I read a joke online that set me thinking. The joke was about a divorcée who was starting to get on in years, but after having been through 3 previous unsuccessful marriages already now wanted to settle down for a 4th time, but not to repeat the mistakes of the previous 3 decided to place an advert in the local paper, which read: "Wanted: Husband who won't beat me, run away from me & who can satisfy my voracious sexual appetite". Months went past, and despite many applicants none were suitable, until one day a man appeared at the door with no arms or legs who says he has come to apply for the position. She asks what he thinks he has to offer, to which he replies, "Well I can't beat you, as I have no arms, and I can't run away, as I have no legs". The woman thinks about it, and says, "But what about my voracious sexual appetite?" To which the man replies, "Well, I managed to ring the doorbell didn't I". Of course, this is only intended as humour, but it set me thinking. I am 48 years old, and consider myself fortunate to have all my limbs intact, as my mother was taking the ill fated Thalidomide pre-natal drug whilst she was carrying me. However, thousands of others weren't so fortunate & were born without arms or legs as a result. There are, of course, also others who have either been born without limbs for other reasons, or have had to have them amputated, which is obviously a bad enough thing to experience at any time of life, but my mind drifted to how I might have coped with entering puberty without the use of my arms. I know there are many out there who are also wheelchair bound due to physical disabilities, often requiring the assistance of a carer for all their bathing & toiletry needs, yet these people are, more often than not, still fully functional sexually. In the case of an adult it is easy to say that there are prostitutes who can serve such services, but what about for someone who is only just entering the age of their sexual maturity - especially in boys, who constantly suffer from erections at the most inconvenient of times, where the only way to ease such stress would be to slip off somewhere & discretely relive the tension with a quick masturbation session, but in the case of someone who is too handicapped to manage this alone they would still be getting the same longings, but unable to do anything about it. In such an instance, what are the moral issues for an adult to masturbate them, such as by a parent, or a carer? Would it still be considered as Child Abuse to help them carry out an act that all their peers will already be doing when they cannot do it for themselves. If you were the parent of such a child, where would you stand on this if he were to ask you how he could masturbate? Although the question here is purely hypothetical, it must be a very real situation that many parents & handicapped teens have to face all the time, yet is something that never seems to mention.
