Am I over reacting? Would this be a deal breaker for you?

[Ironhelpsusplay]

I think men that pay women for sex are disgusting and I've always said it would be a deal breaker for me if someone I was dating had ever done so in the past.

I would never flat out ask someone I was dating this just in case I got the answer I didn't want.

New dp and I have been dating 4 months, we were chatting this morning. He is very honest and open and he just casually mentioned about 5 years back on a lads holiday in Amsterdam they were egging him on to sleep with a prostitute, he didn't want to sleep with her but let her give him a handjob, his friends paid.

Instantly felt a bit sick and was a bit cold towards him, he said he was young and regrets. He went home in the end, was a bit awkward.

If he slept with a prostitute with his own money and without the peer pressure from his mates, if he made that decision to do it it would be a flat out I don't want to date you any more, but I guess this is a bit different isn't it? Is it?

Tell me if I'm over reacting! Need some opinions.

Would this be a deal breaker for you?

It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, if it was something that happened a good few years ago and they regretted it.

It's a bit odd that he just told you out the blue though, how does that even come up in random conversation?! Though tbh if you feel so strongly about this issue then maybe you should have asked him outright anyway?

It wouldn’t bother me, different story if he was doing it now, obviously.

Why?
Let's just say I have known some and they were quite savvy, made money for house deposit, car etc. Then gave it up and got married.
They didn't pay tax though like the ones mentioned above, it was strictly cash in hand.

Please I don't want to say any more about that.

“Please I don't want to say any more about that.“

Don’t talk bollocks if you’re not prepared to back it up.

You can’t buy consent

Of course you can, at least mine can. Do I wanna fuck you for nothing? No. Do I wanna fuck for money? Sure. But then I bargain sex even in a relationship - you want oral? I'm down, but only if I get (insert what I want).

Consent is given freely and willingly, not traded.

A person can choose to have sex/perform a sex act in exchange for something money/a favour/a home/whatever but that isn’t consent, it’s an agreement.

Knowing that there are women who are trafficked/coerced/forced/have no other option than to work as a prostitute means it’s deal breaker for me because you don’t know if the woman is there because she’s happy to exchange sex for money, because she needs to feed her kids, is desperate for money for drugs, is under threat from her boyfriend or pimp. It doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker for everyone. Everyone has their own boundaries and standards, that’s what makes us human, we are all different.

And sex workers or people who visit them are not disgusting.

No one said sex workers are disgusting. I do however think it is disgusting to pay for sex, because in a huge amount of cases you will be exploiting someone who is not there of their own free will. Even in Europe, monitoring groups estimate that up to 95 percent of prostitutes are sex trafficked. And you probably wouldn't know, because they don't have someone standing there with a gun to their head, that all takes place behind the scenes. It's a little naive to think that every victim of sex trafficking is chained to a bed, most are forced to pay off debts or made addicted to drugs or are threatened with harm to their families at home or even witchcraft, in the case of many Nigerian women being trafficked particularly to Spain and Italy.

Regulation a la Germany where it is legalised on both sides has not worked, it has normalized it and women still aren't protected. The Swedish model where sex workers are not committing offenses but clients are has been much more successful.

Going back to OP's problem, it's a tricky one, I would hate it too, I did have an ex who had used prostitutes and I did hate it then, and in fact it did turn out to be indicative of his attitude towards women and sex in general. This does sound like a one off, and regretted. How did this come up? I'm just wondering why he told you/ the context.

“Sex workers or people who visit them are not disgusting” Sex workers aren’t but their visitors are. I couldn’t have respect for a man who paid for sex whether that was full sex or a hand job. I’ve been to the red light in Amsterdam, no the sex workers are not models (how odd) and many of them are barely 18.
An ex came back from a weekend in Amsterdam. He thought it was ok to tell me he’d been to a peep show. He sat behind a curtain and was shown women exposing their breasts and vaginas when he put money in a meter 😳🤢
I never touched him again

People do realise that not all prostitutes are women, right?

“People do realise that not all prostitutes are women, right?”

They aren’t. But the overwhelming majority of punters are.

People do realise that not all prostitutes are women, right?”

What has that to do with this thread ?

@Bluerussian -could you provide evidence for the statement “but a lot [of prostitutes] are quite independent and know what they are doing” please?

Done some research for you!

There have been a couple of larger-scale studies in the Netherlands suggesting about 8-10% of those working in prostitution were being forced or coerced (or initially were forced or coerced). One of them, "Amsterdam Prostitution Monitor" interviewed 94 women working in Red Light District in 2010. A Dutch government report from 2006 with a similar methodology that was made to evaluate changes in sex work laws suggested a similar number (around 8%) after interviewing 354 prostitutes. You can find an English summary of the report here:

www.wodc.nl/binaries/1204b-summary_tcm28-68248.pdf

Research on human trafficking in the Netherlands estimates a little under 1,500 victims among the 20,000 working prostitutes (Dutch rapporteur www.dutchrapporteur.nl/). All the percentages seem fairly consistent.

