I am aware of the sex trade in those countries, having worked on anti-trafficking projects in the FSU. While they are not dark skinned, they are desparate and sex worker clients are taking advantage of that desperation.
People try to wiggle out of it, but the fact remains: if you have to pay someone to touch you, you are a sad, sad person.
Sad, sad people are entitled to sex (with consenting adults) as well. The fact that consent is obtained via a commercial transaction doesn’t change that, IMHO.
By saying “he’s not looking for a peer”, taken in context with the rest of her post (ex. “he’s a sleazeball”) I took Lynn Bodoni’s comment to imply some sort of moral or ethical condemnation of people who seek out such a relationship. She is free to correct me if that is a misinterpretation.
I already gave my thoughts on the specific subject hand in an earlier post upthread, but this comment in particular struck me so I wanted to isolate it and question the philosophy behind it in a more general sense.
I’m not one to play the cultural relativism card, but in this instance it really does apply. We put sex on a huge pedestal in the United States. In other cultures, it simply isn’t so - it’s just a commodity for them. I think most people on both ends are aware of that. The women certainly seem to be, from everything I’ve read. I don’t see the moral issue or why a man should be condemned as sad, sick, evil or whatever for patronizing prostitutes. I think sex trafficking in children should be fought against, and an effort should be made to fight AIDS and other diseases in the sex industry. Outside of that, I just view it as another service industry.
We in America are the ones with the fucked up attitudes about sex, shoving it in everyone’s face ALL THE TIME in media and advertisements and everything else, yet ALSO acting all pious and uptight about it at the same time.
If you read the article in the OP, you’d see that Bob the bald American himself is proclaiming to be sad and unfulfilled. Let us not forget that it was his innocence that was lost. Forever.
Yeah, and he’s a whiny bitch. Okay. But I’m trying to address the blanket condemnation of all men who patronize prostitutes - I don’t think it’s warranted.
It’s a commodity here too. Its legitimacy is just priced higher - money for men, looks for women, and fairly stringent sex role conformity for both.
Hookups, FWBs, etc. mean sex is freer, but basically, it’s still a commodity exchange for most of us.
While not Thailand, there is a flourishing prostitution industry here (Dominican Rep.), and the circumstances, AFAICT, are not much different.
Prostitution is legal here (pimping is not). But the same as Thailand, the vast majority of prostitutes that cater to tourists and foreigners are not “street hookers”, more like “Rent-a-Girlfriend”. They pretend to like the john and love him and all that jazz, but it’s all business.
The problem is that some men just can’t seem to tell the difference because they are either stupid, or in denial. All they have, as a friend puts it, is a “pocketful of personality”, but they end up really thinking it is them, not their money.
The problem is that great sex (and it’s probably only “great” to one party) can only last for so long, after the initial flame is gone people have to talk, socialize, raise children together, work, etc. It’s hard to do that with a partner that is particularly unsuitable for your lifestyle. A partner that, other than physical attraction has little to offer. And in the end the girl will have what she wants: the guy’s money, and the novelty of a being a bit (or a lot) richer wears off. It doesn’t work in the long term, it rarely does. As a matter of fact I have yet to see one of this lopsided relationships work. It doesn’t matter if the girl is a Thai, or Dominican bargirl, a Russian mailbride, or one of Donald Trump’s wives.
I am simply just glad that I could always afford to have sex with people I really wanted to have sex with. I can’t imagine doing otherwise.
I don’t really condemn prostitution as such. But this guy apparently isn’t happy with having a girlfriend unless she’s a generation or more younger than he is. To me, this indicates that he’s a sleazeball who can’t handle a woman who is old enough to be his peer. He can’t appreciate a woman for herself, he’s only interested in the outside package and the willingness to be his little girl. I’m usually skeeved out by guys who will ONLY date very young women. Remember, he’s not just going after the young hoes for sex, he also will only have young girlfriends. Let’s say he does find the love of his life, she’s 25 while he’s 50. When he’s 60, does he trade her in for a newer model? Assuming he can keep her for ten years?
A biological response (since I’m a biologist), and a personal response.
Sex is about more than getting off. One of the primary evolutionary functions of sex is pair-bonding; there’s a lot of hormonal and neurological stuff happening during and afterwards that’s supposed to encourage you two to stick together. In fact, since the invention of contraception, bonding is probably the major remaining biological function (on a per-event basis, at least; reproduction is still the biggie overall).
In regards the OP, evolution hasn’t caught up to technology and men are still interested in sex without bonding for the chance at kids without parenting. (Obviously, that’s not what’s going through their minds at the time. People don’t eat Big Macs in the conscious hopes of packing on fat mass either.) Men are willing to pay for sex because $200 for a hooker is cheaper than 18 years of child-care; of course, nowadays the chance of them actually getting what they paid for has gone from low-but-plausible to next-to-nil, but their libidos don’t know that. This is the other major non-reproductive evolutionary function of sex; since males are willing to trade resources for sex (preferably with reproduction), females can use the promise of sex to gain resources (preferably without reproduction). Since the desired outcomes are different, there’s lots of room for manipulation and deceit on both sides. Much of the “psychological bullshit” you complain about comes from this.
Science-fiction time: current research indicates that, among societies with open and reliable access to contraception, a large majority of women have children only with those men with whom they have had long-term relationships, regardless of frequency of “extra-pair copulations” (a remarkably straightforward bit of jargon 
), and that men who have a large number of brief relationships but avoid long-term ones are less likely, on average, to leave children. (Cites on request.) This suggests that if we as a species continue to use contraception for the next few thousand years, men will loose much of their interest in casual sex (since there are still costs, such as STDs) and will become more cautious about entering sexual relationships in general, as linking their reproductive success to a smaller number of partners means they will have more to loose if said partners aren’t equally committed.
