Sex odyssey for disabled now a big screen hit

Asta Philpot admits having been with a prostitute, and now campaigns for sex rights for the disabled, writes Deirdre Reynolds

MOST men would never confess to using a prostitute.

Thirty-one year-old Asta Philpot doesn’t just openly admit to paying for sex — his ‘secret’ has just hit big screens around the world.

Born with the congenital joint condition Arthrogryposis, in 2006, Leeds native Asta — who is confined to a wheelchair — visited a legal brothel in Spain to lose his virginity.

Now his story, originally the subject of a BBC documentary, has been turned into a movie, Come As You Are, which opens at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork this Sunday night.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” says disability rights advocate Asta, who’s set to attend the event. “We started making the film in 2007 and it was first released in Belgium. Then it got released in loads of different countries across Europe.

“It just keeps going and going — so far, we’ve won 33 awards for the film. We haven’t had one bad reaction yet.”

Dubbed The Inbetweeners meets The Sessions, the Flemish-language film tells the tale of three twenty-something men with disabilities who embark on a road trip to Spain in a bid to have their first sexual experience.

For Asta, who is executive producer and disability consultant on the film, it was the death of a school pal that prompted his own life-changing voyage.

“At school, one of my best friends had muscular dystrophy,” recalls Asta, whose dad is from Cork. “Like all teenage boys, we used to talk about getting together with girls and eventually having sex. After school, we stayed in touch, but one day I found out he had passed away without ever having an experience like that.

“I said to my parents: ‘I don’t want anything like this to happen again’.

“Everyone deserves that human intimacy with someone else in their lives. So that’s the kind of mission I’ve been on from then until now.”

Today, Asta campaigns for the right of disabled people to a fulfilling sex life — even if it means paying for it.

“A lot of people have this perception that people with disabilities don’t have sex or intimacy with anyone,” he says, which is ridiculous. “If you put sex together with disability, it’s always going to be a bit taboo.

“For me, it’s really important for people to start talking about these issues that people with disabilities have, because we’ve a tendency to just sweep them under the rug.

“Come As You Are has certainly gone a long way in doing that, as well as the Paralympics last year.

“I think people appreciate [Come As You Are] because it’s a feelgood movie.

“[Actress] Lydia [Rose Bewley] from The Inbetweeners [movie] was at the London premiere recently, and absolutely loved it.”

But Asta admits that not everyone is enamoured with the idea of legalising prostitutes for disabled people.

“Whenever anyone mentions the ‘p’ word, it’s always really bad,” says Asta, who’s currently in a relationship. “But let’s just get one thing straight — I am not the kind of person who goes out and abuses women. Some of my best friends are escorts.

“My girlfriend has no problem with the fact that I had sex with a prostitute because she sees it as something that I had to do at that point. I’m not doing it now.”

With a Hollywood remake of the movie already in the works, Asta insists he has “no regrets”, either about losing his virginity to a sex worker, or speaking so openly about it since. “It gave me great confidence,” he says.

“It is a bit weird seeing my story on the big screen,” laughs Asta.

“It’s being remade in English in Hollywood and I’m involved with that as well, so it’s sort of the continuation of amazing things really.”

- Come As You Are is in cinemas now and at Triskel Arts Centre Cork from Sun 30 Jun - Wed 3 Jul.