My Post to the Men Who Use Prostitutes

My comments on the original BBC article, although for some strange reason they have not seen fit to release my comments.

The men who are paying women for sex understand, on some level, that THESE WOMEN DO NOT GENUINELY DESIRE THEM. If they desired you, they would not require cash payment! I have certainly never asked a man with whom I desired to have sex to pay me! This means that, when a man is paying, he implicitly understands that the woman does not TRULY find him desirable. Yet he goes ahead and does it. Shame!

Helene, the reason so many prostitutes have drug problems is that the majority (85%, according to most studies) have been molested and abused as girls. They suffer from P.T.S.D. and fail to see themselves as anything other than objects for men's exploitation. They don't need legal and societal approval of their further exploitation, in the form of legalized prostitution. What they need is social services.

Gary and Sandy, if you do not understand that penetrative sex for money is invasive in a way that handing out burgers for minimum wage is not, there is truly something wrong with your heart - and your soul. Notice that when American troops at abu Graib wanted to do something REALLY humiliating and nasty to prisoners, they didn't force them to hand out hamburgers in the soldiers' mess hall. Instead, they stipped them naked and compelled them to do sexual acts. This suggests that we understand, at least on some level, that SEXUAL acts have the potential to be more humiliating - because they are more personal - than any ordinary, frustrating, mind-numbingly boring minimum wage labor.

Abi, I agree fully that the West is repressive of women just as Moslem countries are. Religious fundamentalists - Moslem and Christian - want to keep women under control and close to home. Liberal western cultures want to control women in the public sphere - yes, they may have careers, but their bodies are exploited for marketing purposes, and most liberal western men are enthusiastic about legalized prostitution, legal abortion, easy access to birth control, and lots of quick hook-ups. In other words, fundamentalists tend to focus on women's availability at home, liberal men tend to focus on women's public availabiity, but BOTH want women to be members of the sex caste and at their service.

Steve, You say that you are 50 and are not seen as attractive by most women you approach in bars. Then you go on to discuss your ideal prostitute, who is attractive and youthful. But YOU ARE NOT attractiveand youthful! I suspect you are trying to bed hawt young babes and then feeling frustrated by the rejection. Indeed, you mention that you often find you are expected to pay for things, which is what I have so often observed happening to middle-aged male friends who insist on trying to bag hawt young babes - these babes don't take them seriously and use them as sugar daddies if they bother with them at all. Duh! Meanwhile, women who are these men's peers, in years, experience, wisdom, and financial independence, women whose lovely bodies are rounded by childbearing and time and whose faces are creased by laugh lines are ignored by shallow, insensitive middle-aged men still focused on chasing the young girls. You can't get what you want without paying, Steve, because you are looking for all the wrong things.

P.S. to the BBC: These men don't sleep with prostitutes. This may seem like the polite, family-friendly way for the BBC to refer to it, but it also uses language to minimize what is really going on.