Inspired by this thread over in Cafe Society.
When I was 19, I dated a woman who was in her forties, and well off financially.(I never knew how old she was until after we broke up, damn she was hot!) She took me out to eat, to see the Rolling Stones, bought me clothes…You get the idea.
I began to feel guilty about the situation, as I was young, stupid, and still had morals. I’m not sure how I felt. Used maybe. Or perhaps guilty that I couldn’t afford to buy her things, take her out to expensive restaraunts, etc. (It wasn’t until later that another woman pointed out what I was bringing to the relationship) So I did what any confused 19 yo kid would do…I left her apartment one morning, and never went back.
So let me ask you all this: Was I a hooker? A whore? A prostitute? I don’t feel that I was, and I sure as hell wish I could find another woman who would give me the same deal.
Was Anna Nicole Smith a hooker when she married that old geezer? Or is it different if you marry for money, rather than shack up?
Or are there different standards for men and women?
[sub]Why, oh WHY did I leave that apartment? Damn…[/sub]
Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!
~Who did you love before? Who did they love before you? -Better Than Ezra
I think the main point to consider is; did you ever ask for, require, or demand any of these gifts as a prerequisite for the relationship. If yes, then your answer is yes. If no, no.
Evidently the woman was getting what she wanted to get out of the relationship. A young stud. I mean get real. What would a 19 yo have in common with a 40+ woman? I know that I’m 45 and my son is 21, what we share in common is the family bond, other than that nothing that he’s interested in would interest me.
Your lady friend wanted a companion, one that was young, thus making her feel young. She was in no way looking for a long-term relationship with you. So yes, she used you for a means. And if honesty prevails, you also used her to a means. She provided you with entertainment and gifts. I would accept it for what it was. You made the smart move when you cut loose when the situation began to bother you. It was fun while it lasted wasn’t it? I’m sure she had no problem finding a replacement. You didn’t say how long it lasted, but a lot of guys wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of the situation.
Maybe maybe not , depends really if there was any I want this in return for my services , but then this spills over somewhat to some women who say If you don’t do this or that no sex for you .I personally met a few women i was interested in and they used to toy with me as get me to buy them stuff (this was in my late teens btw) nothing happened between us but I would consider them hookers and i walked away . The difference being that hookers on the street are more honest and ask for cash in advance .
A street walker is pretty much selling her services to whoever will pay for them. There may be exceptions (I imagine most hookers will turn a john down if he seems really creepy or disgusting) but a hooker who is making $20 a trick can’t really afford to be too discriminating.
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High-class callgirls are very discriminating when it comes to their clients, and they do provide more than just sex. A callgirl is expected to go on real dates and be able to present herself in a way that won’t embarass her client. In fact, the fee you are quoted at first almost always covers the date only, no sex. The sex is negotiated for separately. A callgirl is also going to rely mostly on a group of repeat customers.
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A mistress is pretty much the same as a girlfriend in most aspects. She is generally expected to remain faithful or at least very discrete, and she requires more than money from the man in exchange, in fact in many cases a mistress gets nothing in the way of money from her man other than occasional gifts.
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This is more of a step towards prostitute than a mistress, as there is usually more to a man/mistress relationship than a woman who marries for financial security only. Anyone who marries solely because of money is no better than a callgirl - she may be a step above a streetwalker because she is providing more than just sex, but her motivation is the same.
I think that the problem that society has about prostitution lies not just with the monetary arrangements, but also the transitory nature of those arrangements. Presumably a woman who marries for money is not simply providing sex with the expectation of her getting money, but also of her children getting money, because they will have a rich father. Someone who has sex one time for a one time payment is clearly looking out for her own benefit, not her children’s. So a prostitute is more selfish than a gold digger. Sort of.
Gosh, has it really come to this? I’m resorting to pop culture references and affirming the consequent.
Here’s something like a real answer: how do you like your language, loose or tight? Because we could declare that there are certain minimum requirements for gigolo status, and judge whether you fulfill them. Strictly speaking, the term refers to a person who behaves a certain way habitually and professionally. But if somebody had confronted you at the time and accused you of being a gigolo, it’s not as though that person would simply be using the term wrong. It would, however, be hyperbolic.
