Long time ago but my DH

[Gizmo79]

Had sex with a prostitute in the red light district of Amsterdam.
This was way before we met.
I still struggle with the idea though. He was young and single so didn’t cheat in anyone, but...he paid to fuck some poor woman who had to pay her bills. Just so he could get his jollies.
When he told me initially I kicked him out, but then forgave. But I can’t forget. Every time he comes near me I feel that he is nasty, dirty, an arrogant man who thinks that’s okay,
Probably the wrong area to post in, but I don’t know who else will understand. If it wasn’t for our children then I would be long gone. I had one DS with him when we were in happy mode prior to finding this out, and then an accident DS when I was drunk. (And yes I should have probably had an abortion in hindsight although I love him to bits so no)!
We sleep together maybe once a year at the best as I strongly suspect he is shagging other prostitutes despite his denial, plus I can only bear to do it when I am paralytic.
When I am sober- the thought of what he did makes me retch inside.
I do not know what to do. Yes, I’m nasty for not having sex with my husband, but do other women find this okay?

If he made a mistake once, many years ago, you need to see if he has grown since then. If he has, then there is nothing wrong with forgiveness. We all make mistakes, learn from them, and do better next time.

However, you suspect he is still using prostitutes. Is that because you truly believe it, or are you just fixating in the fact that he did it once. It makes a huge difference to how you should move forward.

I'm merely appealing to my fellow women to not conflate the two as it does diminish the experiences of actual rape survivors.

I see it the opposite way, it serves to contextualise and properly name the experience of prostitutes. Having seen first hand their reluctance, which cannot escape the notice of the punters, and the horror of what they have told me about the sex involved, it is absolutely rape. When men say one of the main reasons they use prostitutes is to do things no other women will do with them, they KNOW what that means.

I used to have a leaflet, circulated in my area, written by the women, warning about dangerous men and what they were doing. To warn other women. Town of less than 500,000 and multiple stories every month of rapes, thefts, sexual assaults, false imprisonments, violence. Belle du jour isn't the reality. Rape is.

We're losing sight of the OP. I do hope she's OK. She sounded so distressed.

It's a horrible choice to make

Hope you’re ok OP, I suspect you’re being a bit gaslighted if your looking for validation that your emotional reaction is somehow over the top. It’s not by the way, we’re all entitled to feel how we feel.

Fact is you are in a marriage where you are not free to express yourself, your feelings and thoughts. If he won’t go to see a counsellor with you then this can’t get fixed by itself.

You are looking at divorce and the potential change as this one huge insurmountable challenge. Instead break it down into a series of smaller achievable goals. Go see a solicitor, look into job opportunities elsewhere where the cost of living is not so cripplingly expensive, good nurses are needed pretty much everywhere, start squirrelling away small sums of money in an account only you have access too. In short start investigating liberating yourself and make the decision to stay or leave from a position of personal power and not lack. You can do it.

I truly didn't mean to derail and apologize.

The word rape was made center to my existence since I was 5yrs old so this is a very important topic for me as a woman and as a survivor.

I don't find the sex industry palatable - society does - which I highly disagree with.

Correlation isn't causation. Prostitution and porn don't help rape convictions that's obvious. Men were raping before there was transactional sex so it makes sense to see that within transactional sex there would be a great deal of rape. Some marriages are transactional in regards to sex - is that rape in your (general) opinion?

I seek to ease the pain of those that are raped and try to safeguard other girls/women to prevent them being raped - regardless of work/life choices. One of the ways to ease that pain is to be able to define our experiences.

I am a CSA and violent rape survivor. Neither perpetrator was convicted.

I also have known (in the past) prostitutes, exotic dancers, and porn performers. Don't tell me that my ex-"friend" who attempted to draw me in to the industry; lured me to a job interview (she was promised cash overrides for recruitment) from which I literally ran. She knew my background and saw me as prey.

Some women make very poor choices, misguided choices, but you (general you) can't equate their misguided opt-in to exploitation to being raped (regardless of whether they think they are exploited). Many more girls/women are trafficked and I am very hard-pressed to equate their experiences with the experiences of women that actively make poor choices.
All women have autonomy and just because you think prostitutes are always raped doesn't mean they are. All prostitutes workers however are exploited, and many are physically abused, emotionally abused, etc. for mostly men's gain.

