Jeff Gordinier from Details magazine writes about his Las Vegas road trip with the serene and restrained Bill McMullen, 28, and his virgin frat boy companion, Otto Baxter, 21, who is hoping to score.

The twist: Otto has Down syndrome, and Bill is his paid personal assistant.

My job,” Bill says, “is to help Otto live his life how he wants to live it.”

This is Otto’s first trip to America, but his story became widely known in the U.K. after his mother, Lucy Baxter, gained media attention “when she went public about a topic of great delicacy, telling reporters that she wanted her son to find a woman who would introduce him to the pleasures of sexual congress—and saying that she would go so far as to help him track one down.”

Lucy Baxter’s point is that her sons are free to make their own decisions; she says she has no intention of becoming Otto’s sexual procurer. “I think it would be fairly sordid to go to a brothel,” she says. “I wouldn’t be all that happy about it. But if that’s what Otto wanted to do, I would certainly not stop him. There is a big difference between what I would like and what Otto would like and what I believe Otto has the right to have. I’ve been speaking about the rights of disabled people—the fact that he has the right to choose—and I won’t stop him in what he decides.”

(Details magazine photo)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 8:06 am and is filed under Down syndrome, personal stories, sexuality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.