L'invention de l'assistance sexuelle : socio-histoire d'un probléme public français

Abstract

This thesis investigates the emergence of a public issue in France: sexual assistance to disabled people. The goal is to analyse the genesis and deployment of this new activity using interviews with supporters and opponents of sexual assistance services, observations during sexual assistance training sessions or conferences, and a corpus composed of archives, journals, specialised works, and grey literature. This work demonstrates that, far from being taboo, the question of "disability and sexuality" has been the subject of numerous discourses that condition the way the public problem of "sexual assistance" is posed today. After years of failure, the analysis allows us to look back at the invention of a French general problem related to sexuality issues. Only through constructing the legitimacy of action is this questioning possible. This thesis thus contributes to a better understanding of the political subjects of "disability" and "sexuality," as well as, more broadly, to a sociology of the relationship between "sexuality" and "work."

Pierre Brasseur, « Les assistantes sexuelles : des travailleuses du sexe ? » in Alexandra Oeser, Maud Simonet (dir.), Work3-Travail domestique, travail professionnel, travail politique, Presses universitaires de Nanterre, 2023, pp.91-100

“…L'expertise en sexualité est rarement revendiquée, et même souvent refusée 21 . Cette division de la socialisation à la sexualité est organisée différemment en fonction des contextes nationaux.…”