Why do men use prostitutes?

[QuentinSummers]

Guardian have published a summary of a research project here
www.theguardian.com/society/2010/jan/15/why-men-use-prostitutes
Men were asked what would put them off. A criminal record, an ASBO or their employer being told was the answer. Finding out the woman was pimped or coerced apparently not so much.
Not sure how that squares with the full decriminalisation model.

EamonnWright

It's not that women don't understand what you're saying. 'Be a bit more diplomatic about the way you talk about things and you might get more people on your side'.

It's that being diplomatic and nice clearly doesn't work.

See Almonds post for a microcosm if that.

Women know full well that being nice doesn't ever cut the mustard. With your target audience.

It would be fantastic, if it did. We could politely, logically show evidence and things would change.

Hey fucking presto.

Think about what you're saying. Feminism has a bad name, right? That is not because feminists aren't nice or friendly.

Because, it would be a piece of piss to be nice and friendly and bingo! change laws and attitudes.

What's not to like? Porn and prostitution is demeaning and degrading to women, please stop. Cheers. Job done.

It took FIFTEEN years for feminists to persuade Parliament to make rape within marriage illegal. It was only made illegal a mere 25 years ago.

Fifteen years of men being presented with logical, rational argument. Being asked to not treat women as subhuman, sex on demand machines.

Imagine, for one minute, all the meetings, committees, agendas, and minutes being typed that still ended up saying nah, rape is absolutely fine because it's our god given right to have sex whenever we want, despite the fact that we're forcing you.

You may truly believe that feminists will get more people on their side if they were nicer. You're absolutely right. Liberal feminism is a testament to that.

The trouble is, it's no longer feminism. And it no longer works.

Being nice may make more men agree with you, but only if what you're asking is very little and something that they don't mind giving up anyway.

Almonds

Your post is heartbreaking. I'm glad you're out of it.

Almond- wht a brave and tragic post. So glad you're out of it. My dd is involved with an abusive man-your experience is an order of magnitude worse of course, but when you say you'd be sad if you heard he'd been arrested it resonates so much with what I've learned about her experience.

almond thank you for sharing that.

Your earlier post about animals has bothered me. I think you are right but also I think it shows admirably that men who use prostitutes view them as less than human, like animals.
Not that they hate them necessarily, bird that they think those women aren't entitled to the same rights as proper humans I.e. men.
I'm not vegetarian but you post has made me feel like I should be vegan

Almond I am so sorry those men chose to harm you like that, you have shown incredible courage in just carrying on after those experiences.

The feelings you still have about your ex-pimp are entirely an understandable trauma response. Hope you’re doing ok now.

almond

I learned quickly and very young that men are happy to have sex with a woman they don't like. Even a woman they despise and wish harm on but they think looks alright.

As a woman, I'm 99% sure that woman as a whole view sex differently, they need to like the person, to feel attracted to the personality and whole person, as well as the appearance of the sexual partner in order to enjoy sex with them

As a prostitute one of the hardest thief's was having sex with someone you don't like in the slightest, awful men who you know are cunts, and you know full well they don't like you at all they just fancy a shag

On top of that, fucking you is not enough, they demand you writhe around in uncontained ecstacy and orgasm on the very first touch otherwise they complain on your profile and you get no further business.

So I think these different attitude towards sex explains why men pay for sex with a stranger for orgasms and women accept sex from a stranger for money.

*things not theifs

I don't think anyone has mentioned yet how a lot of men use prostitutes because their sexual perversions are so disgusting/self-centred/hard work/tedious/degrading, that no women would do it willingly, without financial incentive.

Some men love the power trip - getting someone to do exactly what they are told to satisfy their whims. It is very empowering for them. And likewise it is a freedom trip too. They are free to choose who they want, how they want, when they want, what they want and where they want. It is a completely unnatural set of circumstances males have, as a class, provided for themselves at the expense of women - women's preferences and desires are an irritating inconvenience and prostitution creates the workaround.

This situation is importantly is enabled by the created class of destitute or enslaved women thanks to structural financial inequality favouring their own male purchasing power.

Thanks everyone. I'm not in that situation now, thankfully. It was a bit of an outburst but threads about this always throw up a lot of emotional conflict for me.

I guess the thing I learned is that even when you say that you've consented, with all your might, it's simply not a case of 'well she said she consented so it's fine' because that ignores a lot of the context that prostitution happens in. Poverty, mental health issues, alcohol, drugs, grooming, abuse, coercion. My pimp made me think it was beneficial for me so that he could use the 'she agreed to it' line - "You like drugs, you don't have enough money, you enjoy sex... Why not combine the two? You have sex and you get more money and more drugs?" Oh yeah great idea!

I still have days where I feel he did nothing wrong and it was basically my idea.

A lot goes on 'behind the scenes' and a lot of women don't even realise they've been manipulated.

Almond

You're brilliant. Thank you for sharing. Without your courage in doing so, the rest of us only have incomplete pictures about the dynamics of these situations.

