cheating with escort

[yourname00]

I've been dating this man for about 2 months now who is divorced, well going through one (not finalized). He seems like a really great guy but I am concerned about something I recently found out. He had cheated on his wife with an escort. I think it may have been twice, but not sure..

I really don't know how to feel about this. It's kind of a deal breaker for me but perhaps he was going through things i don't quite understand. I'd like to know how others would take this.

I would judge and judge hard.

If you can complete a sex act with somebody who is doing it to meet a financial need (whether coerced or not) and whom, at best, probably feels a bit 'meh' about you and at worst is repulsed and not care as long as you're getting to climax in/on someone, then you wouldn't be the bloke for me but it's up to you how you feel about it.

I'd rather have a relationship with someone who treats women as human beings not fuck holes to purchase but I get that not everybody sees prostituting people, like that and they could tolerate a relationship with somebody that uses the bodies of prostitutes (escort is just a "nice" word to stop "nice" men thinking they are sleeze bags). The question is, are you one of them?

My XH was honest with his new GF that he had used prostitutes whilst married to me, and before that.

Go him.

Tbf, he was only honest the first time he found out that he did it to her. He swore it was only once (I know that for a fact as she told me) and then she took him back.

And for the following 18 months continued to do so every couple of weeks.

So I'm kind of biased

I get that some people think sleeping with a prostitute is OK. I get that some people think it's cool because he's honest. I get that people are entitled to a past.

But the fact is, he cheated on his wife. That fact would give me great pause.

I went without sex for years in my shitty prostitute suspicion ridden farce of a marriage. No-one would have blamed me for cheating given what he was up to. But I didn't, because I'm not a cheat. In fact one factor in me dumping him was I felt that I was getting close to it (very flirty message from an ex, I found myself thinking about responding...)
I know what it's like to climb the walls with sexual frustration in a sexless dead marriage - I still didn't cheat.

I'd throw this one back in the pond because whatever I personally think about prostitute use in general, I certainly don't think it's acceptable to do it as cheating.

As for the honesty? Pinch of salt. Could be cover in case you find escort stuff on his laptop. Or possibly like me his STBXW put it in the divorce petition so he thinks it is possible you will find out. Damage limitation.

Prostitutes or not: he's a cheat.

When I split from my long term ex I was emotionally devastated. I saw an escort a couple of times and looking back I realise it was for female company and some kind of emotional warmth. Oh I knew I was paying and that any affection was only part of the transaction and not real but at the time even just a few minutes respite from the depths of my despair were very welcome. It's not always simply about sex and if I were you I'd be impressed the guy felt he could be honest with you - he obviously wants to be open with you and have no skeletons in the closet to come back and bite him at a later date which I would take as a very good sign.

Many man who have split from their partners will seek sex or emotional warmth from a woman - isn't it better to do so in a safe manner that both parties are happy with, rather than go on POF, give a girl loads of patter to get into her pants and then walk away without a second thought for her feelings?

TheNaze I agree. We all fuck up. Prostitution is a massive red line for me too, but I think he gets points for his honesty.

It really is a HUGE red line for me though (I'm also a man, fromamansperspective) and I don't think it can ever be justified. Sorry. I can accept that someone did a terrible thing and feels awful about it, and wants to consign it to the past. I can't accept that it's "better to do so in a safe manner that both parties are happy with, rather than go on POF, give a girl loads of patter to get into her pants and then walk away without a second thought for her feelings?" The latter is shitty; the former is infinitely shittier.

Other opinions are of course available, but apart from the ethical considerations (which I think you very blithely ignore) I don't personally know how anyone can live with the blow to their self-esteem which surely must be caused by NEEDING TO PAY ANOTHER HUMAN BEING TO FUCK YOU. Pay them. Wow. I'd rather wank myself to death than sink that low, but maybe that's just me.

Sorry, I know that's super judgey-pants, but I do think that men who are able to justify paying a prostitute (as opposed to it being the self-loathing regret of their life) just haven't thought about what most female sex workers' lives are actually like or how they got there.

Re. the OP - I think it all hinges on how your partner feels about this episode of his life. Like I say, I think he gets some credit for telling you.

I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with a man who would pay a woman for sex or companionship because that says an awful lot about how he fundamentally thinks of women - that they are commodities to be bought for comfort, like a pair of warm pyjamas and a hot water bottle.

If he has done it once, he will do it again. Not getting any because you've just had a baby? Here, have a handy escort.

If this is a deal-breaker for you, walk away. You've only been dating him for two months - there are plenty of men who wouldn't dream of paying for sex no matter how lonely or sad they are.

