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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

What kind of men use prostitutes?

999 replies

Snugglepalace · 08/02/2017 09:51

Dh has an outside job which involves spending time on various roads within towns and villages.
A couple of weeks ago he was working on a street in our local town. An everyday street with semi detached homes.
After a day or so Dh and his work colleagues noticed one particular house had a lot of 'visitors'. All the visitors were well dressed men arriving in nice cars. It averaged around 4 men per hour!
At lunchtime a car pulled up (the driver had pizzas) and the door was opened,there was an older woman in the hallway and several younger looking women loitering in the hallway also.

Dh and workmates are convinced it was a brothel. Over the weeks that they were working there they would glare at the men going in and said some of them looked very embarrassed once they realised they had been noticed, one even parked in a nearby supermarket and tried to get in the back way.
I know these things go on but what got me was the thought that surely, several, if not most of these men must have (oblivious?!) partners etc.

OP posts:
TheSparrowhawk · 09/02/2017 16:01

'@TheSparrowhawk - y'know, poverty, illness (physical or mental), violence (ditto), the list goes on.'

Riiigggght. So you'd be happy to support your daughter doing a job that has nothing going for it other than that it's better than poverty, illness and violence. You have high hopes for her don't you?

TheSparrowhawk · 09/02/2017 16:02

And as others have pointed out, violence and threats to physical and mental health are a pretty standard part of being a prostitute.

Brazenhussy0 · 09/02/2017 16:04

^It always strikes me that when I hear and observe happy hookers saying it makes them happy and is super empowering that the women involved are as incapable of true intimacy as the men who pay for them. And that is seemingly how it works.

It's rare for a prostituted woman to have a healthy monogamous relationship, as I think has been shown on this thread and pretty much anywhere you look.^

I'm getting married to my long-term DP next year Grin. He knows what I do and is happy with it.
There are many women in the sex industry who are in relationships or married, and there are also many who aren't in relationships as well.

IneedmoreLemonPledge · 09/02/2017 16:05

You never hear of women paying for sex - even though orgasm is less likely to happen for them.

Not strictly true...

A new academic study has been launched into women who buy sexual services.

The study showed that there were 5,246 male escort profiles and 11,056 female escort profiles in 2010, compared to the 15,732 male profiles and 28,614 female now.

http://www.womenwhobuysex.org//*

ShoutOutToMyEx · 09/02/2017 16:07

We're on the same page Diana Wink

zippey · 09/02/2017 16:07

I guess most people do things which are morally questionable and justify it to themselves eg

  • using prositutes
  • shopping at stores which use cheap labour
  • eating animals which live and die in atrocious conditions
  • allowing animals to be used in testing and experiments

I'm sure we all try to justify all these things to be acceptable for one reason or another. It's human nature.

DianaMemorialJam · 09/02/2017 16:08

I'm getting married to my long-term DP next year grin. He knows what I do and is happy with it.

I think they call that anecdata.

Oblomov17 · 09/02/2017 16:08

How men use these services in the uk each week? And abroad? How many women use them?
They can't all be scum of the earth.

HorridHenryrule · 09/02/2017 16:08

There is someone who always knows where you are that's the whole point of signing up to an agency. It doesn't remove the risk I think that is the safest option to take. Congratulations on getting married.

Sallystyle · 09/02/2017 16:08

You know what Cara you bitch plop on every single fucking thread you post in and you always have to be meaner than anyone else is being.

My post was harsh towards men but your comment about sex workers not having the skills to go to uni is disgusting. I don't know what your problem is but your bitterness and nastiness to people on most threads you post in makes me feel sorry for you really. Even on the large family thread you had to get offensive and nasty.

It's not clever, it's not funny and I have a lot more respect for the sex workers than I do you, because no matter what I think of their job and the sex industry they aren't the ones being arseholes to posters wherever they can.

Just think for one moment about how you come across. I am sure I'm not the only poster who is sick of your shit and wish you would shut the fuck up a bit.

DianaMemorialJam · 09/02/2017 16:09

Shout I keep X posting were all on some sort of wavelength clearly!

DianaMemorialJam · 09/02/2017 16:11

U2 I think you just said what a fuck load of mumsnetters have wanted to say for a while now Grin

venusinscorpio · 09/02/2017 16:15

Zippey

There is a big difference between eating meat or using an iPhone and paying to rape a coerced prostitute, or not really caring whether or not the woman whose body you pay to use for your sexual gratification is free to consent.

NotTheFordType · 09/02/2017 16:15

"Bitch plop" is my phrase of the day Grin

Sallystyle · 09/02/2017 16:17

I can't take credit for bitch plop unfortunately Grin

Kaybush · 09/02/2017 17:08

ShoutOutToMyEx, just looked back on this thread and seen your query about my post. The answer is YES! Eek!

Apparently a very famous A-List Hollywood star has a similar device on a pulley above his bed for the same practice.

Aren't men lovely...

