I get asked questions like Katie Price's about Harvey and prostitutes all the time – as a human rights expert, this is what I say

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox

Get our free View from Westminster email

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Sex. Disability. Human rights. Sex work. Any of those issues alone may create strong and often polarised reactions, and attitudes ranging from great reticence to discuss them to a desire to gossip. The combination of all four with a well-known person thrown into the mix makes for intense public debate – as we have seen with Katie Price this week, who mentioned on Loose Women that she might be open to the idea of considering hiring a prostitute for her profoundly disabled son Harvey on his 18th birthday.

From a legal perspective, how are we supposed to approach this thorny issue? The myths and misunderstandings about the overly complex mesh of legal regulations about sexual expression have led to a situation where many people are deprived of a basic human right without there being a deliberate policy, or even a legitimate reason, to do so. Some people with disabilities have been prevented from having any sexual expression at all, because wrong assumptions are made about an individual’s needs or the law.

Others have never had any sex education at all; indeed it is currently unlawful to give sex education to some adults because of their disabilities, which is a clear human rights violation.

Imagine what you would do if someone suddenly told you that you could never be alone with your partner again, or if you went through puberty but nobody had explained what was happening to your body. There are documented cases of both of those things happening to disabled people in Britain. An inclusive society needs to deal with all disability rights, not just accessibility and reasonable adjustments, and to remember that people who have disabilities are as diverse as those who do not.

One aspect of my work is speaking about disability, sex and human rights at conferences and training events, and there are some recurrent themes in the questions. I am often asked whether it is legal to arrange for a person with a disability to have some private time with a sex worker – the Loose Women conversation this week is hardly unique.

Depending on the specific facts, answering that question requires the knowledge and application of a few different laws. Among them are the separate criminal laws regulating sex work and criminalising non-consensual and consensual sex offences; mental capacity law; various types of equality law; human rights law; safeguarding law if anyone vulnerable is involved; human trafficking provisions; and international customary law.

I am also asked surprisingly often whether it is legal for a person with a disability to express themselves sexually. There is a lot of relevant law, and it has taken me nine years of academic publications and speeches so far to explore its strengths and deficiencies, but it is possible to find a straightforward, inclusive approach that balances rights against risks and does not discriminate on the basis of disability or any other prohibited ground.

If everyone involved in an act of sexual expression is adult, not a paid carer for another person involved, has not been found to lack mental capacity to make decisions about sex, consents freely and truly to the activity involved, can communicate about consent whether in words or otherwise, and is in a private place, then the activity is a human right and should be supported if necessary; what is happening is the business of the people involved.

Human rights law is clear that everyone should be allowed and supported to make as many decisions about their own lives as possible, including whether and how they wish to express themselves sexually, and whether that expression is linked to intimacy or reproduction (or both).

Everyone has the right to seek and maintain relationships of their chosen form, whether social or sexual, and everyone should be able to choose for themselves how much of their sex life they wish to be discussed in public.

So, the answer to that oft-asked question about hiring a prostitute for a disabled person is that it can be legal if all six of those factors exist, but that if any of them is missing then further guidance and advice is needed.

The answer to the second question about disabled people expressing themselves sexually is that every adult has the right to consensual sexual expression in private, alone or consensually with other adults. Any limitations placed on that right need very strong justifications, and the disability in itself does not negate that right. The same six factors apply, regardless of the type of disability.

Everyone has the right to friendship, fun of their chosen type, and a social life if they want them. People also have the right to be given education and information to support choices about the sexual expression they wish to have in their private lives, and when a disability makes it more difficult to make decisions, then every effort should be made to explain in accessible ways.

FPA and Brook offer accessible resources that can help explain sex and sexuality to people with varying disabilities

Claire de Than is co-director of the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University, London