French Regional Government Considers Sex Surrogates for the Disabled Amid Concerns of Legalized Prostitution

On Monday, a regional government in France engaged in a very grown-up conversation about “the sexual life of the disabled” (a subject recently explored by Helen Hunt and John Hawkes in The Sessions), but stopped just shy of pushing for a state-funded sex surrogates program amid concerns that it could “it could open the door” to legalized prostitution.

Jerome Guedj, head of the Essonne department south of Paris, has been vocal in his support that sex surrogates for the disabled be made part of regular social services so that disabled citizens might have a chance to “discover their sexuality and their bodies.” Although surrogates are allowed in some other European countries and even the U.S., they’re not currently authorized in France. Guedj is trying to change that, and his original initiative (which includes state funding for surrogates), according to CBS, won support from the French Association of the Paralyzed.

The altered proposal he offered on Monday, however, dispensed with the term “sex surrogates” amid concerns that authorizing surrogates is the first step down the slippery slope of legalized prostitution. On March 12, a national ethics council ruled that authorizing sex surrogates would, in effect, “merchandize the human body,” and could also leave the recipients of the social service “emotionally vulnerable.”