Sex Surrogates: A Clarification of

Sex surrogate therapy has become a growing practice since it was introduced as a highly effective therapeutic modality for single men by Masters and Johnson (1970). It remains today an area of controversy within the sexual sciences, with complex legal, moral, ethical, professional, and clinical implications. While the use of professional sex surrogates is ethically permissible as part of the sex therapist’s armamentarium according to the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (1978), adequate research has yet to be generated to settle the debate over its effectiveness and appropriateness. In addition, misconceptions about who the sex surrogates are and what they do are shared by both the public and professionals alike, resulting in flourishing misinformation and innuendo. The following percentages were estimated to be the amount of time spent on each activity:
16.41% talking with client, giving sexual information (range = 0-30%; mode = 10%; std. dev. = 7.150);
17.69% talking with client, giving reassurance and support (range = 5-40%; mode = 10%; std. dev. = 7.469);
1.31% observing client in social situations, such as potential singles meeting places (range = 0-10%; mode = 0%; std. dev. = 2.276);
32.10% touching activities, teaching sensuality and body awareness techniques, e.g., massage (range = 12-70%; mode = 25%; std. dev. = 14.274);
16.39% experiential activities, non-sensual, non-sexual, such as body image exercises, sexological exam, and relaxation exercises and techniques (range = 0-39%; mode = 10%; std. dev. = 8.670);
12.96% sexual activities, intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, teaching sexual techniques (range = 0-50%; mode = 5%; std. dev. = 10.377);
4.39% social activities, such as going out to dinner with client as part of therapy (range = 0-20%; mode = 5%; std. dev. = 4.644).

Of primary importance within this framework is a confusion between the roles of sex surrogates and those of prostitutes which exists because sex surrogate therapy has the potential for intimate sexual interaction and the surrogate is paid for her or his work. In addition, some authors have commented on the effect of media accounts of sex surrogates which have tended to focus on the bizarre, the sensational, and even the untrue (Braun, 1975; Lily, 1977; Roberts, 1981). What then do sex surrogates actually do in the course of treating a patient or client?

In approaching that question, the author hypothesized that sex surrogates provide more than sexual service to the clients with whom they work, that sex surrogates are more than what Roberts (1981) calls “an elitist type of prostitute . . . the most common misconception.” The distinctions commonly noted between the two usually rely on the intent of the sexual interaction: the prostitute’s intent being immediate gratification localized on genital pleasure; the surrogate’s intent being long-term therapeutic re-education and re-orientation of inadequate capabilities of functioning or relating sexually (Brown, 1981; Jacobs, et al., 1975; Roberts, 1981). Masters and Johnson (1970) say, “. . . so much more is needed and demanded from a substitute partner than effectiveness of purely physical sexual performance that to use prostitutes would have been at best clinically unsuccessful and at worst psychologically disastrous.”

“A surrogate is a member of the three-way therapeutic team (supervising therapist, client, surrogate) who acts as partner to a dysfunctional client in the therapy program and participates in experiential exercises involving sensual and sexual touching, as well as social and sexual skills training.” Others have described, either briefly or in part, typical surrogate sessions, :. Exercises are graduated and concentrate on body awareness, relaxation and sensual/sexual experiences that are primarily non-genital.” Where appropriate, the surrogate also teaches “vital social skills and traditional courtship patterns which finally include sexual interaction.” What none of these writers give us is a perspective of the relative amount of time or importance that each aspect of the surrogate therapy session or program places on the entire process. Such a perspective would give us a clearer understanding of the true functions of a sex surrogate, enabling us at some future time to place the whole and the parts of surrogate therapy into a useful theoretical perspective relative to clinical sexology as well as to normative sexual functioning.

Comments

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Deleted User 489828

08/22/11 01:45

I read this in on novel written by Irving Wallace

The book is titled CELESTIAL BED

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