled clients to hire sex workers. Interestingly, Leonard Cheshire Disability, who received a grant from GlaxoSmithKiline for £180,000 to research what young disabled people want in the way of support and education on sex, actually ban their staff from granting clients the freedom have sex workers visit them in what is essentially their own homes.
We are currently battling with a social services funding office in Manchester who have banned the care staff in a home from doing anything to help a (very frustrated) disabled man have a sexual experience with a sex worker. The reasons given were that social services didn't want the press to find out, but the press are much more likely to publish the story when they discover the ban. The TLC site is certainly covering the case.
The TLC site receives praise from all over the world, from pioneers such as Annie Sprinkle and a lady called Claire Ryan who wants to start a New Zealand section of the site. Tuppy's list “50 Services that Sex Workers provide for Disabled People” which she sent to the Home Office was commended by Professor A.C. Grayling.
Now that the site is working perfectly, we are ready to launch it and we are doing this in two stages. The first launch will be to attract new sex workers. so that the site will provide as many as possible around the country, indeed the world. For the site to work effectively,, disabled visitors need to be able to find someone near enough and suitable. Registration is free of charge and we hope for much success.
The second launch will coincide with our conference Disability: Sex, Relationships and Pleasure at the Royal Society of Medicine, which will feature performances by sex workers and disabled people.
The first performance will feature tantric sex worker Sue Newsome making love to a quadriplegic man's head. Dominic Webb cannot feel from the neck down and cannot reach up to touch his head. After 13 years of no sensations of touch, Tuppy asked him if he had thought of having a head massage. He said that his spinal unit had offered to discuss sex after his injury but that help never came. When Tuppy told him that sensory amplification could turn the massage into an orgasmic experience, his face lit up and Sue was brought in.
The second performance will be striptease artist Solitaire stripping for deaf-blind Jimmy with his sighted friend, jj interpreting.
The conference will include talks by a male and female sex worker, inviting questions. It will also provide a workshop on sex work and the law, for health professionals who are nervous about their disabled clients hiring sex workers. Most people in the disability world still believe that it is illegal to hire a sex worker, thanks to an article that appeared in Disability Now in 2005.
This conference will take place on 13th November.
See http://www.rsm.ac.uk/academ/sej101.php
TLC hopes for national publicity which will hopefully give the TLC website more visitors and help to raise the status of sex work in the UK.
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