Sorry Almond there was a glitch in my computer which made me see only a small portion of this thread. Apologies if my post seemed out of nowhere.

Ophelia

Indeed. Someone I'd bitterly hated since secondary school (he spat at me before on one occasion) would regularly ring me (must have got my number from someone), telling me how he wants to pay for it and he'll have me, this and that. I would always just hang up. Until my dealer rang me and told me he was outside my hostel with him with something for me (more drugs). I gave in pretty quickly, although I hated every second of it. He didn't care if I enjoyed it at all.

Some men get off on the vulnerability/wearing you down. That's rape imo.

Some women don't just do it out of fear, some women do it out of some twisted sense of love and loyalty to whoever controls them (and they won't necessarily view it as controlling).

Thank you Lang and everyone else for being so understanding. I think these boards are a place where ex ""workers"" can feel comfortable letting their guard down and talking about it, without fear of being judged or told they should support ""proper sex work"" (many libfems) etc.

AlmondPearls and Ophelia I really want to give you a BIG HUG and smash any bloke, that ever touched you, in the face with a rock grr

Me too.

I don't think anyone is surprised about the loyalty towards one's pimp. It's well documented. A form of Stockholm syndrome?

It's quite true that it is very informative reading the posts from Ophelia and Almond. But I don't think there is a woman alive who doesn't get it instantly. In a click.

Almost every woman experiences misogyny, albeit on a spectrum.

And when it ramps up to form the heartbreaking experiences of Almond and Ophelia, it's immediately recognisable to women who have never had that experience.

And all the more infuriating because even if you take out the perpetrators from the entire class of men, you are still left with a cohort who Just Don't Get It. Because they don't ever experience it on the lower end of the spectrum. Or anywhere on the bloody spectrum.

Almond and Ophelia. I also have rocks...

Almond Right,

You need money, you need your substance, someone says "have sex with me and I'll give you money and your substance".

In your mind at the time and their mind at the time it's win-win, But to the objective observer it's clearly coercion into sex, and therefore rape.

Paying anyone for sex is coercion, buying consent. How is that not also rape.

Someone I think Anyfucker up thread mentioned an empathy chip being removed in sex purchasing men.

It sometimes baffled me how men could orgasm into a woman who he knows wouldn't spread her legs for him in a million years other than for money. How is that a turn on?

You don't give it much thought at the time because you bloody love/need the money, but men who do this must only care entirely about their own physical wants and the emotional/empathetic side of them must be totally absent.

The thing is, of course that, if you've consumed porn, you've supported both prostitution and trafficking. The three things are inextricably linked.

And yes, it does seem that in men who think these things are ok, their empathy chip is broken.

Ophelia

Of course it is. I just have trouble admitting to that part about him. Apologies.

Single men use prostitutes when their confidence or appeal to women is low. A small but significant number of men are too frightened to approach women or prostitutes. Married men will turn to prostitutes and/or lovers when their own relationship is loveless or in turmoil. Males addicted to sex may seek it anywhere, anytime and in any way. Some women addicted to sex do the same but are less likely to require a male prostitute, as finding a man who is willing, for a woman is less problematic.
There is a resemblance of meaning in our adult sexual relationship, which in some way expresses a beauty or pain, a connection or a fracture, an avoidance or an obsession of some element of our parent's obvious or covert sexual identity. As with so much of our personality, our upbringing is a major determining factor in our adult intimate lives. We are the confirmation or, the remedy to someone else's previously anguished or lustful state of being. Sex is the survival of mankind, so it is high in the psyche of most, particularly younger people.

So basically, LadyinTheWater it is women's fault men "turn" to prostitutes? If only women liked or loved them a bit more then they wouldn't need to use and exploit other women? Nice.

And "sex addiction" is a bullshit term that men invented to excuse themselves from feeling entitled to sex and screwing around.

If asking nicely for what we need worked for women then domestic violence, rape, and the pay gap wouldn't exist. It doesn't. When men get angry about feminism what's making them angry is the core of what we're saying, not the tone in which we're saying it. What major social change has ever come about as a result of people just nicely asking if other people would let them have more rights, please, if it's not too much trouble? It's a ridiculous argument that only makes sense if you think that the things being asked for are not rights at all.

And that's all the patience I have for our resident "but if you just asked nicely..." bloke. Almond on the other hand...I wish I could give you a hug. I've known women who worked in the sex industry, and none of them came out of the experience without a lot of mental and emotional scars. The "sex positive" myth of the empowered sex worker is bullshit - what happened to Almond is far more representative of the experience of most women in the industry than whatever nonsense Belle Du Jour and other apologists want the public to believe.

@Datun Amen to your post about women asking nicely. Well said.

To Ophelia and Almond it makes me really sad deep down inside that you and other women have to go through this and that we are still in a world peddling the 'enpowerment' myth wrt porn and sex work. Whenever I hear that I feel like stories like yours are just ignored and it makes me upset and angry. Just like that myth that men NEED sex and porn available to them. I'm sending hugs to you both and assuring you, your story is being listened to, really listened to here.