Jeff

   I'm going to call him Jeff. Jeff is not his actual name, nor is Jeff an actual person. Jeff is actually a composite of several men I know who, due to the nature of my work, need to remain anonymous.

   I work for a human services agency here in London and we support people with developmental challenges so that they can live as independently as possible in the community. I just wanted to let you know some of the things I do for Jeff, who is one of the people our agency supports.
   I visit Jeff on a regular basis and make sure that his apartment is reasonably neat and tidy. I give him direction around this and a lot of the time I pitch in and help as Jeff is a guy and is kind of wishy-washy about having a clean apartment. I spend some time helping with Jeff's budgeting and banking. Sometimes this is a struggle as Jeff is not always sure he wants my help with this.
   I try and co-ordinate medical appointments for Jeff--make sure he gets in to see the dentist, the doctor, the psychologist, the foot care professional, the eye doctor, etc. I do these things as they arise, on a regular basis.
   Government forms are always fun, helping Jeff fill them out, running around, finding all the other forms you need just to fill out one form.
   I talk to people like Bell and Rogers and London Hydro, just to make sure Jeff's got the right channels and features and it's pretty confusing sometimes following up on stuff Jeff's already done.
   In the past, I've helped Jeff with lawyers and court cases.
   I've talked to travel agents and arranged for haircuts.
   This is just a partial list of some of the many important things I do for Jeff.

   Jeff, on the other hand, just wants to get laid.

   Yep, he wants to have sex with a woman. A real live one. Kind of like the ones he sees on T.V., maybe the ones he sees downtown. He'd like to be lying there next to one of those women he sees in the magazine ads and he'd like to be able to run his hands all over her, slide inside of her and share his orgasm with her. It is one thing he has never attained and it seems like it is the one thing which is just beyond his grasp.

Kind of what Jeff is all about....

   The one thing he wants and, arguably, needs the most  is also the one thing I'm not going to be able to help him with.
   Oddly enough, I was never trained to be able to provide this, the one thing that would make his life....well.....good.
   I can direct Jeff to places he can go if he wants to learn the rudiments of sexuality. There are groups which will focus on the appropriate ways to approach women. They will describe what not to do and say around women. They will discuss places you can go to meet women.
   These are all fine but none of them will get Jeff laid and, honestly, that's what he's about. He's all about getting laid the same way any man is about getting laid if he's never been laid!
   I remember the feeling. I remember being happy with most of my skills and my circle of friends and my job but I had never been with a woman and, because of this, felt elementally incomplete. And, after finally having accomplished this lofty goal, I remember thinking "okay, this is good, I can go on in the world now!"
   Because Jeff is a composite of people I support, he is also non-verbal and physically challenged. So the two of us don't talk about him getting laid but from what I hear from some of the female staff that have known him, he's kind of about getting laid, as well. Good for him! Well, sort of "good for him" because his chances for getting laid are non-existent. Sort of like Jeff's.
   As an agency, we try and go out of our way to provide people with the important and valued essentials of daily living. The government helps, at our request, in supplying the money or wherewithal to provide these things. As long as the person doesn't get laid, as the result! In the Netherlands, the government, realizing the quality of life issue, supplies sex surrogates for physically and intellectually challenged people. This is what we should be doing in Canada.

Not the kind of  Escort Jeff had in mind...

   Of course, this would be controversial. Generally, anything to do with sex is. In this particular scenario, there would be a minefield of moral, ethical, legal and legislative issues to be addressed. In the current environment in Ontario it is difficult to access funds to provide any support to thousands of people on waiting lists who just require only the rudimentary forms of support I described at the beginning of this blog. Let alone hiring sex surrogates!
   This is an issue which has been bothering me for some time. When Jeff and I talk about it, I try and be as supportive and non-judgemental as I possibly can. Jeff seems to feel guilty  even thinking about sex and I spend a lot of time reassuring him as to how normal this is. We have talked about hiring an escort. This, however, gets back down to money and Jeff, like most people on disability pension, is on a pretty tight budget. Where I work it would not be uncommon to occasionally run across a long itemized list of a supported person's budgetary requirements. What would be uncommon is if anywhere on that itemized list "escort service", "massage parlour" or "Jeff getting laid" showed up!
   And there are more than just "Jeffs" in the same predicament. There are "Jennifers" and "Paulas" and "Colleens" we support who are just as entitled to satisfying and fulfilling sexual encounters, as well.
   I talked before about what a minefield all this would be, attempting to procure goverment-assisted sexual surrogacy for people who are differently-abled. Part of that minefield would involve ensuring there was a system in place so that the people we support would be safe, navigating this world of paid-for sex.
   Sex is such a multi-faceted thing, awash with emotional and societal issues and every attempt would have to be made to assert that Jeff was entering a paid-for relationship with the full understanding of what that relationship was and that there was no coercion involved on the part of either of the two (or three, or four) people involved. Knowing Jeff, there would also have to be an assertion on everyone's part that this was okay.
   Every once in awhile, the staff group gets together to talk about Jeff, how his life is going and what his needs are. Quite often there ends up being a list of tasks that need tackling and this list gets divided up and tasks are assigned to people. My plan is to wait until the end of one of these meetings, when they ask if there's anything else that needs talking about, and pipe up with "Okay, so how are we gonna make sure Jeff gets laid...?"