As my friend’s approximately 20-year-old son, Cody, waits until the recurring brain tumors that have tormented his life kill him, he wants exactly one thing.

Were he dying as a boy, he might want a trip to Disney World or to meet his favorite ballplayer, but as a grown man, his dream is for a woman to have sex with him.
While the movement to legalize medical marijuana has gained traction in some states, nobody ever suggests legalizing medical prostitution.

Perhaps that’s because I just made up the term or maybe it’s because the therapeutic benefits of hookers are not quite as obvious as those of smoking some pot.

Still, whatever you feel about prostitution, you have to consider that there are certainly situations when sleeping with someone for money might actually be a public service.
Cody is essentially immobile and fairly difficult to transport so he has no prospects for having a relationship with a girl in a physical sense and the best he might hope for would be an Internet chat pal.

It’s hard to consider him wrong for wanting the experience what most of us (no matter how inept we were in high school) have had by the time we hit our 20s.

Since he has no charitable friends (or at least charitable in the Biblical sense) his only option would be paying for a professional.

Unfortunately, the “Make A Wish” folks won’t send you on a trip to Nevada or Amsterdam, even when your endless battle against your illness has left you developmentally delayed, semi-paralyzed, blind and wearing a diaper.

Of course, this young man’s family could round up some local “talent” to fulfill his wish, but that seems a little dangerous along with it being illegal.

This young man will never have a normal life and he has had precious little joy in his time on Earth despite his loving parents, brothers and family’s best efforts.

He has also lived with the knowledge that more tumors might grow at any minute or one of the weakened blood vessels in his brain might snap, killing him or giving him another stroke.

The first stroke left him unable to walk and a recent aneurysm took away his vision and some of his memory.

He may recover his memory and he may regain his vision, but likely sooner rather than later he will lose what has been a valiant struggle.

In recent years his main joys have been movies, toys and some of the saucier pleasures of the Internet. Those small bits of fun remain impossible for him since his aneurysm and though he continues to fight, he has precious little reason to want to continue the struggle.
In reality it may be too late for Cody as in his current condition sex would be unlikely if not impossible even if a willing partner or a legal prostitute were possible. Still, for his sake, why don’t we consider looking at all our laws and whether we need to make exceptions for humane reasons?

Medical prostitution makes sense and it might provide a little joy in the lives of people who have very little.

Of course, deciding who gets a prescription might be a challenge, but the potential good outweighs the obvious hurdles.

Daniel B. Kline can be reached at dan@notastep.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.