And FWIW, no one needs sex. People want it but it is categorically not a need.

I find it hugely problematic when men use the justification that visiting an escort is better than hurting a random woman's feelings by having a one night stand.

That reasoning is suggesting that a woman in a nightclub, or online dating is a 'real woman' with actual feelings.

An escort is, by contrast, not a 'real woman' but a commodity. She has chosen to sell a service so her feelings now don't matter.

But they do. And I am aware that some escorts say they don't experience any emotional damage from sleeping with men with no desire or emotional attachment, but others do find it eats away at their self-esteem and their souls.

They are women with feelings too. And men who pay them are using them. And that - to me - is not ok.

MansPerspective you used prostitutes after you split.
The OP's boyfriend used them to cheat on his wife.

Different.

OP the only thing that makes it look a bit better is that he has openly told you about the experience, as it suggest a level of maturity.

However, I have to agree with other respondents that it is not a good sign. I've been with someone not that long ago - I found out he's been texting (Thai) escorts while being with me. Apparently "only for the thrill" and according to him, never actually proceeded. When I asked why - he said it was a great fantasy to have a dirty screw with an escort.

He seemed a lovely guy at the time (and many people still think he is the gentlest, kindest fella) but in relation to me he turned out to be a right bastard in the end and just like many respondents said - in general disrespectful of women, narcissistic and entitled.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if I could go back in time I would have left when I found out before my feelings for him deepened (which he only resented anyway.)

as cliched as it is Men really are from Mars and Women from Venus

No they aren't.

You've been with him two months.

You said it is a deal breaker for you.

I don't think anything else matters. If it is a deal breaker and you go through this trying to come to terms with it and make yourself tolerate it it will not become less of a deal breaker it will simply poison the relationship.

I think I would apply naze's 'everyone is entitled to a past' here too but in a slightly different way. Everyone should be able to be accepted, their past included by their partner and is entitled to be cut free at the earliest opportunity, so they can find someone who does accept their past, if there is a fundamental incompatibility like this - sex industry user and deal breaker if has used the sex industry.

And also I would add a massive word of warning about trying to move the boundaries you had prior to a new relationship for a new relationship.

Sorry but I agree with this personally;
It means he's a liar and thinks nothing of women if he thinks it's OK to buy them.

I agree with that personally too, it would be a deal breaker for me too, for that reason - he has a track record of being a liar and a cheat but cheating combined with purchasing sex would indicate to me he has had no respect for women at all in the past and there is no way I would bother hanging around to see if that position had changed or not...

BUT those are my feelings. It's the OP's feelings that matter and personally I worry about her stating at the start that it is a deal breaker for her and then trying to negotiate with herself to talk that clear boundary down in order to make it acceptable after all. That is usually a sign of low self esteem or the early stages of an abusive relationship IMO.

You shouldn't have to negotiate your boundaries down to accept something you wouldn't normally, that whole process is very disempowering and problematic.

I'd say go with your instinct. Putting myself in your shoes, I probably wouldn't want to take the relationship further. I wouldn't be able to trust. But everyone is different.

Maybe find someone you'll be at ease with.

Contrary to popular perception, men who use escorts are just like men who don't. Some of them are lovely people who very much respect women, are polite and helpful, well mannered and considerate. Some of them are you know, okay, you might not want to date them but there's nothing wrong with them. And a small proportion of them hate women and seek to abuse sex workers. So, exactly the same as every other subset of male population.

People get hung up on this thing of "he's bought a woman". No he hasn't. He's bought an hour (or whatever) of her services - just like any other service industry. When I pay my cleaner for an hour, have I bought my cleaner? No, I bought her labour. It's only our social conditioning that seeks to control women's sexuality that throws this stigma up, until we end up with "You can sell literally everything else you can do, you can sell your intellectual abilities, you can sell your physical labour, you can sell your soul so that you sit and take shit of awful customers and have to keep smiling. Oh and here's minimum wage. But don't you sell your vagina!! That belongs to your husband, or husband to be."

Incidentally, escort, prostitute, working girl, sex worker, whore are the exact same thing. "Prostitution" is a legal term more than anything else. I prefer "sex worker" because it reflects that I'm doing something that's actually work and deserves compensation.

The questions I'd be asking your BF would be around how did he choose the sex worker he saw - try to get a feel for if he had any concerns about her being trafficked. If he picked up a girl off the street then that would indicate he didn't have much ethics about making sure she wasn't being coerced. If he looked for an independent worker through advertising services then that may have (or may not have) been a factor for him. Most clients of mine express that they are uncomfortable seeing girls in brothels because they feel there is a higher likelihood of trafficked girls (which is correct.)

