Many years ago sex worker and disability activist Tuppy Owens who founded The Outsiders wrote an essay called "Why Disabled People Make the Best Clients" arguing that from the perspective of mainstream society, people who live with visible disabilities and sex workers have a lot in common. They’re both considered a drain on society, they're seen as less than human, they have fewer sexual rights, the list goes on. Tuppy’s essay was a call for sex workers and people with disabilities to work more closely together both for pleasure and political gain.

Unfortunately when the topic of sex work and disability is raised in the media it’s most often in the context of a condescending documentary produced by a public broadcaster that only serves to further marginalize people with disabilities. And despite a surge in publications about sex work by academics and sex workers, few articles or stories are published that explicitly talk about clients with disabilities.

As is always the case with sex and disability, the best work out there is being produced by people with disabilities themselves. This week the Guardian Unlimited's First Person column featured a short personal essay by 22 year old Nick Wallis, who lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and writes about his experience paying for sex. The essay is a simple honest account of his experiences of loss of sexual opportunities and rights, and his choice to pay for sex as way of exploring his own sexuality. It’s neither tragic nor triumphant, just the way most of our lives are:

“After mulling things over, I felt I had already attempted to form relationships without success and firmly decided that I wished to experience sex without fear of rejection or the possibility of spoiling an existing friendship… Looking back, I am pleased I had the tenacity and commitment to see it through. The experience, while not emotionally fulfilling, gave me confidence and a sense that I was not missing out. I did not have unrealistically high expectations and perhaps in this respect I was luckier than some of my friends who found their first experience disappointing.”

Another more detailed and thoughtful account of sex work and disability comes from the late journalist and poet Mark O’Brien. A writer by trade, and much older than Nick when he wrote the piece, simply titled On Seeing A Sex Surrogate, Mark weaves far more into his narrative and raises issues about sexual surrogacy, which many like to distinguish from sex work. But like Nick’s essay, what is interesting and important about Mark’s article (other than his skill as a writer, which is formidable) is the clarity of the story.

Sex and disability is usually fed to us through so many prejudiced screens that the actual experience of regular people disappears in the process. This serves to both keep ignorant of the experience of others, and maintain the illusory “us” versus “them” dichotomy so important to non-disabled people. We need to read more stories by people and fewer stories about people. It’s needed across the board, but with a subject as under- and mis-represented as sex and disability, it’s particularly needed.

Read more - Guardian Unlimited : My lifelong desire

Read more - On Seeing a Sex Surrogate

Related – Sex and Disability Resources from About.com