Prostitutes and the past

[cringe]

Did any of your husbands/partners/ sleep with a prostitute before they met you? How do you feel about it? Does it put you off them? Or is it rare? Its making me wonder if he is a sweaty old desperate pervert. Help.

no, it wasn't as posh as that one

And a further post script on prostitution (sorry if this has been mentioned earlier, have only skim read), many 1000's of women (from Eastern Europe / Africa/ Thailand) are lured to the UK every year under the promise of well paid work. Then they are forcibly held captive and coerced into prostitution. Men going to prostitutes are fuelling this sexual slavery.

I wouldn't necessarily condemn a man outright for visiting a prostitute, I just wouldn't want to live with him.

Interesting about whether it's as exploitative the other way round. Depends on the circumstances, but I think men who become gigolos are in general not doing it because they were once vulnerable teenagers (mostly brought up in care) who were drawn into it by a pimp who they thought was a boyfriend, who deliberately fed them illegal addictive drugs so that they would become dependent on them, and are not then controlled by that pimp. They're also not likely to be beaten up by their clients or forced to do things in bed with them that they really don't want to do. But I agree with those who said there's no shortage of men generous enough with their penises to make paying for it seem rather an odd thing to do for most women. Although those who do doubtless have their own reasons, which I?m sure will be explained on a future Mumsnet thread!

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hmmmm, interesting expression - ' a man's right' to do this. As far as I am concerned the real crux of the issue here is all tied up with what men do and do not perceive as their ' right' , and the right to have sex available whenever and however they want it is more and more the current line of thinking. Hence there is an ever growing supply of internet porn, child porn and prostitution, sex trafficking etc etc. Because basically the idea is that if a man wants sex, whether cyber, real or whatever, he has a ' right ' to it. Oh yes, and as long as he has a few quid......( in most cases).Therefore women are increasingly regarded as sex commodities which exist to fulfil these ' rights'. Or indeed children . Some posters here see no link whatever between the so called autonomous whore selling her arse up York Way and the 10 year old child in Cambodia being pimped to people like Gary Glitter by some bastard with a fat wallet. Well actually the link is there and staring us in the face - it's our ATTITUDE . So the ' nice husband' who visits York Way and pays however much to that autonomous whore is in fact propping up, tacitly, that pimp in Cambodia. I'm i agreement with the poster who said if a man os really deperate why not just masturbate? why force that deperation onto someone else? and to women who are happy to let their partners pay for sex.....what can I say ? I am torn between complete pity and raging condemnation! Perhaps we should ask ' how would I feel if my child was a prostitute?' and use that as a moral starting point .

tremendous post donnie

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Good post donnie.

yes, very well put donnie.

I agree it's always a good idea to think "how would I feel if it were my child..." about any particular issue that comes along. Usually clarifies a lot.

Actually donnie, there is a massive difference between the autonomous whore and the child in Cambodia, including "our" attitude.

To say there isn't any difference is like saying that all factory owners who employ workers are immoral scum because some 3rd world factory owners pay desperate children tuppence a day for back-breaking/blinding work.

Some prostitutes really do choose to be prostitutes and I don't see anything morally wrong with paying one of them for sex. Of course others may say they have chosen it when they haven't but my point is that there is not necessarily anything misogynistic about people who use them. They're probably just a bit self-deluded, that's all.

No I would agree that most men who visit prostitutes are not paedophiles. However, many many adult prostituts started as under age ones. Still feel that it is open choice of theirs?

Men use prostitutes to fulfill a power trip. It isn't about the 'need' for sex. If they need an orgasm that much they can have a wank. It isn't even realy about having sex with a woman, since most men could probably arange a one night stand if they 'need' one that much.

It is all about dictating the terms 100%, it is about power. It is about saying I want this, this way, now and you are going to do it for me. And to my mind because, in the vast majority of cases the woman is not an equal partner in this transaction, it is exploitation.

Men in positions of power are no longer allowed to have sex with women that they have influence over, for example lecturers in university. This is done because the disparity in power leads people to think that it is exploitative. And a man using a protitute is that writ large.

This isn't about sex, it is about men dictationg terms. And in doing so they abuse women. What other people agree with their men is up to them. But I would dispise my dh if he did something as exploitative as this. Full stop, end of story.

