“People need to feel they can pleasure somebody else and that they can get pleasure from somebody else,” says Aloni, who has a doctorate in sexual rehabilitation.

To aid her cause, she hires surrogate partners to help teach some of her clients how to have intimate relationships, and ultimately, how to have sex.

“Sex therapy is, in many ways, couple therapy and if somebody doesn’t have a partner then you cannot complete the process,” she goes on. “The surrogate – she or he – they’re there to model the partner role in a couple.”

She has gained massive respect in her country since starting in the 1980s, winning the approval of leading rabbis, and over time the Israeli authorities, too.

I mean, they’re even paying her now.

Both Aloni and Mr A argue that critics likening this situation to prostitution are limited by Western biases and conservatism:

“People are coming for therapy. They’re not coming for pleasure. There is nothing similar to prostitution,” she adds firmly.

“Also, 85% of the sessions are [about] intimacy, touching, giving and receiving, communicating – it’s about learning to be a person and how you relate to other people. By the time you have a sexual relationship, that’s the end of the process.”

Here’s more of what she says about modern society’s unhealthy relationship with sexuality:

“We know how to joke about sexuality. We know how to humiliate people, we know to be very conservative or too extreme about sexuality,” she says.

“It’s never really balanced. It’s never weaved into our life in the way it’s supposed to be, and sexuality – it’s life. This is how we bring life. It’s nature!”

If you’re interested, there’s more about what Aloni does with other patients and surrogates here.

[source:bbc]