A touch of kindness

Not many people feel comfortable asking their mother to call a sex worker.

But for Mark Manitta, who is 48 and has cerebral palsy, this is exactly what he asked his mother, Elaine, to do nearly 30 years ago.

''It's hard being a parent and this comes up,'' Mrs Manitta, 72, said. ''People see them sitting in their wheelchair think, that's it. They don't see what's going on in their lives and Mark would dearly love a relationship.''

Mark, who communicates with a typing device , said his first encounter with a sex worker was when he was 19. His mother drove him to a brothel and waited outside for an hour.

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''I feel more relaxed after,'' he said.

Mark's case is not unusual. There are many people with disabilities who use a wheelchair or who have never had a relationship, but who crave physical and sexual attention.

''For some people with disabilities, their social network can be smaller, which limits the opportunity to meet people,'' said the president of Touching Base, Denise Beckwith.

Touching Base is a Sydney organisation that connects people with disabilities, including Mark, with sex workers who have experience in seeing clients with impairments. It is nearly always the family members or support workers who get in touch, said Ms Beckwith, who has cerebral palsy.

''Sex workers are willing to see people with disabilities as human beings with human rights and human needs,'' she said.

Four months ago, Touching Base was receiving a call a week, now it is getting one a day. Ms Beckwith attributes the increase to documentaries such as SBS's Scarlet Road and films such as The Sessions , released on Thursday, which follows the true story of the writer Mark O'Brien, who is in an iron lung and contacts a sex therapist, played by actress Helen Hunt.

Mark Manitta has been seeing the same sex worker, Rachel Wooton, for 11 years. He sees her once a month and pays $350 for an hour's session.

Mrs Manitta said the visits had become part of family life and helped Mark to feel like a normal person.

''I met Rachel when Mark first [started seeing her]. I used to go shower him [beforehand] and we used to meet on the way out. It was quite a few years ago that it went on like that,'' she said.

''There's always some negativity about it. It's just that people don't fully understand.''

Ms Wooton and Mark are now good friends. ''We go out for lunch first some times,'' Mark said.

Ms Wooton, who had seen some clients for more than a decade, said they ''grow old together''.

''You become more familiar with people, their nuances and people's humour,'' she said.

She first started sex work when she was in her second year of a psychology degree.

''I saw a younger guy recently with a disability and finally he lost his virginity and he was really happy,'' she said.

Another sex worker, Randy, who worked in an inner west brothel and had training with Touching Base, said services offered to clients with disabilities was the ''new horizon'' for them, and helped them fight for their ''sexual freedom''.

''Someone with disability has to organise it with the carer, the person with the money. While you try to be as discreet as possible, that person has already had to tell [a lot] of people,'' she said. Randy saw clients with disabilities in the brothel and at their supported accommodation.

''People with disabilities don't get a fair rap in life, generally.''

Unlike Helen Hunt's character in The Sessions, Ms Wootton did not see herself as a ''sex surrogate'', a therapist whose techniques included demonstration.

''I am a sex worker and I make my money from clients seeing me. Some clients just happen to have a disability,'' she said.

Sarah Whyte

swhyte@fairfaxmedia.com.au