Offred · 09/02/2017 17:11

TFPsa

It's not really fair to judge men by female standards. Most men wouldn't bat (much of) an eyelid of their wives had visited a sex worker (of either gender). Men and women just have very different ideas about relationships. To take an obvious example, many more men than women would consider that splitting up a family because the quantity or quality of sex wasn't to one party's liking would be highly immoral, selfish, and unnecessary. But this very course of action is strongly, often urgently, advocated on this forum on a daily basis. Most men just don't think that sex has anything at all to do with 'love' or whatever other nonsense often gets argued on here.

It is not about judging men by 'female standards'. It is about expecting to hold all people to standards of behaviour that uphold equality and condemn abuse. Yes, you are right that unfortunately men culturally believe that they are the gatekeepers of access to women's bodies and that as gatekeepers there is nothing wrong with them having 'access rights'. This tired old trope that men are rational and women are emotional and they just see things differently is just so much crap. In heterosexual sex women simply are more vulnerable - to pregnancy, greater consequences of disease, physical and mental damage, it is therefore entirely rational for women to be concerned about trust, respect and care in a sexual relationship with a man. It simply isn't good enough for a man to use his greater power over a woman who is more vulnerable without responsibility and then say 'oh these emotional women they just don't understand how men think'. We understand, we think you have a responsibility to act responsibly, like a normal competent adult and a good human being. If those standards are too high for you you have no business having sex with a woman TBH.

don't get me wrong, I don't especially 'like' the idea, I wouldn't do it myself and would tend to advise a friend or whatever from going down that route, but would it appall me enough to really pass judgement on it from my high horse, certainly not.

Why wouldn't it appall you? It is because of your belief in the above, archaic sexist tropes about men and women.

that's a slightly unfair question. The answer to it is tied up with society's views of that line of work and so on, and also the circumstances in which some sex workers end up doing it (addiction, other financial imperatives, other options, etc). I'd hope that I'd always be able to help her out moneywise, within reason. Like most fathers I'd be faintly protective of her 'virtue', e.g. I'd hate the idea of her being promiscuous at University, especially if emotional insecurity or loneliness was part of the reason for it. But if I wasn't able to help her for whatever reason, she was doing it for a vaguely defined period of time driven by defensible financial needs or wants, safely in terms of her physical and mental health then, yes, I'd accept it certainly, i can think of plenty of worse things.

And this post clearly expresses your internalised sexist beliefs again, your daughter's 'virtue'?! And the 'worse things' as others have suggested are exactly the occupational hazards of sex work, yes even if you are a 'high class escort'...

Apart from anything else if you really believe those sexist tropes about men being unemotional about sex (I.e. Not giving a shit about the other person) and women being emotional (caring about their own wellbeing) why does that make the sex industry OK?! Surely you see that if your premise is true the sex industry causes damage to women?

Offred · 09/02/2017 17:17

And quite honestly if you think men and women have 'different standards' and it is not fair to expect men to respect women... just have sex with other men...

DianaMemorialJam · 09/02/2017 17:18

Offred great post

thequeenoftarts · 09/02/2017 19:56

I have been reading all your posts with interest since I logged off last night.

How many of you scrolled the internet last night to further your knowledge about this subject? To see if there are any ways you can help the ladies who need help to escape their awfully sad abusive lives? Can you volunteer at a shelter? Can you work in the local rape crisis centre? Domestic abuse shelter? Sex workers unit? How can YOU as a person help out?

How many of you are willing to put your efforts where your voice is?
It's all very well sounding off behind a user name on a forum, it is the people who are willing to take their beliefs one step further I applaud.

If you feel that concerned about the matters discussed on here, then do something about it. As someone said up the posts earlier on, the girls who do this of their own accord are not the ones they are trying to reach.

Offred · 09/02/2017 20:02

How on earth do you know what people do or don't do?

And TBH just like I said upthread when things were getting a bit close to accusing Ford of betraying all women, and especially the more vulnerable sex workers, just by being a 'happy hooker', I DO NOT believe any woman or women in general are or should be held responsible for what is essentially the gendered issue of MALE violence against women and against other men.

AssassinatedBeauty · 09/02/2017 20:03

thequeenoftarts you seem to be starting from the assumption that no one does any of those things already.

DianaMemorialJam · 09/02/2017 20:07

it is the people who are willing to take their beliefs one step further I applaud.

It's the people that don't perpetuate an industry voluntarily where so many women are forced into it that I applaud.

Offred · 09/02/2017 20:11

And besides, valuable though they are, those services you mention are just services designed to mop up the mess left behind by the problem. Even if every woman volunteered at any of those places it would do not a jot towards tackling the cause of the problem would it?

The first step to tackling it is analysing it, then talking about it, campaigning on it, lobbying those in power over it, raising awareness of it and trying to influence a change or changes in the law designed to tackle the problem.

You write as though people should not be allowed to discuss these issues because there is no value in it...

thequeenoftarts · 09/02/2017 20:17

Diana and you think that by me giving up prostitution it will help any of the trafficked women? Somehow I doubt that.

Ah I see so not so keen on mopping up the mess are we Offred? Bit too much like getting your hands dirty is it? It's all been done before/talked about/lobbied and not a thing has changed for the women forced into prostitution.

AssassinatedBeauty - and do you?

By all means discuss it,

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