(One of my starting points for the research was an article called "Legal Prostitution: The German and Dutch Models" by Ronald Weitzer, but not sure if you have access)

Mind you, this is the situation in the Netherlands (but that's the relevant one here because of where OP's partner was), and percentages of 8-10% are still horrific enough that they should be taken very seriously. It's just that a lot of government policy completely ignores that sex workers are people capable of making rational choices and articulating their needs. Sex workers experience the default of them as brainwashed, coerced victims as very unhelpful. If you'd like to know more about this, I suggest having a look or even contacting the English Collective of Prostitutes (prostitutescollective.net/) or the Dutch sex workers union (PROUD) or you could read / skim Verhoeven's dissertation on the subject which is a bit more neutral:

www.wodc.nl/binaries/Verhoeven_dissertation_fulltext_tcm28-255127.pdf

Personally I am not sure what to think. Blindly decriminalising sex work seems a bad idea considering everything that happens in the industry, but sex workers themselves think it is the safest way forward. I see no problem with buying sex and intimacy in principle, but I do find it problematic in the context of our patriarchal and unequal society. Every sex worker I know - and I know a fair few considering I am not in the industry - opposes the Swedish model, but the sex workers I know are privileged, educated and white, so there is undoubtedly some bias there. Still, what we can get from all this research is that there are still a substantial number of sex workers out there that made as informed and conscious a choice to do this job than most other jobs. We'd be wrong to sideline them completely.

Well I can't stand weakness and immaturity so, the fact that he reckoned he did this due to peer pressure, would make me reconsider whether I wanted to be someone so weak-willed.

What happens in the future if he is under pressure from his peers to join in paying for prostitutes on a lads' holiday? Does he give in and blame it on them?

I would ditch him as I'd prefer to be in a relationship with a responsible adult rather than someone so easily led astray.

but a lot are quite independent and know what they are doing.

Is that so?

Did you read my post, @Eaudear?

@carefulfox

"There are certainly sex workers on Mumsnet! Calling them or their clients disgusting is not right. I respect the OP's feeling that she, personaly, finds a past history like this unaccaptable"
You clearly don't respect the OP's feelings about this. If she feels disgusted then she is perfectly entitled to call them disgusting. They are disgusting to her. It is her opinion and she is as entitled to it as you are to yours. She obviously can only speak for how she feels.

Don't minimise her opinion just because you and your partner have both been happy to pay for sex so clearly don't feel the same way as the OP.

I am generalising, but it would be a safe bet to think a lads trip to Amsterdam wouldn't be about visiting the Anne Frank house and looking at the tulips. Weed and women would be the primary factor, imo.

I don't think peer pressure is a good excuse. But, in all honesty, I think it less of an evil than a lone saddo trawling the streets.

I've been with DH for 34 years, we don't play games with each other, never have and honesty is key. I've been lucky, he's a decent man. But total honesty, even ugly honesty, is preferable to being lied to. If I were you, I could work with this - he put his cards out on the table for you to see. Personally, I'd rather know, but I'm not you and that's ok.

Also, if your relationship is a good one in all other areas and you are happy, I'd rather know now than in 5 years time.

The comment about not all prostitutes being women was in the context of (many) people's coments about the commodification/exploitation etc of women specifically

Honestly I think it's worse that he did this under pressure.

Surely it's less of an issue if this was something he did at a difficult time in his life, no relationship etc than to do it as a jolly with his mates. That's worse all round.

@carefulfox You are saying -untruthfully - that posters have called sex workers are disgusting. You are talking about the commodification of men. What is your agenda?

It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.

If you are going to date men, your standards can't be too high. Not all of them have had a hand job in Amsterdam, but they've pretty much all had some/many sexual experiences in which they treated the women like shit, acted like a misogynist, watched a million hours of porn, etc.

Cue 100 posters saying oh no my DH has never watched porn in his life, he only gets aroused when he sees a glimpse of my ankle. And to that I say get a clue!

Something five years before we met nope wouldnt bother me-well unless it was rape/murder of course but a hand job no

actually there is a world of difference betwen trapped women in a brothel and a businesswoman who decides to make an extremely lucrative living by offering a service

We have to move away from the idea that prostitutes are always fragile, vulnerable people. We know some are - at the mercy of pimps and take drugs, etc, but a lot are quite independent and know what they are doing

Whilst a punter obviously knows whether they are visiting a brothel or a private address, they have NO IDEA whether the prostitute in question is independent, or trapped or vulnerable. Some PP are missing the point entirely. Whilst it may be true that some sex workers are happy and in control, many (most) are not. And there is no way to tell the difference. So it's actually irrelevant that some of them might be happy, isn't it? Because any punter paying for sex might very well be paying to rape someone. They cannot possibly guarantee otherwise.

Deal breaker for me.

I actually asked a longterm boyfriend of mine if he’d ever seen a prostitute and his answer was yes. It irrevocably altered my opinion of him and while we stayed together for a bit longer it was always at the back of mind.

I just can’t get past the idea that a man knows this woman doesn’t want to have sex with him (hence the payment) but he does it anyway. It’s so vile and callous.

No agenda other than pointing out that alternative views to some other views on here do exist. The OP did use the word disgusting. And lots of people have been describing themselves as averse to sex work/ers on the grounds of it being ill-treatment of women. I was just noting that this can and does happen to men too.