Sorry; been spending quality time with the wife and children (despite the fact that I am betraying and sticking two fingers up at them). Not had much of a chance to post. Let me sort out the cognitive dissonance by doing some rationalising.
Up until my mid 30's I had the attitude of many on here, namely, that prostitutes were all drugged, pimped, trafficked streetwalkers; men who saw prostitutes were scummy dirty filth bags and that I would never ever sleep with prostitutes. The thought of sleeping with WG's "sickened me" and the stigma associated with prostitution was at the forefront of my mind. I'd like to say that that attitude existed for a variety of reasons including the religious upbringing I had had and also the views of my contemporaries (albeit, many of my male contemporaries now punting). I remember my dad and my best friend's dad telling me that they visited brothels/ WG's and I was really disgusted and had a debate with them about how prostitution humiliates and degrades women.
However, when I first took the plunge and punted all that changed. I immediately knew that punting was brilliant. I felt really stupid for having allowed the Stigma associated with prostitution and the views of my female contemporaries/ religious upbringing to prevent me from having started punting sooner. Basically, I love punting and that's why I now do it - nothing to do with my wife any more. She was just the catalyst or if you prefer my justification, for starting to punt.
And you want me to stop what I love for what reason? Because you claim that there are many trafficked/ pimped/ abused girls out there who are prostituting themselves? I just think the reason us punters don't agree with you is because we don't see that or get any sense of it. Now I am not saying we never see it but its really in a minority of cases. At a guess I have now punted on about 30 occasions and had lots of contact by email with more than 100 escorts. Out of all of those, there has been three girls where I turn up, they look like they have been through the wars (in terms of drugs/ drink/ alcohol/ life), there was the smell of pot or strange bruises/ needle marks on their arms and I have walked away. There was one other occasion where I booked a girl to my hotel room, she turned up, we had not had any sex and it was clear she was not interested. I had paid her and said to her that I did not want to go ahead. She refused to refund any money. I still asked her to leave and she did so.
Other than that most the girls I have seen have been really "normal" if there is such a thing. I usually have really long punts (i.e. over 10 hours) and as you can guess don't spend a majority of that time having sex. We usually go out for lunch/ dinner, chat, laugh, go out for drinks etc. and I'd like to think that i get to know the girls to some extent. I don't ever get a sense that they are doing anything against their will and always make clear to them that if there is anything they are uncomfortable with then they do not have to do the same. Most of the time they are the ones who decide to get naked and start dancing or run around naked on the balcony; they basically lead these things - I don't ask them to do it. If they are really hating what they are doing and fooling me at the same time then they are keeping that pretense up for an awfully long time. I am not saying you are wrong about women putting on a pretence; from experience I just doubt it.
Alternatively you argue that I lead a demand for sex which causes vulnerable women to be exploited in prostitution. Well as I have already pointed out I don't think punters see the vulnerable women that you speak about in prostitution that much so its from that standpoint difficult for us to see justification in your argument. The demand for "vulnerable women" is not that great in my experience.
Even if I am wrong and the demand was there, punting is a vocation just as burglary is a vocation to burglars. Do you really think that if you manage to eliminate the demand for prostitution for say, women who inject heroin into their body, they are suddenly going to become women who are not vulnerable and stop taking heroin? Or is their pimp/ SO etc going to push them into, for instance, the burglary vocation? That said, is your argument not akin to saying that we should not display expensive goods in a shop because there might be vulnerable people out there who see these good and might want to steal from those shops (thereby, causing themselves emotional harm)? If we take away the demand for expensive goods, surely, we'll stop the theft of those goods by vulnerable people? Not a good example but you get my drift.
SabrinaMulhollandJones I am sorry you feel I don't treat women as equals. It feels to me like you have made a sweeping generalisation simply from my treatment of my wife but fair enough; I appreciate you feel what I do is wrong.
carmenelectra in answer to your post, I hope that i get the opportunity when my children are older to discuss my punting with them just as my Dad did with me. I hope I will be open and honest with them (both my daughter and my son).
Finally, summerflower I don't consider that I ever "control" a womans body. A woman might agree to share her body with me in exchange for money. OK; that may still be an "unequal relationship" if the demand for her services is lower than the supply available (which is rarely the case so far as WG's are concerned in my experience - there is far more men looking to purchase sex than women willing to sell it - even in these tough times). But isn't the relationship between any seller of goods/ services and purchaser unequal? Lets assume that I go to a gardener, I am buying the gardeners services, I have the power, the more desperate a gardener is for the money the more services he/ she would be willing to offer; so if I was in the market for someone to just trim a tree and they agreed to also mow my lawn surely I've got the extra services because of the purchasing power I have?