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).

The thing is, you get a very ropily spelled email. The email address says Joesmith @ yahoo or whatever and yet they sign off Tarquin sniffingly-penis and they send the entire email going on about how much dosh they have. Think Loadsamoney. Even if they were genuine, you wouldn't want to spend time with them.

A favourite is for someone to ask if you do something or are available at a certain time and then when you say no, they ask how much to change your mind.

For instance. I'm only available before 8pm today.
But, I want to see you at 9pm
I'm not available at 9pm
How much extra would it be for you to see me at 9pm?

I'm often tempted to say £5000 or something ridiculous. Anyone who is not prepared to take no for an answer at an early phone/email stage is not someone I want to end up alone in a bedroom with.

But you are hearing one side only of anything they tell you about their wives and their relationships. A lot of men who hit their wives, treat them with scorn and rudeness, and have a massive sense of entitlement at home come across as solid citizens, not at all pushy or shouting 'Gimme what's mine' all the time.

How do you know if that poor 70 year old man didn't beat the bejasus out of his wife every wet Saturday when his back wasn't as rickety as it is now? Most normal women, in a healthy and reasonably happy relationship, don't close up shop at age 52 and announce they're retiring from all sex, effective immediately. OK, you are screening out the obvious dangers to yourself, but I don't think you are associating with many men who are 'normal' or capable of discerning the truth or telling it or behaving honourably even after that.

You get a feel for the truth. I'm not claiming that it's infallible, but it's pretty good.

You're very much thinking of things from a women are good, men are bad POV.

Any man who treats his wife so terribly would normally fall into the "I wouldn't pay for it!" camp because they believe that women aren't worth much. They may well pretend to be nice guys, but they wouldn't change their spots like that.

I've seen a few battered husbands over the years as well.

Just remember, not all wives are nice any more than all husbands are.

Have n/c for obv reasons...

My father used escorts/prostitutes whilst married to my mother, he had a job with v irregular hours - picked up in bars in London hotels. My mother called them his 'one night stands' but money changed hands - too unpalatable to use other terminology I think. Have always despised my father for this, wouldn't enter my head to be angry at the women he slept with, and nor was my mother afaik. When he had an affair that was totally different and was the end of their marriage.

Recently, I learnt my cousin uses an escort as he is never going to have an adult relationship with a woman. The escort was interviewed by his older brother and partner who pay for her services once a month.

No, I'm not thinking of things from a women are good men are bad pov, just wondering whether you have E.S.P. -- there are a lot of women, presumably men too, who have ended up with men who turned out to be batterers, or not very nice, and all points in between. They didn't show their true colours when they first got together, it just crept up on them, and in the case of a lot of men who are horrible at home, their colleagues are often genuinely surprised that the genial man they know at work could be so different to his wife. Many women are sincerely afraid when trying to leave men like this that nobody will believe them. My own exH told all and sundry that he was having such a terrible time at home that he expected to come back every night and find the locks changed. Couldn't have been further from the truth. But I got a lot of very funny looks from people we knew, at the time, and put two and two together afterwards.

You can fool all of the people some of the time.

And also I'm wondering where respect for the relationship the men could (a) work on or (b) formally end comes in.

I'm not out to tempt or steal anyone's OH. If a chap mentions to me that he's married or in an LTR and having problems, I will tell him that he should focus his energies on sorting out his home life. However, I can't force them to.

Unlikelyamazonian Sshh please, the grown ups are talking.

The guys who tend to turn out to be nasty, tend to be incredibly suave and charming. I tend to steer clear of anyone like that if I can.

There were a lot of tends in there. Sorry about that, I was trying to do two things at once.

nice to see a proper mumsnetty thread.
sorry if my post is the weak point, but i had to say so.

Mathanxiety: if some of a sex worker's clients are vile to their own partners, how is this the sex worker's problem or responsibility? Her refusing to take them as customers is not going to stop them mistreating their partners.
Do you see it as the duty of a therapist (of the non-sex kind) to police the relationships a client has with other people, rather than dealing with the client and prioritising the client's needs?

Manda, are you wanking a bloke off while scrambling free range eggs for your newborn at the same time? Do tell. Your life sounds really interesting to us little silly people.

Glad you have men so completely figured out, Manda, because you could make a fortune with a book teaching the rest of us idiots how to tell which ones are keepers and which we should run a mile from.

Yes UA, that's exactly what I'm doing... Good one.

I don't have them all figured out at all, but I have a fair idea which ones to stay away from for my own safety.

That doesn't mean that some of the guys I do see wouldn't turn out to be nasty in an LTR. I'm not going to have a relationship with any of them.

MA: SPotting which men to dump and which men to get to know is a skill which comes with age and experience - though reading the various checklists that get linked to on here about how to spot a potential abuser will help, too.

SGB: quote: "if some of a sex worker's clients are vile to their own partners, how is this the sex worker's problem or responsibility"

On paper it is not her/his responsibility.

If a crack dealer sells crack to an eighteen year old homeless prostitute, is it the crack dealer's problem the girl buys it?

No. It is entirely the stupid fuckwit girl's problem I suppose.

Manda, good on ya. Keep stirring woman!

yr well funnee!

UA, I know you've had a completely horrific time of it with your truly awful husband, but honestly, what are you doing?
I'm sure this isn't helpful for you.

Like it or not, manda and women like her are providing a legal service, it isn't part of her job to police the minds of the men who pay her for sex.

I don't see the point of demonizing prostitutes, or even the men who use them ( apart from the scumbags who abuse street workers, for that's exactly what they are doing when they pay some pathetic young addict on the street or a trafficked foreign sex-slave).

My own view of men who pay for sex is that they are, generally, inadequate in some way or another.

@ Unlikelyamazonian

and I suppose with a gambling addiction it is the fault of the blackjack dealer? Just like it's the fault of the alcohol manufacturer/bartender for the customer's alcoholism? And the fault of a MacDonald's worker serving an obese person their double quarter pounder with cheese?

It's not her problem SGB, or anything to do with her, just wondering how she is so sure she can believe men who are essentially, most of them, deceiving someone else about their whereabouts while they're with her. She can please herself about whatever customers she chooses, based on her own personal safety or other factors important to her (very laudable, and she is lucky to be in this position and not walking the streets).

I'm not a therapist, but I think if someone came to a therapist and complained that his marriage was an empty shell and he was getting nothing out of it, I would say why are you still married? What are you getting out of it? What's keeping you from leaving? What are you looking for that you're not getting in the relationship? A lot of the time the client might have a view of things and how they should be that makes his life difficult, or a way of responding to or interacting with others that contributed greatly to his unhappiness -- I would keep on asking questions and get the client to start thinking of his own answers. You can't do his living for him or give him rules. But Manda is not a therapist either, and to claim that she is motivated by a desire to nurture or heal, or even by patriotism (services discount), is a distortion of her function in the lives of the men who are her customers.

Am I an idiotic cretin and a pathetic twunt? I stand corrected.

I had no idea.