Below are items in the media regarding the work of Touching Base or similar issues related to disability and/or sexuality.

May 2013 Local

We have received awesome feedback and lots of incoming emails since Touching Base was mentioned twice on the same night on Australia mainstream TV, during Seniors Week in May. First in an ABC 730 Report and then about half an hour later in a SBS Insight program titled ‘Good Old Sex’

May 2013 International

Two new groups similar to Touching Base have also popped up recently around the world. In Vancouver, Canada a group called EASE (Equitable and Accessible Sexual Expression) launched their website at a Q&A after a screening of Scarlet Road. Here is a link to a CBC Radio broadcast interviewing members of EASE.

A new group called Paths Together has also formed in New Zealand. An interview with Rachel Wotton was broadcast on morning television in NZ during her visit there for other screenings of Scarlet Road at a film festival in Auckland.

2012

Sex for the Disabled – Taranaki Daily NZ - 9 November 2012
Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton has established a charitable organisation that matches sex workers with people with disabilities. New Zealand needs a formalised pimp service to help people with  disabilities get sex, not just for pleasure but also for their health,  those working in the disability and sex sector say. Male sex worker and activist Saul Isbister left New Zealand in the mid 1990s and headed to New South Wales where he helped establish Touching Base with his friend and colleague Rachel Wotton.

The Sexually Able Disabled – SMH – 9 November 2012
Written by Matty Silver, the Vice-President of Australian Society of Sex Educators, Researchers & Therapists NSW (ASSERT – NSW).

Scarlet Road – BBC Radio 4 – 12 June 2012
Rachel Wotton is an Australian sex worker, whose clients include people with disability. She is the subject of a documentary ‘Scarlet Road’ which is being screened at the Sheffield Documentary Festival this week.

Sex Workers on The Project – Channel 10 – 7 June 2012 Rachel Wotton and Christian Vega talking about sex work on national prime time TV.  Special appearance by Janelle Fawkes, CEO of the Scarlet Alliance, the National Association of Australian Sex Workers www.scarletalliance.org.au

Modern dilemmas – disability and sex – Life Matters ABC Radi0 – 4 June 2012 A Life Matters listener has emailed this dilemma: My 24 year old son has Down syndrome and the issue is one I haven’t heard anyone talk about. It is regarding adults with moderate intellectual disabilities and sexuality. Most live without the pleasures of sex that the rest of us take for granted. It is not lack of desire, but an inability to adequately communicate their needs and a lack of access to partners. How do parents and carers know what the person with an intellectual disability wants and even if they do know, what do they do about it? How do they facilitate personal interactions between their young adult and another person?