J Med Ethics. 2018 Apr;44(4):253-256. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2017-104411. Epub 2017 Nov 3.
In response to three papers about sex and disability published in this journal, I offer a critique of existing arguments and a suggestion about how the debate should be reframed going forward. Jacob M. Appel argues that disabled individuals have a right to sex and should receive a special exemption to the general prohibition of prostitution. Ezio Di Nucci and Frej Klem Thomsen separately argue contra Appel that an appeal to sex rights cannot justify such an exemption. I argue that Appel's argument fails, but not (solely) for the reasons Di Nucci and Thomsen propose, as they have missed the most pressing objection to Appel's argument: Appel falsely presumes that we never have good reasons to restrict someone's sexual liberty rights. More importantly, there is a major flaw in the way that all three authors frame their positive accounts. They focus on disability as a proxy for sexual exclusion, when these categories should be pulled apart: some are sexually excluded who are not disabled, while some who are disabled are not sexually excluded. I conclude that it would be less socially harmful and more productive to focus directly on sexual exclusion per se rather than on disability as a proxy for sexual exclusion.
针对本期刊登的三篇关于性与残疾的论文，我对现有论点提出批评，并就今后如何重新构建这场辩论提出建议。雅各布·M·阿佩尔认为，残疾人有权进行性行为，他们应该获得一般禁止卖淫规定的特殊豁免。埃齐奥·迪努奇和弗雷杰·克莱姆·托姆森分别反对阿佩尔的观点，认为诉诸性权利不能为这种豁免提供正当理由。我认为，阿佩尔的论点是站不住脚的，但并不是因为迪努奇和托姆森所提出的原因，因为他们忽略了对阿佩尔论点最紧迫的反对意见：阿佩尔错误地假定我们永远没有充分的理由限制某人的性自由权利。更重要的是，所有三位作者构建其正面论述的方式都存在一个重大缺陷。他们将残疾作为性排斥的替代指标，而这些类别应该分开：有些人虽然残疾但并未被排斥在性活动之外，而有些人虽然未残疾却被排斥在性活动之外。我得出的结论是，直接关注性排斥本身，而不是将残疾作为性排斥的替代指标，对社会的危害会更小，也更有成效。
