In France, the collective "Sexuality and Handicap" has spent recent months pushing for sexual assistance to become available to handicapped people, particularly by training professionals to provide it. But isn't the right to pleasure legitimate? We asked Marie-Christine Marguet, a marriage and family counselor at CLER, to respond.
What do you make of this argument: "Handicapped people have a right to their own sexual life. Why deny them this pleasure when they already experience so much frustration?"
Our entire society today embraces a model of "exhibition and arousal." The idea that sexuality is a fundamental right leads us to believe that sexual activity is the only way to satisfy our tensions, to experience pleasure, and even to achieve the happiness that our whole being craves.
If sexuality is a natural part of being human, it is also a complex reality made up of many desires that go far beyond genital sexuality alone. Yes, every human being has the right to be recognized in their deep desires for tenderness, attention, respect, relationship, sexual pleasure, and the transmission of life—elements essential to their dignity that must be safeguarded at any cost.
Yet when we follow a person closely, it is not easy to discover what their deepest desire truly is. Often we risk interpreting their aspirations through our own personal criteria of judgment. Is it certain that sexual arousal signals only a desire for sexual union? A quick paid response, like sexual assistance, risks creating an even more destructive frustration. It tells that person that for them, it is impossible to live out the complex relationships with others that they deeply desire.
Since today we have made sexual union independent of fertility, wouldn't it be equally legitimate to separate the pleasure of sexuality from the relationship of love?
That is precisely the problem! Can we think that a person can be reduced to their genitals? Is the true calling of a human being to find satisfaction in an exclusively physical and genital relationship? Doesn't that amount to settling for a way of being that is purely instinctual and dehumanizing? Sexual pleasure does not make us happy—this much is certain. What allows a person to flourish and brings them peace is being happy and making others happy. It consists in living in trust within a relationship where each person matters and can express their attachment, share what is important to them, feel valued, exchange tenderness.
In this situation, sensuality takes on its full meaning. It becomes a language of love, and physical joy unites with the happiness of being bound together over time by affection and shared plans. All of this must be built and takes time. Otherwise there is a real risk of ruin for those who have been betrayed or treated as objects. On a moral level, it is the human being himself who, in the name of his dignity, refuses to be reduced to his impulses. To lead someone to believe that it is better to settle for sexual pleasure obtained with the help of a professional would be like offering a pale imitation of the diamond he will never have the chance to obtain. It would simply be telling him or her that they cannot hope to live something unifying and beautiful in the realm of love, because of their handicap. And that is a message that diminishes the individual and destroys hope.
What allows a person to flourish and brings them peace is being happy and making others happy.
In the absence of the marital relationship you describe, can masturbation be considered a relief?
Masturbation is very common among handicapped people and constitutes a response to boredom, anxiety, tension, or arousal linked to a situation, an image, a film, a song. The pursuit of pleasure through self-stimulation is a private act that requires private space out of respect for oneself and others.
It is important to remind the person to respect their own intimacy and to remind them that the law forbids displaying one's sexual organs in public because this disturbs those around them. Sexual pleasure is linked to physical joy from the stimulation of erogenous zones but also to the exchange of pleasure that one receives from and gives to a partner.
In this regard, masturbation can be deceptive and can create a sense of anguish at one's solitude, leading to a return to repeating the act again and again, until it becomes a kind of "compulsion" that traps the person in a vicious cycle.
Yes, every human being has the right to be recognized in their deep desires for tenderness, attention, respect, relationship, sexual pleasure, and the transmission of life—elements essential to their dignity that must be safeguarded at any cost.
It is therefore essential to monitor and promote relationships and activities, to limit time spent idle, and to create opportunities for discovering other forms of pleasure that allow satisfaction and peace. It seems to me that learning to care for one's own body in order to appear increasingly pleasing aesthetically, engaging in physical activities like dance that also develop group relationships, or judo, which allows one to confront the other's body with limits and rules—using one's musical or rhythmic abilities—all of this, it seems to me, encourages encounters and friendly relationships. All these pleasant activities allow the person to flourish, help them avoid withdrawing into themselves, and protect them from the suffering of isolation that can lead to masturbation.
"What happens in the bedroom concerns no one." To what extent should we respect a person's intimacy? Is interference in their sexual life ever justified?
We define as intimate everything that concerns a person's private life. And educators are often at the center of this—regarding information about family, correspondence, health, and friendships. Their discretion is therefore fundamental to allow the person in their care to distinguish the public sphere from what constitutes their intimacy. Their role is priority in providing information about the risks and deceptions of sexuality, best accompanied by health care support (prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections).
The bedroom is certainly a private space, but it falls within the responsibility of educators to ensure that this space is not violated. Does whoever enters do so on the invitation of the person, or following an agreement established with them? Is the person able to obtain respect for their intimacy against someone who wants to enter without being desired? In this area, it is important that the educator's role be consistent with the institution's regulations and choices. It is equally important to help the person understand that their desires are natural and legitimate but must take into account the desire of the other. Consequently, one cannot do everything one wishes. Moreover, it happens that some of our desires can have harmful consequences (like eating sugar when one is diabetic), and in that case we are obliged to live a painful but healthful frustration.
The same applies in the realm of sexuality. To be able to speak of it simply, to be understood and recognized in one's needs, and to be accompanied in living within one's limits, whatever they may be, brings great relief. The person no longer feels alone but feels legitimate in their desires, respected, and guided to understand what is happening. Accompanied in this way, they become the author of their own existence. And in the end they will find support in the trust we have in their possibilities.
Interview by M.V.P.
Ombres et Lumière no. 172
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