Calling all prostitutes and former prostitutes on MN, as there seem to be a few around right now...

[Aitch]

I'm curious to know how it makes you feel to see threads on here from wives and girlfriends etc when they discover that their husbands etc have been visiting prostitutes? even if you are happy in your own jobs (and i hope to god you are somehow, because the alternative is intolerable), how does it feel to be confronted with the downside of your work on these pages?

(i think it goes without saying that the men are culpable in this scenario, but am looking for some insight into how your work squares with sisterhood etc).

and when i say downside, i really mean devastation and pain.

I would be interested to hear too, especially from the prostitutes who call themselves feminists.

Okay, first of all let me just make my position clear.

I don't think that I'm any more responsible in a situation like that than any girl who has had a relationship with a man who turns out to be married.

However, that wouldn't make me feel any better about it.

The last thing I want in life is to be the cause of anyone's pain. I've been in relationships where my partner was unfaithful. I know how it feels.

One take on this is that at least with me the guy was only being unfaithful physically, not emotionally. Whether or not you subscribe to that view, I think it's irrelevant. Would you tell that to a woman who has been betrayed by her husband? I wouldn't.

Marriage vows are between two people and it is up to those two people to keep them. Therefore it is the man who is mainly at fault in this case. That wouldn't make me feel any better about being involved.

I'm lucky in that I do see a lot of single men and widowers. There are also a lot of married men who have an agreement with their wives. These couples tend to be best friends and whilst one has no urge to have sex, they will allow the other to go off and discreetly find other people to have sex with.

Going back to the original hypothetical couple. Whilst I would feel awful, I would have to remind myself that the man sought me out and at no time did I approach him.

As far as I have seen there is only one prostitute on here. Would be interested to hear her viewpoint too.

How can this help, Aitch? The devastation is from broken trust; betrayal; the awful realisation that the person you love, and/or your relationship with them, is a fake. It is devastating - I know, I've been there too.

A cheat and liar will cheat and lie. His method of cheating may be with hookers, with a lover, with money, drugs, alcohol or gambling. None of us say "I want to marry a fraud" but some of us do. That's painful, and it makes you very angry - justified anger, indeed, but the means of his cheating isn't responsible. He is.

The prostitutes I've known might say their profession presents less risk to a marriage than an affair, as the transaction is simple and less emotional. They'd also point out the unpleasant truth above. If you'd found out he was a burglar, you could rail at the victims who left their homes unsecured ... but that wouldn't take away the fact of his dishonesty.

:(

Aitch, a customer's marital status is neither the sex worker's business nor her problem. End of.
And no, don't try to say that if sex workers didn't advertise themselves, no Happilymarriedman would ever go near one. Men, married or not, who wish to pay for sex, will seek out sex workers of their own volition. It's the man's job to take moral responsibility for himself.

'One take on this is that at least with me the guy was only being unfaithful physically, not emotionally'

You see for some that would be the hurtful thing.

'There are also a lot of married men who have an agreement with their wives. These couples tend to be best friends and whilst one has no urge to have sex, they will allow the other to go off and discreetly find other people to have sex with.'

Do you know this directly from the wives or from what the husband tells you?

Plus what about your husband - how would you feel if he paid for sex with a prostitute?

I'm always a bit when a single person is blamed for breaking up a relationship.

They are single, they can sleep with whoever they want to. The married person is the person at fault.

What is thread all about anyway?

It's part of a "Let's run the prossie out of town" offensive AFAIK

However, it is a valid question up to a point, so I answered it.

I agree with Alousie and SGB it's not the girls problem. If the man cannot keep his pants on it's his problem and his alone.

Blaming the prostitute/other women is pointless.

Why should the prostitute care? He came to her, not the other way around.

I have worked with (when I was dancing) and been friends with many working girls. Not one of them ever had an out of work affair with a client or anyone else they knew to be married. But when they are working it's not their business.

Alouiseg - A single person should date single people. For their own sanity.

