How many of the men in your life have used prostitutes, compared with how many who haven't? I'd like to ask for help or perspectives on this?

[aliasforthis2]

I'm a semi-regular poster but obviously have name-changed for this.

I feel sad and like I've seen things I cannot un-see.

So if you can be reasonably sure that your husband or partner or ex or other male in your life has NOT used prostitutes post please post here.

Likewise if any males in your life HAVE used prostitutes please post here too.

And also if they gave reasons for either doing it or not doing it or given their views on the sex industry please post them.

Hopefully it will give me a more balanced perspective than my current "all men are johns who did these things" and help my recovery.

I worked as a prostitute for 4 years and stopped/exited nearly 18 months ago. The reason I started working as a prostitute was because it was sold to me as a glamourous and easy way to make money. At the time I had many debts and was working minimum wage and living totally hand-to-mouth with no room for manouvere,if an unexpected financial burden hit like a bank charge, we would be screwed having to choose between food and electric. A friend worked for an agency and I'd seen Belle du Jour and naively thought it would be like that.

Anyway, I am now out as I just couldn't handle it anymore. A very small percentage of the men were ok but the vast majority did things like -
-try to take the condoms off
-have poor hygiene and refuse to shower first worried it would take up their 'time'
-try to get service for less money or even steal back the money
-try to force services i did not offer like anal
-be unashamed about the fact they were partnered or had a wife at home
-speak to me disrespectfully and patronising, saying things like "I want to get the most for my money" etc
-scrutinize my body and give me advice on how to look better or compare me either positively or negatively to other ladies
-try to take up mush more time than paid for deliberately
-sometimes maybe once a month i was assaulted leaving bruises or spat on or held in a house
-a lot of phone or text harrassment
-most wanted young women the younger the better ie 18-20. i'm serious when i say that this is what most men wanted - young and naive. I answered the phone for the agency sometimes and i'd say three quarters of the men specifically requested 'young' ie 18-21 , 25 at a push.Which I think is disgusting given most are in their 40s wanting as close to 18 as they can.

Obviously not every man did ALL of the above but I'd be hard pressed to find a man who did not try at least one of those things. I don't know any other way to describe it.

I have been single for a while, I had a relationship with a genuinely lovely man I met at my new work for a while (no red flags) but it ended as he became a complete workaholic when starting a company and we drifted apart and split 6 months ago.

Anyway the point of this thread is for me to get a more balanced perspective on men. I had counselling on the NHS for 12 weeks which was helping but they wouldn't fund any more. I have been told by sympathetic friends who are also ex prostitutes (not told anyone in 'real life') to remind myself that it's only a v.small percentage of men who use prostitutes/escorts. But I just cannot see it like that. Every man I see walking down the street I view as a potential customer of prostitutes and treated a person how the customers treated me. I feel like punching them sometimes for no reason. Every married man I know I wonder if they have went to a prostitute with their wedding ring happily on moaning about their wife. I find myself wondering if I will ever have a relationship with trust again. I don't live in a particularly big place or a travelling business place but the sheer hoardes of men calling the agency every day and booking was unbelievable. And more than half would have unsuspecting wives or gfs.

I feel sad and like I've seen things I cannot un-see.

So if you can be reasonably sure that your husband or partner or ex or other male in your life has NOT used prostitutes post please post here.

Likewise if any males in your life HAVE used prostitutes please post here too.

And also if they gave reasons for either doing it or not doing it or given their views on the sex industry please post them.

Hopefully it will give me a more balanced perspective than my current "all men are johns who did these things" and help my recovery.

Thanks x

and I don't mind being called a whore but if you were using it deliberately as an insult then shame on you. Do you not think I have considered all the questions myself as to why I stayed in the industry. And do you not think I don't already feel bad and sometimes even hang my head when walking down the street knowing that yes I did collude in these men cheating on their partners? Sometimes I don't feel like a 'normal' person, I feel dirty somehow. But you would probably say I am...

I have reported Kerry's posts too.

To answer your question, OP, DH can't think of anyone he's ever met who has used a prostitute.

Good for you OP. You sound incredibly strong.

Sorry your thread got hijacked OP. As for your original question, I think its highly likely that exP used prostitutes now that I've thought about things more. He was always very vocal when I was with him that he 'would never pay for it' which wasn't said in a compassionate way IYGWIM.. but he was always going on about the local prostitutes in the area where he worked coming on to him er I doubt it.

He was also extremely entitled/ lack of empathy which goes hand in hand with the kind of men that I guess you've been dealing with.

Huge well done for getting out of it and I hope everything works out for you xx

By the way, please don't try to justify yourself to KerryMumbles op. Her posts on this thread are probably the nastiest (and most anti-feminist) I have ever read from a regular mner.

