to dump my BF for going with a prostitute...

[snailfiddler]

... 24 years ago.

On a lads holiday to Amsterdam.

cozietoesie
"Surely everybody has done things they regret and would never repeat?"

Yes - but I would never speak about them apart from, maybe, to myself in the dark of the night. On some nights.

Yes, honesty in relationships is so, like, over-rated.

Life is stark, pessary. How many of your (possible) misdeeds would you talk about to others now you've moved beyond them. And No. I'm not single.

If it's an event you've moved on from, OneMoreChap, it's surely not disnonest to simply not mention it?

I was not suggesting you were single, just AThing. I don't mention my past misdeeds because I have never made the mistake of being totally honest like this poor chap has. Poor bugger.

Sorry, coze, in this case I think it would be, if you're discussing sexual past.

As OP said
He told me because he wanted to be honest and we were discussing our sexual pasts.

DW knows that I slept with a prostitute. Admittedly, I didn't know she was an ex-prostitute when I started going out with her occasionally. I found out she'd been "on the game" a while later. TBF I suppose, that was closer to 40 years ago than 24, and was before 4 other GF and XW.

OneMoreChap

Sorry, also. Why would you discuss sexual past? Maybe I'm unusual but I've never discussed it with any new lover. Why should I ? They see me as I am on the day.

(Or night)

Shit happens. It's how you deal with it that counts.

Dump him OP. He probably deserves better than someone who's going to trot that old gem out every single argument later.

I suppose forgiveness as well as honesty is so over-rated too.

I bet your BF has been 'at it' since you first met him.I would dump him

cozietoesie Thu 29-Nov-12 16:28:26
Sorry, also. Why would you discuss sexual past? Maybe I'm unusual but I've never discussed it with any new lover.

Don't know why OP did it. I did it because DW asked me about my past. It's part of who I am, and I'm not ashamed of it (although I am/was a bit ashamed of how I behaved when I learned that nice girls liked bad men), although I counselled my kids to be a tad more selective.

Forgiveness, honesty, consent... all things people on this thread think are overrated.

I love that the message people hear is not that young men shouldn't assume their rapey pasts will be written off as youthful indiscretion in the future, but that they should trick women into having relationships with them by lying about the fact that they are erstwhile punters.

Women have every right and every reason to refuse to date prostitute users.

"By that token, everyone in paid employment is coerced then..."

Arguably they are if they need to work to feed themselves.

But when the coercion leads to sexual penetration, it's a slightly different argument.

AThingInYourLife Thu 29-Nov-12 16:50:14
assume their rapey pasts

is this predicated on the theory that no prostitute can ever consent?

I have no dog in that fight FWIW, as my GF wasn't being paid [by me or anyone else, AFAIK] when we were together.

It's predicated on the fact that no punter can ever be sure that the woman he's paying is doing it willingly.

So best they are indifferent to whether they are raping the woman they bought.

Now, that's an interesting thought.

How do you ever know if the consent you have from your partner is genuine, or just well acted... (out of fear, peer pressure, religion)

OneMoreChap - isn't that a bit like the dilemma famous people have, when they don't know if people are their friends because they like them, or because they are famous? You have to use judgement and trust. If someone paid people to be their friend, they wouldn't think they were real "friends", would they? You would think they'd be aware of the transaction? "I am paying you to act this way".

I dont know op. I have done some bad things in the past,things I would now consider to be immoral, but back then I did cross a line which I wouldn't now.
Why? I was young and thought It was all an adventure.i have changed beyond beleif.
Having said that, in my murky past i have had dealings with prostitution (not as a prostitute) and the experience a) shocked me as to the " normalness" of punters, as also opened my eyes to the bleakness if the industry. People have a totally naive view of prostitutes. I did. I dont now. If this man really gets why what he did was immoral and awful, and why it was, well maybe you can get past it.

"How do you ever know if the consent you have from your partner is genuine, or just well acted... (out of fear, peer pressure, religion)"

If your partner is afraid of you, you should know.

Agreeing to sex because of peer pressure or religious belief still counts as consenting to the act, in that you partner is not culpable.

What a punter can't know is whether they are committing a rape because the woman is afraid of someone else who is prostituting them.

As a feckless young lad of 18 I voted National Front in the 1979 general election.

I was ashamed of what I had done the moment I left the building.

I'd like to think that the way I have conducted my life since would show that I am not at all racist.

But I would be interested to hear if this would be a 'deal-breaker' for anyone here.

To be honest, if I felt a partner could not accept that mistakes and misjudgements had occured in the past, I would probably call it a day and let her search for either Mr. Perfect, or a liar who does not open up about his past.

Yeah, a history of voting for the NF would probably be a dealbreaker for me.

But this guy didn't just vote for the rapists' party. He took part in field trips.

Hardly a history! I did it once.

(Sorry, I told myself not to get too defensive)

I'll take a bet that - as a young man - this guy believedin the 'happy hooker' myth. What we really need to do is educate teenagers about the truth of the sex trade. How deeply is prostitution discussed at school?

My kids know about the evils of smoking, drinking, unwanted pregnancy and STIs but I wonder whether a teacher has ever educated them about the true cost of paying for sex.

You are like a dog with a bone aren't you AThing?!

Every man who has used a prostitute is now a rapist and you won't accept that some people DONT AGREE WITH YOU! I do not define someone by one thing they did many years ago and regret. If you do then thats fine but why do you have to try and convince the rest of us that we are wrong?!

Oh and "Rapey" ? Really?

Thanks for totally undermining the experience of those of us who have been genuinely raped.

I have been genuinely raped.

By a man with a cavalier attitude to consent.

Similar to the attitude of a man who is prepared to penetrate a woman when he can't possibly know if she consents, but thinks his money makes that OK.

Maybe he raped her. Maybe he didn't.

He didn't know then. He didn't care that he didn't know.

That puts him in the same moral position as the man who raped me.

Who (like so many rapists) would never accept that it was rape.