Why do men use prostitutes?

Hi @londonista

Yep, I'm in a very happy relationship now. I always knew I'd break away from me ex, but it took me a very long time to do.

The plus for me, apart from getting shot of him, was that I knew exactly what I would and wouldn't put up with in my next relationship. I would have happily stayed single rather than making that mistake again.

Thanks @chuff, me too!

I agree that public disapproval matters to these men. I'm wondering whether when blokes are together whether it's something that's ever discussed or if it's seen as a 'dirty secret'?

Then why hatred - that's a very strong word. I can see some men not having any respect for prostitutes, but hatred, really ?

Oh, it is not really hatred, as to truly hate someone, you must consider them human and have some respect for them, in the first place.

They just see women as objects. That's actually worse than hate.

People who eat meat don't hate animals. Not even people who buy the liver of geese that were tortured to death for the exact purpose to make their liver taste better hate animals.
They just consider them objects.

So, yeah, it is not hate, you are right about that. It is something much worse than hate.

We just usually don't bother differentiating between "hate" and "consider an object" because the effects are about the same, so in the end, it doesn't really matter.

That's awful chuff. I'm so glad he's your ex now.

Interesting how he went out of town though. Public disapproval is obviously something that does matter to these men. Which means they know full well how prostitution is viewed by most people.

I'm glad you're out of it.

How hard for you Chuff.
Are you in a relationship now, out of interest?

Sorry, I haven't read the whole thread but just wanted to chip in.

My EXH slept with prostitutes over the course of our marriage. The first one I knew about was 6 weeks before our marriage. His reason - one last fling!

Didn't stop him though, he continued to do it. Doesn't hate women, supposedly didn't hate me, but all the excuses came out of me not wanting sex enough, him feeling depressed, I was away etc etc. He'd never go to a local one though, always one 20 or 30 miles away, maybe through fear of being seen???

He slept with one prostitute the day after we split up. Wasn't my business but he'd had the cheek to use my iPad and Sat Nav! I'd stripped the bed after I found out and he asked me why as I'd only changed them two days before. I told him I knew and that I thought it was disgusting and that I wasn't going to sleep in a bed with the scent of the woman he'd slept with. (He didn't shower when he came home after doing the deed). His response, a honest one, was, I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed it.

I'm not sure it's relevant but his dad cheated on his mum.

From my perspective EXH saw/sees women as objects and it's the act and never the emotion behind it. It's a fantasy, release, easy lay etc without any strings attached. He was also an avid porn watching and often the perverse kind.

Very well.

I will really leave it here now then for sure.

But other than people on here, no one will buy the "in that survey some men admit to hating women so now all men hate women" or "i have seen it all so i don't need to hear what you have to say". Those are argument styles that will not be respected, be it about feminism or any other topic.

Well, MrGHardy, we shall have to agree to disagree.

Same way, lesser scale due to lesser demand. (Maybe you should look into the plight of for example trafficked young boys, particularly in the US).

And we are back to the issue, is that demand coming from "men hate women". And all I am saying is that no, most demand is not stemming from that. Certainly not all, like some people's posts on here suggest.

Many men do hate women though. Misogyny isn't rare. It's something that many women encounter quite regularly.

Feminism is about women. About what happens to women. Not what happens to men.

You can equate misogyny to all sorts of things, like sweatshops, but misogyny is a specifically feminist issue.

Meanwhile I will still campaign to have UK prostitution placed firmly in the Nordic model and criminalise punters.

Especially as the article confirmed that public opprobrium is an effective deterrent.

It IS a male/female issue. It is overwhelmingly women that are exploited into prostitution, it is women that are in danger. It is women that are trafficked and sold for sex.

You can't seriously suggest that men are exploited in the same way.

Whether or not women have reason to be upset should have no bearing on the veracity of their logical arguments.

I appreciate your advice and mostly agree with it, but I do want to point that multiple other users managed to engage and put forward good points and put thought (i.e. effort) into their replies. What makes this particular user special? Moreover I don't believe I was particularly hostile, I questioned two lines of thought ("men hate women" and "it is a male on female issue"). If she is 100% convinced they are right, fine, she does not have to comment, but snarky side comments and blanket stereotypical accusations are really not necessary, are they?

That article is yuk, I want to say shocking but it's not, really.. it's fairly biased though. 'Darren' is awful- "if she gets pleasure he'll feel cheated" 🤢ugh🤢ugh🤢ugh.. but.. they will have picked the most extreme and emotive quotes from just 100 interviews. The whole survey is only around 700, from 6 countries, which must be such a tiny percentage of the total, and there's no hint of how they got their participants or anything like that to put it into perspective..

Surely not every man who pays for sex wants to exploit or abuse the woman, and particularly I think it's unfair to say they hate women. I suspect some haven't time to maintain a relationship but seek some kind of intimacy, of course none of it is 'real' but as long as it is consensual (which it should be, because money changes hands for time spent not services offered?) how is playing out a fantasy so offensive? People like to escape from the stress and banality of reality sometimes, whether that's through alcohol/drug use or gaming or reading or social media or whatever.. admittedly some escapes are healthier than others.
Some men want to pay to be abused in various different ways, or like the first example in the article they hope for something more meaningful than just the transaction, surely then they are more exploited by it than the woman?
What about the men who have a strange fetish that they're too embarrassed to share in their real life but need a way to explore it?
Of course, it should go without saying; as long as nobody is hurt in the process. I can't imagine those people would be very keen to volunteer for a survey?

