

The main service provided by volunteers at Hand Angels, a Taiwanese NGO, is giving handjobs to the severely disabled. The organization, which works to promote the sexual rights of disabled people, was founded by a man named Vincent who lost his leg to polio and says he empathizes with the disabled patients who apply. He stressed that “disabled people share the same physical and emotional needs as any others, and therefore should have the right to pursue them.”

VICE reports:

In order to decide who’s entitled to use their services, Hand Angel first assess an applicant’s level of disability. The person has to be recognized by the government as having a serious physical impairment, but can’t be mentally disabled. Once they’re cleared, the service is totally free, but each applicant can only receive three bouts of sexual stimulation. Volunteers—the group of 10 people actually giving the handjobs—come from varied backgrounds; some are gay, some are straight, some are disabled, some are PhD students, some are social campaigners and some work in the media. It’s made very clear to me that these volunteers only use their hands for second-base kind of stuff—that hugging, caressing, and kissing on the face are all fine, but anything penetrative (fingering, oral sex, vaginal sex, and anal sex) is not.

One muscular dystrophy patient named Andy who was quoted in the report said that, despite the controversy and negativity surrounding the service, he didn’t feel that using it made him the “target of pity”, adding that the “whole process was full of respect and equality”.

Similar services are offered by a Japanese nonprofit organization called White Hands, which likewise deals with disability and sexuality. Watch a Vice Japan video report about it here (somewhat explicit):



* Be sure to turn on the captions in the Youtube video.