I have not read the posts (91 when I started this) because I do not want to be influenced by them.

I have travelled widely in my life and have spoken to men who have used prostitutes mainly in SE Asia. Their 'excuse' always was that it was so freely on offer and they didn't enjoy the experience.

The 'young' girl struck a chord because they all said that was their experience and they felt 'uncomfortable' with it. So uncomfortable they had sex with the girl.

The 'young' girls get offered first and as they get older they get the 'rough' trade.

I have spoken to the working girls and their life is one of untold horrors and abuse.

Belle De Jour has a lot to answer for. Making it sound sooo fucking glamorous and easy. The girls I spoke to had been raped via the vagina/anus and forced to perform oral sex and had punters that produced several 'friends' from bathrooms and cupboards to 'share' the cost.

I could write a hundred posts about the trade but well done OP for a very, very brave post and for getting out of it alive. Many girls don't.

aliasforthis2 I'm glad you got out of prostitution.

I had a boss before who used prostitutes and a colleague who used them regularly. I do know of some younger boys who are planning on going to the red light district in Amsterdam but I wouldn't know them well.
Not all men would but some will. From reading threads in Relationships on MN I see its a lot more than i would have thought.
I hope everything works out for you

"did she not realize that all the things she listed in op were part of the package?, that no one treats a whore with respect?"

That is disgusting and inexcusable. Sorry but it is. It's not supposed to be "part of the package" to be disrespected but it all too often is as I now know. The men who treat prostitutes with such vileness have the same attitudes which you are propagating here.

I am reasonably sure that not one of my long term partners ever used a prostitute- current one says he has "Always relied on awesomeness"

OP ignore Kerry, she's talking out of her arse x

Yes my dh has in the past. He was open about it and told me. I can understand why a man would pay for sex, its less hassle than having to chat someone up in a bar and pretend you like them before you bring them home to shag them. There is no emotional investment and it is a straightforward transaction. He wants sex, she wants money. I do not agree with it but do not think less of my dh because of this.

To add to your point Alias the men who treated you like that were very often cheating on their wives/partners so they treated them with disrespect too. Whilst one could argue that a prostitue is signing up for that (not an argument I would make but being devils advocate) a wife certainly isnt!

The women in the industry arent the problem, its the punters. If they didnt see women as something to be used for their current needs (the wife for the nice family home, the mistress for the extra marital fun and a hooker for when he gets an itch) then this industry wouldnt exist.

I personally think that Kerrys post smell of "I think she doth protest too much"

And yes I know its a misquote!

I've also reported Kerry's post, first time I've ever done that , it was totally uncalled for! Alias please ignore her, you're very brave to come on here and post what you have, and I'm sorry you found yourself in the situation you did.

I can pretty much 100% say that my DH has never used a prostitute and probably never will. 1) because he isn't a misogynist, 2) because he is far too sensitive to pay for it, and 3) there is absolutely no way in hell we could afford for him to have extra money to use one, haha. I think my dad may have, him and my mum have been divorced for 16 years and he's never had a girlfriend since then. My DSD's boyfriend has too, she said it was when he was in Amsterdam at 16 with his mates.

Thankfully kerry's worst have been deleted.

QS! I hid that thread as soon as I saw it, so didn't know that was the story. It explains a lot, in a roundabout way ...

Leaving that aside. I've known hundreds of prostitutes - knowingly; probably a hell of a lot more unwittingly. Of them all, TWO had a Belle de Jour lifestyle. And neither of them actually liked the work, even though they could choose their clients etc.

I've sometimes thought that the happy hooker trope keeps its hold because we - collectively; men and women - prefer not to face the misogyny that really drives the sex industries. Not just the 'owners', but the customers. That's the guy down the road, the man in the supermarket, your uncle Joe. We just don't want to think about it, so we paint a pretty picture over it :(

But to answer your post.

I went on a holiday with my [late] Dad to Russia when Mum had to drop out due to illness.

The hotel bar was awash with the most beautiful women touting for trade with 'western' men.

I went to bed early one night and Dad knocked on my door very upset because he had been talking to one of the girls and she started crying about her life. He sent me down to talk to her but her 'pimp' sent me packing with a very clear warning.

Dad was traumatised and therefore the answer is 'No'. If he was alone he wouldn't have had sex with her. He just wanted to help her in any way he could.

He never forgot the girls that he saw going to rooms with men that called them 'sluts' and 'whores' to their faces.

If it makes any difference to you - I only know one man who has been to a prostitute. But having said that, it's not something I've asked - I've just assumed not.