Obviously I agree that trafficking is obscene and anybody who specifically chooses an escort because they think she is in such a situation is beyond abhorrent but I do think this paints a very grim picture of a certain side of the industry which shouldn't be tolerated. I don't, however, think there's anything wrong with adults agreeing to sex for money.. but it's always complicated and perhaps I'm being naïve 🤗

I think you objesticles are not as evenly balanced as you might think. I've been posting here for many years, am a man and I don't identify as a feminist nor sycophantically suck up to women just because, and I don't feel not listened to here. In fact in the past I have felt a fair few women here have been supportive and fair minded.

Your first mistake is engaging with an axe to grind. Dealing with misogyny on a daily basis must be one hell of a grind. Posting without some cognizance of that is an error, and no reading a few comments analyzing men as a class (as that's what's going on here, this isn't a personal attack on me or you), isn't the same as the day to day shit a lot of women have to wade through. It's a false equivalence both you and I can put our smartphones down, or turn of our computers and walk out into a world more molded to our preferences.

When you come in just read the room a little first!

My argument never was "women have it elsewhere much worse". But I guess actually reading what evil men have to write is out of the question for you.

If you think I compared women to handbags (rather than the poor humans who have to make them) you have just admitted to not reading all my comments and not understood the ones you did read.

No wonder you know what men on here will write, if you actually never bother reading them properly but stick to your preset view of them

And then you have the audacity to accuse me of that very thing you do, not fully reading posts / ignoring stuff I don't like. That is probably the lowest form of debate you can have. You know who is awesome at that? The Donald.

Knowing what forms of whataboutery are likely to come up on perennial threads does help to weed out who's posts are worth reading, yes. Yours was just a rehash of the "women elsewhere have it much worse" thing, reasonably original, but nothing out of the common way. You still fell back on comparing women to handbags and shoes and to suggesting that prostituted women are different to "real" women, which is common enough as well.

I am sure you have. The "I have seen it all, I already know you" is a great attitude, isn't it?

No, it's all the same debate, you're merely choosing which bits you find most convenient to your points. It's cool, we've had lots of men like you commenting on threads like this over the years.

Xenophile I am not, there are simply a lot of different debates going on and I may overlook some. Which one(s) in particular did you have in mind?

Dervel Yes, I agree, misogyny would be far more appropriate (not that that makes it any "better", just more accurate). And yes, I always try to avoid using the word bitch for that very reason, it's really a highly sexist term.

Datun Are you extrapolating the forum posts of some men to all men who use prostitutes? I can equally tell my knowledge about this, here in Switzerland there is an extensive sex industry and such forums exist, too, and on those the men generally are the opposite. In fact, earlier it was that prostitution "takes away the female orgasms, it's all about men", where for them often the key criteria for recommending a girl is whether or not she enjoys her job (whether or not she actually does is irrelevant to the argument, they want to believe she does, which counters the point that they don't care or even want to degrade them).

I never said men like you describe don't exist (or worse, remember that Reddit about rapists and the chilling accounts of them), just that the blanket statement "because they hate men" is not true and doesn't help much in this debate. Anyway, I think I will leave it at that.

MrGHardy, I know you're studiously avoiding comments you don't like, but google the invisible men project and have a little look at what men think about the women they pay to rape. You may already be aware of p*nternet which is where the quotes come from, but it's an eye opener seeing women rated, like meat.

Btw the objectification of young women is just as bad as ever isn't it - did anyone see today's article about some casual "upskirting" at a festival that the victim decided to stand up to?

The attitudes of some people to it (ie you were wearing underwear whats the big deal, and boys will be boys etc) is shocking.

My husband recently tried to prepare me for just how sexually charged the life of a teenage / young adult male is. Being taught how to balance these dawning and often overwhelming physical feelings needs to be an essential part of every boy's upbringing.

For example, we discussed differences between a casual fuck and masturbation, of it's all about a physical release, and he explained how consumed he was as a teenager by the female form, every aspect of it - not just genitalia.

It was an eye opening, very frank discussion. Lots of work to do to make sure my boys understand consent and to not let their desires overtake common sense and consideration - i.e. not "going along with things" that they know to be morally wrong. And paying £10 for a BJ from a drug addict is morally wrong, there's no 2 ways about it.

I think you falling into the trap of not calling things by their proper names. Use the word misogyny rather than hate as it encompasses a spectrum of behavior which whilst it may include hate, it also can include but not limited to contempt, disrespect and many other things.

You would also have to include other behavior like whipping off condoms, pushing boundaries and a myriad of other behaviors prostitutes have to contend with. It's also worth pointing out that data relating to prostitution is invariably going to be incomplete, as it's a taboo activity.

What we can define as fact is the societal place we position these women. The language surrounding prostitues is synonymous with insults and degradation. Whore is an insult of which I'm struggling to find a male equivalent for.

the men don't see the woman being exploited, they see her how she wants them to see her.

Of course they know they are exploiting her. It's often part of the arousal. Seriously, go onto the websites. They freely admit, in the link, that they suspect the girls have been trafficked. These men get caught up in such a mindset that they look at women everywhere as potential prostitutes. They rate supermarket checkout girls based on what they might be able to do to her in a transactional situation. Grannies, mothers, everyone.

They absolutely hate them. It's indisputable.

The fact that a small number of men might get caught up in that hate, is not the purpose of feminism.

Nevertheless, statistically male prostitutes are at a lower risk of violence than female.

Prostitution is aided and abetted by the cultural and media lead objectification of women. Which includes giving men the sense of entitlement needed to access prostitution.

And yes, disrespect and indifference can quickly turn to hate. Usually as the result of a minor push back.

I don't know why you don't know that.