Was I wrong for never telling my wife that I used to visit sex workers before we met?

[JibJab3030]

I (38M) have been married to my wife (36F) for six years, together for nine. Before I met her, I was single for a long time and honestly not that interested in relationships. During that period, I occasionally paid for sex. Not constantly, but enough that if I added it all up over the years, it would probably be a few dozen different sex workers.
Once I met my wife, all of that stopped completely. I’ve never cheated on her, never even came close. We have what I thought was a very honest and solid marriage.
The issue started recently when we were watching some TV show where a character mentioned hiring escorts, and I casually said something like, “Yeah, been there, done that.” She got quiet and started asking questions, and I answered honestly. When she realized it was more than “a few times” and had been an actual pattern in my past, she got extremely upset.
She says this is something I should absolutely have disclosed before marriage because it changes how she sees me and because sexual history matters in a relationship. She feels deceived and says I hid it from her for almost a decade.
My perspective is that everyone has a past. I never lied to her. She never once asked me if I’d ever paid for sex or asked for detailed numbers about previous partners. If she had asked directly, I would have told her. To me, this was private information about my life before we met, and since it had zero overlap with our relationship, I didn’t think it was relevant.
Now she’s barely speaking to me and says she doesn’t know who she married.
I feel I have done nothing wrong and that if this was a dealbreaker for her than it was on her to ask me if I had ever paid for sex before.
I want to know how the users of Mumsnet feel about this. Do you agree with me or with her?

I cant believe this post is genuine but to clarify something many have posted. Not every sex worker is pimped/forced/on drugs/mental.

I do photography part time, and in amongst the many things I have shot was an escort (and then she recommended me to her friend). She wanted pro photos for her website/profile (I would describe it as glamour style rather than porn). Anyway, had a nice chat with her about it was quite fascinated.

She did this off her own back, worked from hotels normally although had in the past rented a 1 bed flat to use for this purpose. Claims she made >100k a year and had a very nice car on the drive too. Came across as someone I would bump into at Tesco, gym or local pub. Yes, she had a few stories to tell, and I couldn't imagine having to strip with someone 3x my weight or 3x my age... but seemed happy enough with what she did.

Sure, there is a lot of abuse associated with this but not all are like that.

I think we're all fully aware of that. I dont think there's a lack of awareness about 'happy hookers', but happy or not, it certainly doesn't stop men buying them.

And you dont know if that individual experienced sexual abuse as a child or had a secret drug addiction that might explain her lifestyle- neither are things you would disclose to a photographer you had hired.

Well balanced, mentally healthy women who aren't experiencing poverty or coercion dont choose to have sex with men they find repulsive such as the ones she described.

But these women are at the top of a pyramid. For sure some women can handle it and make great money. These are the women you hear from generally, more articulate women who have made a choice as it offers them more money and freedom than the grind of day to day life. As I said earlier in the thread they are still going into sometimes dangerous situations and doing things that are repulsive to most, in exchange for money.
But underneath that there are tiers that go lower and lower, cheaper, rougher, younger, gang controlled. You name it.
Some women (on the top tiers) may as an individual profit from sex work but women as a whole class, all across the world, suffer from men buying them for sex. And selling. It causes havoc. Men don't seem to understand this as a whole and always come back to the happy hookers. We know they exist. That's not the point.

The fact that this is even a question shows how serious this is.

Since when is it rape to pay someone for a service they offer?

This tells me so much of what you understand about women and women's sexuality.

In no way is prostitution like any other type of work. In no other line of work can your customer or boss impregnate you, regardless of contraception usage. There may be similarities, but on visceral, primal level it is different, and men who don't acknowledge this are a massive red flag.

Having sex with a man you're not attracted to is not the same for women as it is for men. This is why women can retch or vomit after they've done something like that. Yes, for a very small minority, they might not mind who they have sex with for money, but most end up doing it out of desperation, no matter what they tell you, or end up relying on alcohol or drugs to anaesthetise themselves to the horror they subject their minds and body to.

You put yourself in such a vulnerable position with someone who could literally kills you with their bare hands AND impregnate you if they wanted to. The power dynamic between men and women having sex is massive, and not something you can wave away because sex happens to be different for men, or because there's an exchange of money.

And then there's the number of women who end up doing it because they're addicted to drugs or trafficked.

It may not be nice to think of yourself as physically repulsive to a woman, or that a woman only had sex with you because she was absolutely desperate or coerced to do it, but this is the reality for most prostitutes.

The men who insist otherwise just don't have a clue what it's like to have sex as a woman, or are trying to smooth over or justify something they know is contentious and unethical.

Why am I even wasting my words. You've clearly come on here to justify your activities and your past.

Fucking hell. You're so far gone and think your use of prostitutes is so normal that you actually think it's on women to have to ask about something like this. For a lot of women, this is like finding out that someone stole a lot of money from a friend of theirs or something, or that they were a serial cheater.