As a survivor I claim the word I claim it because it is an accurate representation of what I survived not once but twice. I didn't ask for it, prostitutes don't ask for it - I find it diminishes mine and all women's experiences of rape when the word is thrown around.

Again sorry for the derail.

You are looking at divorce and the potential change as this one huge insurmountable challenge. Instead break it down into a series of smaller achievable goals.

^This

My therapy suggestions are not intended to imply that you aren't capable on your own it's merely a resource to help you find the strength to move on (whatever that may mean for you).

We know that many, most in fact, women in the sex industry don't want to be there. That's the point. The Belle Du Jour types are a tiny subset of the industry as a whole and not representative of most women's experiences in it.

In terms of Amsterdam, to get back to the OPs question, trafficking there has skyrocketed since legalization, so chances that OPs husband was paying to rape a trafficking victim rather than participating in an economic exchange with a woman who entered into that business of her own free will are high. If I was her I'd want to know that, because it sounds like her husband and his military mates are not at all likely to acknowledge that reality.

You’re unhappy with him. You are not attracted to him, and avoid having sex- needing to get paralytic to do so.

Trying to convince yourself that you can put up with this just won’t work. To a certain extent I think the why of your anger - the initial use of a prostitute before you met - is a red herring. The fact is you can’t rationalise yourself into love (or lust, or intimacy). By staying with him you are living a lie, allowing your body to be degraded on the rare occasions you have sex (because unwanted unwelcome sex is degrading), ignoring your own instincts.

Please respect your instincts. If your body says no it is for good reason. Forcing yourself to stay, when every instinct is running for the door, will just destroy your mental health - and set a terrible example for your children.

I spent ages trying to convince myself to stay in a degrading relationship, putting up with unwanted sex, feeling lonely and unloved, afraid of leaving, repulsed by staying. Honestly, however difficult it is, if you leave, you won’t look back. There is a better life out there for you, however large the practical difficulties, a life with real love and fulfilment.

If you loved this man - real love and commitment and trust - you’d be able to work through these issues together. You’d have that intimacy. You wouldn’t be posting here and suspecting him of visiting prostitutes. The issue is loss of love, and without that, it Is over- no matter how many people post stuff about how absolutely great it is being a prostitute in Amsterdam. They can say that all they like - your body knows you can’t love this man, or want to be with him. Listen to it. Respect it.

Lots of sympathy to you.

I was raped by a stranger. Called all sorts of names including slut and whore. Calling prostitution rape does not diminish what happened to me or any other rape victim. There should be no hierarchies of victims. Men buying consent is rape. They are paying to rape women who would not willingly have sex with them. How can this be anything but rape?

OP, your husband was beyond cruel in telling you this after you were tied to him by children. Either he was trying to assuage his own guilt or to test the water for further appalling behaviour. You need to get a plan together to leave, because you can stay with a man who makes you consider suicide as a way out.

OP If your marriage makes you suicidal, you need to get out. Money is a secondary concern compared to being dead. Could you stay with parents? Friends?

It's likely that your death in service benefits won't pay out for suicide: suicide is an exclusion on every life insurance policy I've ever come across. And do you really want.your "whoring" H raising your children?

================

StopThePlanet Interesting how your ex-friend considered you as prey, meat for the grinder, based on your background of being abused. Pimps actively recruit abuse victims because they know that victims have poor self-worth and won't assert boundaries. The "choosy choice" libfem narrative breaks down when you realise that abused women and girls, especially teen girls, are targeted because they will "choose" to endure treatment that more assertive women will reject.

why the sex industry is "palatable in society" and how that connects to abysmally low conviction rates for rape and its prevalence.

And the appalling prevalence of street harassment of women in Germany where brothels are legal, compared to here.

Again, I don't support or agree with any of the sex industry, I am not an apologist.

I am not of libfem perspective, I do not see the sex industry as a choice for most it is an uninformed yet active decision for a few but it isn't happening in a vacuum. It is a decision made within the patriarchy, "under his eye", in legal and value (et al) systems designed by and for men.

With that I see the opposing viewpoints and respect your perspectives. As always, thanks for engaging.

OP, best of my wishes for you and yours.

I tend to agree with StopTHe Planet that it's a bad idea to use the word rape in place of prostitution or assume that all sex under those conditions is rape. Words have meaning for a reason, and you muddy the waters a lot when you use language that way. It makes it far more difficult to talk about consent.

