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.
If you are young and attractive and the only other context you have for sex is porn the belief is understandable. Its emotionally immature view that I’m glad she grew out of AND decided to write an article about to help others.