Johnny Angel- I was using myself as an example in a larger debate: Exactly when does one become a prostitute/hooker/call-girl? How is it different from marrying/shacking up for money?
Another example: A woman I used to work with flat refused to date anyone who made less than $100,000 a year. She would not give them any sexual favors until they had spent quite a bit of their cash on her. Did this make her a hooker? She was basically trading cash for sex, and she had no intention of living with, or marrying any of these guys. Since what she did was perfectly legal, why are $20 street walkers arrested? Would it be legal if you took them out to dinner, paid their rent, and then had sex rather than hand them a flat fee?
It seems to me the moral implications are just as bad in either case. Probably worse in the woman who would only date rich men…At least a hooker is honest.
jcmckaig, first of all you’d have fallen within the scope of the male equivalent of the “mistress” category – an ongoing relationship, with mutual benefits including material gain for one party and fun sex for both, but no expectation of forming a societally acceptable home unit.
As per the distinction/threshold, well… an act of prostitution would be the specific trading of sex as commodity: there is a straight seller-customer transaction, maybe with ocassional “preferred regular patrons”. In “gold-digging” (thanks to The Ryan for the word), where you have the person who marries or willingly assumes the role of mistress/studboy for the money or material security of self or offspring, you are actually involving both parties in an ongoing relationship.
The relative morality of the one and the other is left for the class to discuss…
You could carry this out to its furthest extremes and say how is trading sex for money any different than trading sex for sex? Isn’t all recreational sex, in it’s essence, a matter of “I’ll get you off if you get me off” and, since that is a commodity it is possible to purchase, that’s what you are basically doing? Why is it any less prostitution just because you don’t go through the formality of swapping twenties at the end of the night?
As I see it, the main issue is that you were with her because you thought she was “hot.” The material goods she provided to you were probably a side issue for you–presumably you would have had sex with her without the gifts.
It’s quite telling that once you became uncomfortable with the gifts, you beat feet. You didn’t stick around because you knew there were more gifts to be had.
It’s unclear what role the gifts played for her–perhaps she enjoyed giving you gifts, or maybe she felt she had to because she was insecure about holding on to you, or maybe for her it was quid pro quo. Whichever it was, I do not think you were prostituting yourself because you weren’t in it for the gifts.
I think to some degree what your former co-worker was doing was prostitution, although a more societally acceptable form. She was making the decision whether or not to have sex based on money–quite different from your situation.
Disclaimer: I have no problem with prostitution if it’s upfront and honest and nobody is being forced into it. I don’t even disapprove much of your co-worker. I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship like that, but her beaus are apparently willing to play her game, so who am I to disapprove?
First, to the original example used in the OP: I’d say it had to with intent. If you originally hooked up with the woman for the same reasons that you would hook up with any woman, and then the gifts came after, as a surprise perk, then no, that’s not prostitution.
I would take that further and extrapolate that prostitution is largely defined by intent going into the relationship. If the intent of one party is financial betterment of some sort, with no intent of a long term relationship, than this is definitely prostitution.
Second, re the subject of golddigging: I knew several women in Thailand who married non-Thais. These were generally poorer women who did this at least partly as a way to move up in the world. But it’s very unclear how much “love” was involved. I am sure that material benefit and the man’s ability to support the woman was always back there somewhere in her mind. Heck, this is a part of what a woman might find attractive in a man in any society. Do you think Donald Trump dates beautiful women because he’s so damned good looking? But I am sure he is attractive, in a large part because his success enables him to provide in ways that others cannot. This can be an extremely murky area. Up until very recently, from an anthropological point of view, love was probably seldom in the equation until afterwards, save for plays and other things. Women married to form unions between families, to ensure financial security, for many reasons. The ability to pick and choose, social and economic consequences be damned, is by and large a by-product of recent affluence and the woman’s rights movement.