I can't remember who asked the questions, but I stopped doing it because it became too time consuming.
Maybe some of the women who worked with me had problems in their past (who doesn't!) but most of them seemed pretty well sorted, well paid, decent professional day jobs and escort 2-3 nights a week to pay for ski-ing holidays etc.
What I meant by reality check was that from the amount of business going on, I would eat my hat if there wasn't one woman on here who doesn't think her DP has/is, but he is.

I agree with you hmb.

I'm really interested to know if those of you who think it is basically all right for a man to visit a prostitute (subject to her not being co-erced, underage etc.), would be comfortable if your little girl became one? This isn't a wind up question, I'm genuinely interested to know how you'd feel about it. And of course I'm not talking about the poor girls who are enslaved by pimps, I'm talking about the respectable ones with a reasonable lifestyle, as described by Jordylass. Would you find it acceptable if your DD went in for it?

I cannot believe there isn't a mumsnet member who is (or was) an escort, hostess, prostitute etc. Flexible hours, high rates of pay, the chance to work from home - all those aspects make it a tempting proposition, whatever your principles.

I wish they would post their views on this discussion.

My dh in his navy days had a prostitute experience. I met him 8 years after he left the navy. When he told me, it never crossed my mind to comdemn him. I never knew him when he was a teenage sailor. I met him when he was an ex punk aged 30. I can hardly imagine what he must have been like, aged 16 on a ship somewhere in the world. I really don't feel I have the right to judge him for what he did then. If he saw a prostitite now, that's another matter.

Hmm... I do think that when 80% of Thailand's prostitutes were underage when they are first used for sex, and that 80% end up HIV positive, then yes, I would describe that as a pretty exploitative business. It's hardly a minority!
In this country, most street prostitutes are drug addicts and pretty hapless creatures, vulnerable to the kind of abuse none of us would accept in our daily working lives.
I know little about the world of 'escorts' except that I suspect the picture of happy, undamaged, glossy women enjoying sex with strangers may well not be anything like the whole truth. As for male prostitutes, the vast majority are gay prostitutes with similar rates of child abuse, drug addiction etc etc that occur with female prostitutes. The male escort business (for women) is tiny to non-existent. I don't think women get off on power to the extent that men do. We want to be loved, too.

my aunt recently confessed that in the 13 years where we didn't speak to her (long and complicated - won't bore you with details) she spent 5 of those working as a 'madam' and running a brothel. she said her clients were all sorts, even some of the local police men. at the time she was married to a very prominent business man who funded it, she bought it off a very posh friend, and was lady captain of her golf club. so you never can tell.

I can totally understand that Tigermoth, but for me it wouldn't be a question of judging someone, but whether I would be able to get my head round it, and I don't think I could, unless it was exceptional circumstances like yours. I take your point about a 16 year old boy being a very different person from a 30 year old.

If any of my children went into prostitution I would be totally distraught, and I would seriously have to wonder where I had gone wrong. Would feel the same if they became a heroin addict.

Agree 100%. I would feel that I had failed them.

I don't care what my kids do as long as a. they are happy and b. they are productive members of society. Helping men to ejaculate doesn't count as b. in my book

Years and years ago - over 15 of them in fact - when I was young and incredibly f*cked-up about myself, I went out for about a year with a bloke who'd regularly visited prostitutes. I have no way of knowing whether he was typical of the regular prostitute-user but boy was he a creep. And the creepiest thing was that he genuinely appeared to think that what he'd been paying for was a sexual encounter, between two parties motivated by the same thing, rather than a purely financial transaction on the prostitute's part.

The difference in particularly with one-night-stands - for me - is that they do at least mimic the idea of mutual desire and a sexual encounter between two parties motivated by the same thing. I'm fully aware (probably more than a lot of you ) that that's rarely the case, but at least they are a (fairly ghastly, often) parody of that.

Men who pay look at it with rose coloured glasses I think, they want to beleive that the women are with them because they can't get enough of it, and I can say that in 5 years although I met some remarkable women only a hadful of them had turned their hobby into a profession.
However, it would be the same if I said to the first 20 posters to this thread, for the next 2 years you will be stacking shelves in tesco's, or, working a 70 hour week and sleeping in hotels 4 out of 7 nights, out of the 20 maybe 1 could do 1 or the other of those jobs and it is the same for escorting, only those who can do it get into it.
I'd also be interested in hearing from the women on here how many have considered it, even fleeetingly, at a time of desperation, I would estimate that to be more than 80%.
From a women's rights point of view it is thought to be a hugely levelling job, something which you can do whatever your academic level and is relatively well paid and it fits in around children, family etc.