Lights, Camera and Erection: sexual assistance on scene

Abstract

The discussion about sexual assistance for people with functional diversity (disability) in our country is recent and highly mediatic. Under this umbrella live diametrically different services, resources and demands that navigate between two intelligible and confrontational discursive continents: prostitution and therapy. However, the interest in vindication lies precisely in the outbursts to these models, in which the rights and desires of different collectives that stress the potential alliance between feminisms and functional diversity are put in conflict. Faced with the secrecy and scarcity of information surrounding the practice, the analysis of cultural representation is a key tool for understanding how the collective imaginary and discussion frameworks around sexual assistance are being configured. To do this, I will start with international films (Nacional 7, Las sesiones, The Special Need), which have as their plot knot the demand for different sexual services by people with functional diversity, and then focus on Spanish documentaries that address the sexuality of the collective, paying special attention to the two that allude to sexual assistance (Yes, we fuck! and Jo també vull sexe). The aim is to reveal the heteronormative and capacitating constructs that promote these representations, that intertwine, and that not only allow us to think about what sexual assistance is, or what it should be, but also point to some of the keys to the construction of contemporary sexuality.