When Padma Deva meets a new client for work she does so not in an office or coffee bar but in the privacy of a hotel room.
The meeting typically lasts for two hours during which time the two of them are likely to undress, massage and caress one another. Sometimes they will have full sexual intercourse.
At the end of the encounter, the satisfied client will pay Padma for the service she has provided and the two will go their separate ways — until their next appointment.
But you would be wrong. Her clients include lawyers and doctors as well as students and builders. Some are married, others not. But all are suffering from issues such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation or crippling shyness. Her oldest client is aged 65 while the youngest is 25 — both men consulted Padma because they were virgins and felt unable to have any sort of sex life. Yet despite the veneer of clinical respectability, sexual surrogacy is a deeply controversial practice.
Critics, perhaps understandably, dismiss it as morally reprehensible, degrading and, at the very least, of dubious therapeutic benefit. Some have even questioned its legality, although there are no laws specifically prohibiting it.