However I agree with Mandamumu in so far as the punter just wants sex. There is no romantic inovolvement.

It's punters who face prosecution anyway - they will be prosecuted if they pay for sex from a woman who is trafficked. I can't stand to see prostitutes being brought to jail. Round up the guys and run them out of town I say.

It just conforms to the stereotype that it's a 'god given legislative right' for men to have sex whenever they want it. Sooooo 1950s.

I know a woman who was a prostitute and ran massage parlours, very succesfully , in the eighties and early nineties. She told me most clients were married, loved their wives but didn't have enough sex with them. They understood their wives were tired and distracted but still the men had needs they wanted met, especially oral sex.

She gave it up, married, and that broke down within a year as the dh couldn't handle her past and threw it back at her in arguments.

She told me when i married to watch the dwindling sex life, if we let it slide, most men have no qualms at looking elsewhere.

I don't agree with her on that, or is it wishful thinking?

perfumedlife
It's because the husbands are lazy basts that ensures the wives are doing the most of the housework, childcare and possibly earning as well. Who wouldn't be exhausted and who wouldn't be resentful.

Perfumed, I guess she would know.

I don't think you can blame anyone but the man for his infidelity.

As has already been pointed out, unlike a 'traditional' affair, the man is actively approaching the prostitute with a single minded agenda, she hasn't targeted him.

And also, whether it would be your personal choice or not, that's her job. He's paying her to have sex with him, not to morally educate him.

sorry i haven't been back, have been making dinner and collecting child from school.

i thoroughly object to any idea that i am trying to 'run the prossies out of town' and am frankly pissed off to you, mandamum, saying on one thread that you think it would be an interesting discussion and i should start a thread about it and then coming on here and saying that. what a shite thing to say.

and i specifically wrote "(i think it goes without saying that the men are culpable in this scenario, but am looking for some insight into how your work squares with sisterhood etc)." in my OP, so let's give the blame thing a miss, eh? i am asking how people feel, not who they blame. clearly the john is responsible for his own infidelity, as i said.

haven't had time to do much else than skim, unf, but will come back. i completely take the point re. mistresses btw, and if there are any mistresses around would like to hear from them too.

Does the same apply to any other woman an unfaithful man shagged? Would we still say it was entirely his fault or only when a prostitute is involved? Does money being exchanged put a different moral spin on things?

interesting that madonnawhore considers a traditional affair to be one where a woman targets a man.

What SGB said, as usual

I don't think you can compare a prostitute who is providing a service with a single person knowingly having a relationship with someone who is attached though. It's not the prostitutes responsibility to check out the marital status of the people they deal with, it's down to married men (and women) to learn to keep things zipped outside the home. On the other hand, anyone who willingly gets involved long-term with someone knowing they're already involved, is pretty low imo - not as low as the trash they're sleeping with, but still worthy of censure.

Aitch, the girls I knew didn't really talk about how they felt about married men coming to them. I don't think they cared one way or the other so long as they paid and were polite.

They did discuss how they would feel if their men did it to them and were of the opinion that it wouldn't be as bad as a full blown affair, because it's about sex and nothing more.

i really don't see that dramatic a difference, tbh... i'm surprised that you do, serenity. mandamumu acknowledges that she is at least partly culpable in the causing of pain when she sleeps with married men (not that she does, particularly).

Aitch. I apologise. Certain people around here have been rather hostile towards me today and I am probably being over sensitive. I'm sorry.

It is an interesting question.

I think what Madonnawhore possibly meant that that in a traditional affair, flirting and other such goes on, whereas with me the guy decides what he wants to do and then actively seeks me out. IYSWIM.

However, as I already said, although logically it's not my fault in that scenario, I am not lacking in empathy.

I personally think that the prostitute should feel no guilt at all if a married man is using her - he is being unfaithful, the moral issue is his and his alone.

I would apply that argument also to women (single) who are having affairs with married men. It is he who is at fault, not her. It isn't her marriage.