Sexual assistance services — sometimes also called sex care services — involve paid or unpaid logistic and physical support for disabled people so that they can have sexual experiences.
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The service is meant for people with physical and mental disabilities who may not have the freedom of movement or are otherwise obstructed to engage in sexual activities, either to masturbate themselves or to have sex with another person.
The support that is provided can be manifold: for instance it can consist of preparing a person by grooming or positioning them, helping them to access and use sex aids, sex toys, or sexual services, giving them physical assistance with bodily movement, or actually physically helping them through genital touch or sexual intercourse to achieve an orgasm.
However, the sexual assistance provided is not necessarily given by a sex worker. As it is, it all depends on what kind of assistance is given. For instance: grooming a non-mobile disabled client and bringing them to a brothel is considered sexual assistance, but that of course does not mean that the caretaker is a prostitute.
By contrast, masturbating a client who cannot use their hands or otherwise access their genitals, is typically carried out by a sex worker.
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By many it is thought that sexual assistance is a healthy and necessary practice for disabled people to fulfill their need for intimacy and increase their happiness and overall quality of life. Nonetheless, those who principally oppose prostitution, mostly feel that the practice should be outlawed.
Mind that you will sometimes see that the term “sexual assistance service” is used as a synonym for Surrogate Partner Therapy (aka Sexual Surrogacy).
Yet, Surrogate Partner Therapy basically serves another goal, one that involves a therapeutic treatment for both “abled” and disabled people who for various reasons have problematic issues with intimacy competencies and skills, sensuality, sex and sexuality, and/or their own body or body image.