It's important to point out, again, that coercion and/or trafficking are significant problems within sex work, but they are a minority. The majority of sex workers are in charge of their own work and have chosen sex work over other careers for their own reasons.

I'm going through this but am the wife in this scenario. We have a child together and found out he'd been using escorts not long after our child was born. I'm sure to many it would seem like a cut and dry case of get rid but it's hopelessly confusing. He is showing genuine remorse and a desire to change and this is massively out of character for him. I'm in bits - wanting to believe he will change and never do it again but obviously doubting it. I'm at a cross roads. If anyone has been in this scenario and gave their husband another go I would be interested to know how it's gone.

Why, 2 months in, do you even know these sorts of details about his sex life with his ex?

IME people confessing these sorts of things so early on is a red flag. Almost a testing of boundaries to see what sort of shitty behaviour you'll tolerate, or even a subtle threat that if you don't have sex often enough for him, he'll have no qualms in paying someone else for it.

I could potentially forgive someone if it was mentioned and he said "there's no excuse I fucked up", but he didn't, just blamed his ex not shagging him enough. That isn't the mark of a man that's remorseful, but one that does exactly what suits him and blames others for his actions.

Notthefordtype - this thread is maybe not the place for this debate but I think it is rather ignorant to dismiss people who see sex work as materially different to selling labour as either traditionalists who believe vaginas are for husbands(!) or misogynists who despise women.

I, or anyone else, am perfectly entitled to see the real distinction between purchasing labour and purchasing sex in this society and TBF many throughout history and feel deeply uncomfortable with the gendered nature of sex work/purchasing sex as well as what it may say about a man who purchases sex and what I am risking being in a relationship with said man.

It is not incoherent or irrational to feel you would rather not take a risk on said man. Your feelings on it as a sex worker are not incoherent or irrational either. I don't think it is necessary or appropriate for you to come on a thread to explain why everyone should be fine with sex work.

I did not wish to start a debate about sex work Offred but I did want to counter some of the misconceptions being thrown about as solid facts ("Escorts are different to prostitutes", "Men who buy sex don't respect women".)

I did want also to give the OP some guidance what to ask if she wants to question this further with her BF if she hasn't yet reached a decision. Of course it's perfectly okay and understandable for this to be a deal breaker and to walk away if that's right for her.

Speaking as a man (I might just start typing SAAM to speed things up) I do think there's something fundamentally disrespectful to women about buying sex. Not necessarily per se, or in isolation - if we didn't live in the society we do, I might see the sense of treating it like selling your intellect or selling your carpentry skill. But the society in which we live routinely reduces women to sex objects and nothing else, and women aren't selling their intellects or carpentry skills on the same respected footing as men.

In my view, purchasing sex from a woman is colluding in the societal expectation that women's sexuality is a "service" which should be provided to men, that men are the "customer" of a woman's sexuality (and what do we know about customers? They're always right). The customer gets to make demands, the supplier is subservient.

If we weren't in a world where woman are so often objectified and expected to be subservient sex-taps (not to mention sexualised in completely unsexual situations), I might be more sympathetic to the slightly academically decontextualised view that prostitution is "just another service industry". But we aren't. So I'm not.

I would run a mile from any man who thinks consent can be bought.

People are entirely within their rights to make sweeping judgements re men who buy sex not respecting women because there isn't way at all to tell, you cannot tell at all whether your clients respect or don't respect women just like none of us can tell whether a man who purchases sex respects or doesn't respect women (which women and how etc?) and because the idea of respect for women is to some degree subjective. For lots of people buying sex at all is enough to say there is no respect (to their standards) and that is a coherent standard to set. As is thinking it carries the weight of suspicion for not being a man who respects women as is thinking buying sex says nothing about respect for women.

It very much depends on people's individual feelings about buying sex and about what respecting women constitutes.

I simply object to someone coming on here essentially saying everyone should belief buying sex is fine because that is the only justifiable view and everyone who doesn't agree is a misogynist/anti feminist/traditionalist prude.

The difference really is simply that you see selling/buying sex as a perfectly acceptable transaction which often empowers women and I don't. Our views are shaped by our own experiences and feelings and there is nothing inherently wrong with either position - in fact we are on the same side even in wanting women to be valued and respected.

But here the op has said for her it is a deal breaker and I think that should be respected enough to not start lectures about how she (or anyone else) is wrong and harmful for having that view. She does not have to be in a relationship with this man after all, she is allowed to be judgey about what kind of person he wants to share a bed and a life with.

Sorry for that long post. It just saddens me when people with common aims but different perspectives attack each other.