Some women (on the top tiers) may as an individual profit from sex work but women as a whole class, all across the world, suffer from men buying them for sex.

Feminism is about the liberation of women as a class from oppression. This means that sometimes individual women should give up the means by which they've managed to turn patriarchy to their limited favour in order for all of us to be liberated as a class.

Yes, I thought about this a lot recently as commercial sex has become increasingly visible and acceptable

You don't even know why women hate the men who pay for sex????

So even though you have supposedly stopped exploiting women since you met your wife...you haven't fundamentally learned why ever buying sex in the first place was wrong???

This 100% should have been disclosed by you. It is not something anyone should have to ask. I see this thread is already 8 pages long so I'm sure it has already been clearly explained.

Well the sex workers aren't going to admit to anything that might cause them to lose clients now are they? But anyone providing sex for pay is doing it because they are forced to, desperate for the money or don't know anything else due to past trauma or abuse and probably feel this is all they can do.

No little girl dreams of constantly having random dicks in her one day as a profession.

You're clearly quite stupid.

I don’t think anyone believes every single sex worker is a victim of abuse.

But a man cannot know for sure if the sex worker IS being abused, coerced or trafficked.

A man who pays for sex is willing to take the risk despite knowing he cannot be sure he isn’t complicit in a woman being abused, coerced or trafficked.

A decent man wouldn’t want to take that risk.

A man who does take that risk in order to get sex on demand is not a decent man in my opinion.

If this post is real then you should be thrown back by whatever unfortunate woman you are with

If this post is trolling then you should be thrown back by whatever unfortunate woman you are with

Why are you asking opinion; if in fact you re not accepting everyone's response.??
You come across as arrogant and quite misogynist in your veiws.
You say you used sex workers ' a few DOZEN times",not a few times.
Sounds very regular.
Could you not make the effort to meet and engage in a healthy relationship??
Was it easier to just pay to satisfy a need??
Most unhealthy.
I m not surprised your wife is most likely in shock.
How would you feel if the roles were reversed;
Your other half ; " before I met you,I was in need of extra cash so I engaged in some sex work for a while, maybe should have mentioned it before".??

Iron constitution or full emotional numbing due to complex trauma or drug addiction, I would think.

I can’t say I have known many sex workers but the three that I knew to some personal extent ticked both the complex trauma background and alcohol/drug addiction background.

I find it impossible to believe that this OP has managed to hire dozens of happy hookers as well as befriend a few more independently, all of whom were happily and freely doing it for the easy money, and not for any less palatable reason.

I wouldn't care how many consenting women my husband had sex with before we got together. I WOULD care if he'd paid for sex, you cannot buy consent! It would be the end for me 100%

Sorry to burst your bubble but you met this woman once. You’ve obviously swallowed her glossy narrative wholesale, but let’s be real, you know absolutely nothing about the circumstances of her life outside of what she told you and have no way to know whether there are in fact far less palatable reasons driving her decision to sell her body.

I mean, you say yourself that you couldn’t imagine doing what she does and then brush away your own visceral rejection of such a choice with a breezy “but she seemed happy enough”.

I suggest if you sit with the question of what might have happened to her to make her willing to tolerate something most people would find completely repellent, you might feel a bit more discomfort with the sales pitch you were given.

“Yeah, been there, done that.”
urgh, you sound like an immature incel, who speak like this other than David Brent ?

Because she sees you now as a man that has used another woman for paid for sex, it astounds me you don't see that.

How did your wife not know you were a brothel frequenter if you have so many friends sleep are / were sex workers???

I coerced no one. I understand people can be trafficked but I try my best to avoid those situations by going to licensed brothels. If someone there was trafficked that is not on me. Just like it is not on you that some people are exploited for labour trafficking if you unknowingly buy products they have made.

The fact that you know full well trafficking is a major risk for the industry but don’t really care if the women you paid to fuck were trafficked or not as long as you didn’t know about it says everything about you.

Also, in reference to your OP, paying “dozens” of different women for sex is in no way “occasional” use of sex workers, even if you did it over a decade. It’s regular, prolonged use of prostitutes, presumably your main form of sexual experience before you met your wife at the age of 29. If you were so convinced of its reasonableness, you would have mentioned it to her long before the nine-year mark. In fact, as I write this, I’m starting to struggle to believe this is real. Nobody is that naive.

Is this a joke? Of course she is devastated to find this out and yes you should have disclosed this before marriage. If its not a joke, i wonder if you have low emotional intelligence and no theory of mind.

I fail to see this as real.
What sort of man comes on here and actually says he's astounded by his wife realising he has used/ paid for women for sex?!!!

Where? Can’t have been the UK, no such thing as licensed brothels here, they are illegal

Interestingly, you see nothing wrong with what you've done, and it's quite surprising that you came to a pro-female forum to ask such a controversial question.

Perhaps consider the responses you've received from women and think about how your wife might be feeling, and stop with the faux outrage over your actions.

I hope your post is bollix. Or your wife has a good lawyer.