OP - I can see that you are really upset, but it's difficult to see from what you've said how much is about what your husband did, and what you have kind of layered on to that, and what he might be doing now.

As a young person who probably had not thought about it much, in a country where it was legal and a country generally seen as very progressive, in the military where all the people around him had a kind of macho culture, it's not shocking that a young person would go along with that sort of thing, give it a try. I have also found that for people who come from backgrounds where a lot of jobs are kind of tough and degrading, there can be a real sense that this is just one more example of that, not so different.

The question is, what does he think now, and why? And how does he behave in general. Many people think things in their youth that they don't now, or do things, and many people are not very aware in certain areas of their lives, without being horrible people.

It sounds to me like you are depressed, and I think you may have a hard time sorting out your thoughts and feelings without addressing that, so I'd second the idea of going to concealing by yourself if you can. In any case that may help you make a plan.

"assume that all sex under those conditions is rape"

It would be helpful if you could spell out 'those 'conditions' men put prostituted women in that you don't consider to be sexually violating and abusive acts by men.

I ask for clarification because what I see is you making excuses for men forcing themselves sexually on women, "...a lot of jobs are kind of tough and degrading, there can be a real sense that this is just one more example of that, not so different."

So I ask, unless you consider sex 'kind of tough and degrading' for women by its very nature, what are "those conditions" you speak of that makes prostitution kind of tough and degrading in a way sex is not and that still disqualifies it from being rape?

insideandout there are various handmaidens who claim to be happy sex workers. They may come to change their minds later on in life but I wouldn’t class their experience as rape, especially as they vehemently deny that it is. I can’t see how we can say that women have agency otherwise.

However, I think that the type of man who uses prostitutes is no better or different than a rapist because he does not know whether or not there is consent because he buys the sex and believes he is entitled to it on that basis. So it can be a situation where it is not rape because the woman consents, but that doesn’t lessen the man’s culpability IYSWIM. It’s like if a man intends to rape a woman but it turns out that she did consent. Legally it’s not rape, but his mental intent is the same. Going to a prostitute shows that you don’t give a shit whether there is consent.

I’m not entirely sure this re-hash of the pro/anti prostitution debate is particularly helpful to the OP, in fact it could be actively harmful. I may be wrong but I detected in her post almost a desire to self gaslight in that she doesn’t deep down approve of the sex industry but was looking for validation that perhaps she was over blowing things.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the prostitution debate are (and as important as that discussion is), at it’s heart this thread is about a woman repulsed by a husband who is unable to even express her authentic self within the relationship. Wether prostitution is right or wrong is actually irrelevant next to the fact that she could use support in navigating a dark time in her life.

insideandout3

I think you need to consider how you read what people are saying. I think prostitution is immoral and should be illegal.

It's entirely possible to think that, and also understand how people come to think that something is ok, and to understand their thought processes. If we decided everyone who thought or did something as young people that they later realised was wrong or had significantly bad consequences was evil, there would be a great many of us who would be evil and irredeemable people.

And yes, people who come from difficult circumstances do at times tend to see bad situations as just life. That includes people who are working in those jobs themselves sometimes.

For goodness sake, not everyone who has a slightly different view than you about people's thought processes, or the best way to describe something, is an apologist or anything else.

Dervel

I think the reason this has come up is that it's a little difficult to see, from the OPs posts, if there is a lot more going on that the original incident many years ago. I have no real sense of how her husband thinks or behaves about this now. The discussion seems to have come up between people who are thinking those things matter, and those who don't.

My partner told that when he was an 18 year old daft lad he and his friends had a happy ending massage in Amsterdam. He honestly didn't see it as using a prostitute. I had to spell it out to him that she was probably trafficked. I think he's ashamed and embarrassed now, but still can't accept that he used a sex worker. Depressing.

You didn't answer.

What are 'those conditions' you speak of that makes prostitution kind of tough and degrading in a way sex is not and that still disqualifies it from being rape?

I've started another thread for the derailed discussion. Perhaps people could take it over there, and leave this thread for the OP if she wants to and is able to come back.

OP I'm still thinking about you, I hope you will be OK, and find the strength to do what you need to do. You have suffered enough in this relationship, you deserve something better.