The mother who is helping her Down's son lose his virginity insists: He has just as much right to a love life as anyone else

Otto Baxter's mother Lucy has caused controversy by appealing for a woman who will help her Down's Syndrome son lose his virginity



Sipping a bitter shandy, Otto Baxter is describing to me his ideal girlfriend. He'd like her to be pretty, petite, with a good sense of humour to match his own. Someone like former pop star and Strictly Come Dancing contestant Rachel Stevens would do, he says. 'I want to meet a nice girl, I want to make love, I want to get married one day,' he grins, 'but I don't want any children. I can't be doing with getting up in the night and changing nappies.'

So, not very different from other 21-year-old, hot-blooded males. Only Otto has Down's syndrome and his public quest to find a lover - to be just like his friends - has stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy over the taboo subject of disability and sex.

This week, his adoptive mother Lucy Baxter, 51, was accused of being 'odd', 'irresponsible', 'creepy', and 'strange' after she revealed she was actively helping her son seek a partner, setting up a Bebo page for him on the net and researching dating agencies so Otto can 'enjoy the same experiences as other men his age'.

Her assertion that she would support him if he ever wanted to seek the services of a prostitute prompted an even more vitriolic response that she would be 'pimping' out her son rather than protecting a vulnerable young man. Some readers found the very thought 'disgusting'.

Far from being hurt, Lucy Baxter welcomes the debate her words have sparked, bringing the whole issue of Down's syndrome and sexuality into the open.

No matter how uncomfortable people feel about it, she says, young people with Down's have exactly the same emotions and desires as so-called 'normal' people, so why should they be deprived of a fully-rounded life?





As she points out, Otto - while unable to lead a completely independent life - is on the higher functioning scale of Down's syndrome, with no medical issues and better cognitive abilities than many, further enhanced by his education and upbringing.

'Only last Sunday, Otto came downstairs and said to me: "Mum, I really want a girlfriend,"' says Lucy, who works for the mental health charity Mencap and lives in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Lucy insists Otto is just the same as any other young man of his age so why should he be treated any differently



'It's not bravado, he just wants to be like everyone else. All his friends are slowly pairing off and his cousins now have girlfriends. He feels he's lagging behind.

'He's a romantic. He thinks he's James Bond half the time. Recently, he won two wine glasses in a raffle and he dreams of the day he can entwine arms with a girlfriend and drink from them over a candlelit dinner.

'And yes, just like other 21-year-old men, he's interested in sex. Why shouldn't I help him try to find a partner in the same way I've helped him make friends, educate him and write his CV to get a job? This is what he wants and I'm simply supporting him.

'If he is capable of forming long-lasting friendships with so-called normal people, I really can't see why he wouldn't be able to sustain a sexual relationship, too.

Otto has female friends but is yet to lose his virginity



'And although he says he doesn't want children now, I think that's because he's 21 and that's how most young men feel. But when he's 30 or 40, I think it would be wonderful.'

But to say she wouldn't mind him going to a prostitute? Most mothers would prefer to encourage their sons to form loving, respectful relationships with the opposite sex rather than pay for a soulless encounter.

'I would never pay for him to go to a prostitute, but if he wanted to pay himself to go to one, I wouldn't object. I think a lot of 21-year-old single men joke about going to Amsterdam and would consider paying a prostitute as a dare. The point I'm making is that Otto is no different from everyone else.

'I'm not appealing for women to come forward just so he can have sex - that would be tasteless. What I want for him is the same thing all mothers want for their sons.

'I think people feel so uncomfortable about the thought of someone with Down's having sex or getting married because they see herds of these young adults tramping down the street to go to some day centre, people who have been put in a box through fear and prejudice and deprived of cultural stimulation, education, challenges, expectations and, in some cases, love.

'Any child, regardless of whether they have Down's, brought up deprived of all those things would be incapable of sustaining a healthy relationship.

'But Otto hasn't been brought up like that. He's been to mainstream school, he's been educated, he's appeared as an actor in local stage productions, he's been on a mini-gap year to India, volunteering in a children's orphanage.

'In a few days time he'll be travelling to Las Vegas to promote himself as an actor. I want him to have a fullyrounded life, and having a girlfriend is part of that. Ideally, I'd like him to have a girlfriend without Down's because he needs someone as sophisticated and educated as he is.

Otto says he enjoys swimming and football on his internet blog but is also 'scared of sex with older ladies'



'He needs to be with someone he has something in common with and he won't find that with a girl who's spent her life in day-care centres.

'To expect him to marry another person with Down's is a bit like saying that all people with red hair should marry each other.

'I think that it is very sad, almost criminal, that some children with Down's are not encouraged to share our culture. A treat for them is going to McDonald's. We all have rites of passage in our lives; that special celebratory meal, the first weekend away with your boyfriend.

'But for most children with Down's, there will be a shandy and a tame party with their parents at 18 or 21 - and nothing else. It just stops there, which is so wrong.'

At the beginning of the last century the life expectancy of people with Down's was nine years, but today it is more than 50, and one in ten is expected to live to 70 years of age.

These days, it is widely accepted that having Down's syndrome does not protect against the hormonal maelstrom which usually accompanies adolescence.

Lecturer and author Dr Stephen Trumble believes people with disabilities are sexual beings and those with Down's syndrome are no exception. 'It is a grave injustice,' he writes, 'to hold a stereotype of people with Down's as "happy eternal children", as any parent will agree.

'Teenagers with Down's are subject to the same tempers, desires and emotions as anyone else, although they are often more frustrated in their expression.'

Lucy accepts that not all people with Down's are capable of, or desire, what Otto so clearly yearns for.

Yet one can't help but wonder if her crusade to give Otto a normal life and one day become a grandmother has made her dismiss valid concerns as prejudice. After all, although Otto has travelled widely, he does so in the company of a personal assistant and does need help and protection.

According to the scant research available, fertility is impaired in both sexes in the Down's syndrome population and only one man with Down's in the UK has been recorded as giving birth to a normal child.

Women with Down's are, according to one study, 50 per cent more likely to have a child with the same condition, and experts have expressed concern over the parenting abilities of such adults; they may be more likely to neglect their children through acts of omission, especially without familial and societal support.

Many parents and carers of Down's children are often alarmed by emerging sexuality, often rightly fearing that