Man with Down's Syndrome says he wants sex

Like many young men Otto Baxter likes chatting up women and going on dates. But unlike most, Mr Baxter, who has Down’s syndrome, has persuaded his mother to help him lose his virginity – even if it means paying for a prostitute.

Mr Baxter, of The Causeway, in Steventon, near Didcot, has been looking for a girlfriend for about three years, but his mother believes his condition is a barrier to finding love. The 21-year-old said: “I’m on a mission to find a girlfriend. My reason is I want to have sex. I’m looking for girlfriends everywhere.”

Mr Baxter, an actor who has appeared in productions of Macbeth and The Canterbury Tales and says his ideal woman is TV presenter Fearne Cotton, has met several potential girlfriends. He said: “There was Jackie, she was a sexy bird, she was gorgeous. She gave me four kisses. Then there was Sarah. We had a crazy snog together. It was a few months ago. I’m still waiting for her to call me back.”



His mother Lucy Baxter, 50, who adopted Mr Baxter when he was a baby, said: “He gets a snog or two, because he does have a way of chatting people up, but it doesn’t get anywhere after that. One girl’s parents didn’t want her to have a boyfriend.” Miss Baxter said she had taught her son that Down’s should be no barrier to doing what he wants and recently encouraged him to go backpacking in India and Japan.

She said: “I would like to see him with a girlfriend, absolutely definitely. I would prefer to see him with a girlfriend who doesn’t have Down’s. The rest of us wouldn’t necessarily fancy someone who is similar to us.” Miss Baxter, who has three other adopted sons with Down’s, has helped Mr Baxter put up posters looking for other young adults with Down’s in Oxfordshire.

She said: “I have brought Otto up to relate to everybody, not just a small group of disabled people, so he has always been to mainstream school and he has always mixed with everybody. He has the same expectations as everybody else. We did discuss whether he should go to Amsterdam. I would absolutely, definitely consider that. He wouldn’t be the only man who had ever visited a prostitute or a brothel – although that may be a few years away. If he doesn’t get a girlfriend, I will feel really bad, because I have sold him this thing that he is like everybody else. That’s why I’m working overtime to get this sorted for him.”