Personally, if I merely want to have an orgasm, I have a perfectly good set of fingers, thank you. If I am having sex with you, it’s because I want to have sex with you, as a person and an individual; if you, conversely, are thinking of me as an interchangeable warm soft thing to stick your dick in, that’s a fundamental mismatch that bodes very poorly for the outcome of the relationship. So yes, if sex to you is “stimulating a part of your body until you have an orgasm, using someone else’s body,” then I don’t want to date you.
I think what made it sad was that he wasn’t even enjoying it. It was just maintenance for his addiction.
The short-hair pictures maybe. The long hair is unforgivable.
Woahh! Who said anything about DATING? I thought we had an understanding that it would just be a one-night thing.
Here’s how I see it. And I don’t have no fancy biology degrees or anything. Walking around New York, there are plenty of attractive women I would want to bang. Truth be told, with my income, dashing good looks and charm, I could probably have sex with random women or pay for it on a regular basis. Ultimately though, I want to be with someone for more than just use as a living blow-up doll. I think most people (at least those over the age of 25-30) find having a real relationship with someone who is their peer more satisfying than living alone and going on the prowl every weekend.
Would I ever think of a human being that I was in a relationship with as being merely a warm soft thing to stick my dick in? No. But THAT ISN’T WHAT I SAID. I said that the actual act of sexual intercourse - forget about relationships, forget about love, forget about romance or dating - the actual, physical act of sexual intercourse is just that - sticking something into a hole, or having something stuck into yours. I’m not trying to degrade the sex act by describing it this way, just reducing it to its most basic components for the sake of trying to take it off the goddamn pedestal that everyone puts it on.
A loving relationship is a beautiful thing. I know, I’m in one right now. (And I get her off every time.)
But that’s not what I’m talking about here…so don’t twist my words around.
It does to me. You (general you) are not “entitled” to sex, and if the only way you can obtain it is by exploiting someone else, be that financially or otherwise, then – no sex for you!
Another vote for completely pathetic loser. (The guy in the link, not Martini!)
I don’t see why you would get all up on your high horse about being seen to “degrade the sex act by describing it this way” when you admit you’re “trying to take it off the goddamn pedestal that everyone puts it on.” Potato, po-tah-to. I don’t see the distinction you’re making between the two.
I don’t think it should be degraded or glorified - it is what it is, a simple biological process. Everything leading up to it…that’s where the interesting stuff is. In the case of what we’re discussing here, it’s just a commodity that’s bought and paid for by money. Not really any different than paying for a haircut or a massage (except you can’t get either an STD or an orgasm from either of those, unless they also involve stimulation of the penis - possible in the latter, but unlikely in the former.) Efforts should be made to make commercialized sex safe and regulated, but other than that, I don’t have any problem with it, nor do I cast judgment on those who participate in it on either end. I mean, it’s been around for a pretty long time, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere.
And JR Brown says that there is more than that biologically. That my be the physics behind it, but because of the hormone release, there is more going on there than just tab A into slot B.
Well whatever there is going on behind-the-scenes, apparently enough people are willing to overlook that to the point where they’re willing to buy or sell sex. (The subject of this story, apparently, is unable to, even after putting himself through years of no-strings-attached sex, which is why he sounds like a whiny bitch and has earned the universal ridicule of everyone here.)
[I have got to say, this is a very hetero-male view of sex. The thing-in-hole aspect is pretty unimpressive from many women’s POV. 
]
The “actual, physical act of sexual intercourse” involves tactile (and dare I say) emotional contact between two (or possibly more) parties and also involves a great deal of autonomic nervous system activity and some (largely but not entirely temporary) hormonal and higher brain function changes. As I indicated above, a number of these consistent, non-visible but still concrete biological consequences serve (among other things) to increase pair bonding; the physicality of sex is therefore inseparable from “relationships, love, romance or dating” on a broad level, however much guy-porn would like to convince us otherwise. You can trivialize it all you want, but sex is evolutionarily designed to be a socially and emotionally important event.
I dunno…the one about the HOT (matza) BALLS Delivery Guy was pretty toasty 
Yes, and although parent-child bonding is one of the strongest in existence, some people are willing to bear other people’s children for pay or sell their own into slavery. The vast majority of women don’t engage in prostitution, and most men don’t employ prostitutes.
As I said upthread, men want sex without bonding in the hopes of having children without parenting. Sufficiently desperate or resource-minded women will sell sex as long as the price men will offer is higher than the costs (especially but not exclusively the chance of unwanted pregnancy). But for 99% of men, even before the advent of contraception, the play-the-field track is sufficiently low-probability-of-success that at some point they have to suck it up and do the high-cost-high-certainty Daddy thing.
Research indicates that humans’ subconscious estimates of “average” appearance and behavior are influenced by artificial representations (such as photographs and television) just as strongly as by real individuals. The ubiquity in modern culture of representations of attractive, sexually available women (in everything from advertising to movies to porn) appears to be giving men a false sense of the actual preponderance of such potential partners, which in turn is likely to increase their preference for low-investment-high-volume mating strategies, probably to their own evolutionary disadvantage (and certainly to their dissatisfaction). Back when we were living in groups of 30-odd adults, and everyone knew the minutiae of everybody else’s lives, how many chances do you think the average man had to have semi-anonymous, consequence-free sex with unattached young women? Like the drive to eat fatty, protein-rich foods, it’s a drive whose strength is based on the scarcity of the resource in evolutionary time which has gotten out of alignment because of changes in our lifestyles.