I’m surprised that people can’t separate therapy and education from a marital relationship. It’s as if when you have sex, you have to be committed to that person, not just caring for them. It’s as if when you have sex with someone who isn’t your spouse, you’re going to run off with them and the marriage will be kaput.
It is clear that that is not what is going on in this story. The couple is there because they have problems with sex, and no amount of book learning is going to help. People need to learn how to feel comfortable with their bodies and with sex, and they are not getting this from their spouses. Their relationships have an element of misery as a result.
As long as both parties in the couple are comfortable with this, it seems to me to be appropriate. It’s not whoring. It’s not prostitution. Sex is something that needs to be learned just like anything else. Not everyone is a natural. Sometimes therapy of a hands-on nature is appropriate.
If people don’t understand how to be sexual champions on their own, does this mean we should doom them to lives of dissatisfaction? Sometimes there are things that can’t be taught in words. You have to show people. Do baseball coaches teach players using only words? Do dance instructors use only words? No. When it’s a physical activity, then a physical demonstration is crucial.
But prejudices about the privacy of this act make it seem somehow unethical to sell services that include sex. Or prejudices about what is moral and what isn’t. I think people are responding to this on a knee-jerk level, and not really seeing through their prejudices about the meaning of sex and love. Shouldn’t everyone have a chance to have sexual pleasure with their spouse? Is it so unreasonable to think that some people just can’t get comfortable with their bodies without therapeutic help? Why the cynicism?