September 16, 2005

Socialized Sex

Okay, I'm totally stumped: someone's going to have to tell me what the correct opinion to have on something like this is:
The Danish government is under attack for paying for its disabled citizens to have sex with prostitutes.... Stig Langvad of the country's Disabled Association said the politicians critical of the plan are showing "double standards".

He said: "The disabled must have the same possibilities as other people. Politicians can debate whether prostitution should be allowed in general, instead of preventing only the disabled from having access to it."
Looking around for more details elsewhere on the internet, it seems that social workers accompany the disabled to licensed, government-subsidized brothels once a month for a 30-minute session. First reactions: 1) Whoa...; 2) Only once a month? We pay taxes here in America and get screwed every single day; 3) Not that far a leap from this to taxpayer-subsidized sex for everyone—why not subsidize brothels for unattractive or shy people? Same principle, no?; 4) Well, what of it? If adequate housing and a decent living and all that jazz are things lefties think government should help guarantee, why not a happy sex life too?; 5) Assuming there aren't enough male prostitutes, or gay prostitutes, or tranny prostitutes, or whatever, to go around, aren't there discrimination issues here?; 6) The health care angle: this site claims, plausibly, that providing seniors with pornography and access to prostitutes works far, far better than medicine in many cases—think of the health care dollars saved! Er, and so on.
-- Brad Plumer 2:03 AM || ||