I don't think all men are bad but I do think human nature is selfish. So, you've met the worst of it.

I hope that you meet some nice, kind men in the future.

I know DP hasn't and wouldn't. He works in the hotel trade and in his last hotel they hosted a lot of conferences. He would come home with stories about the men who quite regularly made reference to the fact they used prostitutes, brought them to the hotel, ordered one through room service (yes really :( and his colleague obliged :( ) and he would always be horrified. Once he told me he almost dropped someone's drink on him - I told him he should have done!

Recently I was staying with my cousin and her boyfriend told us we were naive if we thought that there was any man who would never use a prostitute. He said that practically every man would consider it, most men do things that they would never admit in front of women, and that you can never 100% trust a person's word. I don't agree with him. Later that night we ended up watching porn as "entertainment" where the women were actually treated like slabs of meat, and he didn't seem to understand why we had a problem with this, just found it funny as in "Aww, delicate little girls." I lost pretty much all respect I'd had for him after that night.

I think when you are entrenched in that kind of culture it's very easy to imagine that everyone is the same as the people you encounter. I'd imagine that this is a large part of the justification these kind of men feel for their own actions. Thankfully once you move out of those kinds of circles and start talking and engaging with people who find that kind of thing completely alien it really proves that it isn't the case. It is they who are in a sick little bubble, the rest of the world isn't in a naive one. I found mumsnet massively helpful for expanding my horizons and ideas about men in general, although they weren't as damaging, reading and absorbing everything is a start.

I think that from the straight men I have known intimately - close friends, boyfriends, and family, plus people I've happened to have conversations with on this subject, I would imagine that 5 never would, 4 possibly would or I couldn't tell, and 6 probably or definitely would given the opportunity. I think that the "probably" pile is highest mainly because I tend to assign anyone who fits into the "wanker" category as automatically in that group - the others are harder to differentiate between. Plus the males in my family are a bit screwed up, and my early boyfriends were pretty much all twats too. So they bump up the score. Depressing number fitting into the middle category though :(

god alias i'm not surprized you think men are a bunch of disgusting lying lowlifes.

i promise they aren't all like that. and i really hope that you meet someone lovely.

dh has never visited a prostitute. i honestly don't know about ex-boyfriends.

don't feel dirty. feel strong - you got yourself out. you can deal with this. don't let these men take your future as well as your past.

i have a lot of respect for you.

Thanks this thread has been going some way into helping me try to believe that not ALL men are the enemy/going to hurt me. I'd be particularly happy to meet a man (not romantically, just any random man as a friend) who said he could never support such a thing and sex would feel weird to him without any real connection (even short-lived connection like a fling).

Garlic, I know lots of prostitutes too, some I still know, some have left and some are still working, and none of them have liked the work either as you say, even a woman I know who was very 'high class' and had a very expensive lifestyle. She now has a 'sugar daddy' boyfriend and has now left prostitution although she is still needing ongoing support from the project 2 years on.

We cannot say in the 'advertising' - I need money, I don't want to have sex with you really but I will put up with it for the money. We have to pretend we are 'up for it' all the time. I'd HATE a schoolgirl roleplay in real life but when you are in some creepy shifty man's house, totally alone in his territory then you will pretend and get on with it because you don't know anything about the guy, he could be a murderer. then hate yourself and the man afterwards. And that sort of thing does damage.

I'm not saying that some prostitutes don't have a say in who they see. I avoided the bad-sounding ones but my worst attacker sounded fine on the phone. But it's more about CHOICE for the men who buy sex. The vast majority do want young women and even when I started in my mid twenties lots of men rejected me at the door or on the phone for being "too old", or "was looking for someone 18-21". Most other jobs age and experience are valued, but it's the other way around in the sex industry. Punters want someone 'new and fresh' and not used-up and business-like. There are hoardes of younger women joining up to escort every month in cities, and when they are burned up and leave due to the problems it involves then there is a new batch of fresh meat coming along just on time. I'd say on average prostitutes I knew 'lasted' a couple of months to 5 years. Few really stayed longer than 1-2 years because at first it's glamour (ish) and maybe even exciting and you expect punters to have your best interests at heart, but it does become unbearable and the stress really gets to you after a while. Like having to constantly be on-guard for assaults or condom-taking-off which do happen regularly.

Alias, I don't know if this will be any help. pete-walker.com/index.htm is a site I use to help me deal with Complex PTSD, which is a longer-term and more diffused form of post-traumatic stress, usually associated with childhood abuse.

It might be worth a look, anyway, while you seek further support in real life. There are some helpful tools.

I thought the suggestions to call Women Aid were wise :) They'll also be able to advise whether their Freedom Programme will be helpful to you. It's free.