Sex Surrogates – Prostitution in Disguise?

Definition: Sexual surrogacy is a therapeutic practice designed to help a person become more comfortable with sex, their body, and/or the emotional and physical skills they need for intimacy.

In other terms. The client works together with a licensed sex therapist and a sex surrogate.

Sexual surrogacy is a controversial and commonly misunderstood form of therapy. Due to its potential ethical and legal complications, there is a lack of published research on sexual surrogacy.

Would you consider having sex with a surrogate under supervision of a sex therapist as a form of legal prostitution?

The client will be charged by the therapist and perhaps the sex surrogate to perform a sexual act that is basically not free of charge and thus cannot be considered as being “normal”.

What is your view on this controversial topic?

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ArtieKat · M

I’ve arrived rather belatedly at this post, @Stephie but would like to make a contribution nonetheless. The joky response would be that, many years ago, a group of friends and I went to a late night cinema screening, having spent the evening in the pub. One of the films showing was called “The Anatomy Of Love” – a piece of badly-dubbed Swedish porn purporting to show a sex therapist at work with a couple having it away in every conceivable position (and some inconceivable ones too! Indeed, at some point one of my female friends shrieked “Ooooh! It must be L-shaped!” Titters throughout the whole cinema! And all of this to a soundtrack of Ravel’s Bolero – a piece of music I used to love but can no longer listen to with a straight face….

The more measured response is to begin by declaring a personal interest: my late father was a Freudian-influenced Consultant Child Psychiatrist, so my sisters and I grew up surrounded by a wide range of textbooks, including the psychology of sex ones. My own degree was in Sociology with Social Psychology and Philosophy.

I hadn’t encountered Sexual Surrogacy until now but the concept has me quite fascinated. What I am struggling to get my head round though is how a person who already has issues about sex could perform with a surrogate therapist - under the close professional scrutiny of a “talk therapist”…..

Stephie · F

@ArtieKat I am a lover of classical music and the Bolero by Maurice Ravel is a favorite of mine but I don't think that I will ever be able to have another face than an emotional one because those drums and the rhythmic crescendo of the music starting very softly and ending in an apotheosis with the final rolling of the drums could be associated with the climax of a couple ending their surrogacy session...

It is true that it could present an additional emotional trauma to have not only to face your physical challenge of being intimate with a partner but also the close supervision of one or more people ensuring that you can overcome two very distinctive and separate challenges; the physical and the addition of the emotional one.

I was not present in the 70's but perhaps I could ask my grandfather if he happened to have seen that "Anatomy of Love" as well and if he would disclose his views on this piece of erotic Scandinavian art.

ArtieKat · M

@Stephie I don't think it was on general release! I have since remembered that the other film on the bill was called "Wild, Willing and Sexy". The Bolero was also used in big box office hit called "10" starring Dudley Moore (great jazz pianist in addition to being a comedian and actor) and Bo Derek who spawned a huge fashion for "corn-rows".

Perhaps I knew your grandfather if he's in the SW19 area lol. That would be funny!