Would you date someone who's been to prostitutes?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Errr… she said that she wouldn’t date a man who had “visited prostitutes” - which I parse as “been to see” and not “dated”. No straw-clutching here, from what I can see.

As you say, the two are different.

While I can’t speak for Sahara Tea, I can say that I wouldn’t be nearly as concerned about it if my partner told me he had dated a prostitute in the past, because that would still suggest that he had a romantic and emotional relationship with her in addition to sexual. Her choice of profession, while not my cup of tea, doesn’t really come into the equation (I’m assuming, of course, that money wasn’t changing hands here, because that would make it a business transaction vs. a date).

One of my exes dated a stripper for quite some time, FWIW, and it wasn’t a problem for me.

A man who has “been to see” a prostitute, on the other hand, would make me think twice before I was to consider a LTR with him, because it speaks to a viewpoint on sex that I do not share.

Topic of the OP and Sahara’s answer are both in regards to the latter example… not the former.

62

“Visited” hookers means having sex, paying and leaving. It does not mean “dating” and I’m not sure where you got that from in my post.

63

Could I ask you or burundi or Viridiana or someone to elaborate on this?

(1) What is the viewpoint on sex that you have?

(2) What is the viewpoint on sex that you perceive that a man who has patronized prostitutes in the past has?

(3) And, most importantly, how is this viewpoint on sex different from the viewpoint on sex that you perceive a man who has not patronized prostitutes in the past has?

My point here is that whether or not a man has patronized prostitutes in the past is not a reliable basis for determining of a man’s viewpoint on sex. Maybe it shows a difference of viewpoints on something else, like breaking the law or the impact of the sex industry on prostitutes or on evaluating relatives risks, but there is not any statistically significant difference in viewpoints on sex based on the difference between a generic man who has visited a prostitute and the generic man who has not visited a prostitute.

64

See my post (#38) for at least a partial answer to this.

65

I don’t think sex should be viewed as a commodity. A man who has visited prostitutes does. I find reducing sex to a commercial transaction distasteful.

66

Post No. 38 is by Spifflog.

How do you know that and what does it exactly mean? It’s not common to trade shares or futures in sexual services in commodity markets.

When you are hungry and buy food are you treating food as a commodity or just as something that your body is telling you it wants? When you are in pain and you go to the doctor are you treating medical care as a commodity?

But here you are not evaluating the viewpoint of the man. You are merely substituting your own viewpoint. Whether or not a man patronizes prostitutes, he doesn’t think of prostitution as “reducing sex to a commercial transaction.” You’re still failing to find an accurate distinction between the viewpoints of two kinds of men.

67

Oops, I meant #39.

68

You’d better strike guys who’d been members of the Sigma Tau fraternity in college from your dating pool. Not that they necessarily have used prostitutes, but they did, you know, fuck a sheep at the intiation ceremony.

69

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying you don’t understand why (some) men might want to patronize prostitutes. Okay, fine. But how are you applying this failure to understand to evaluating potential dates?

I see the links that burundi is making. She apparently is turned off by a man who think of sex as a commodity. But I think she’s falling into a fallacy, because:

(1) This “commodity” principle isn’t part of a man’s calculation when determining whether to patronize prostitutes.

(2) The fact of patronizing prostitutes or not might be an indication of some things, but is not a reliable indicator of a difference between how two men think about sex.

70

Actually, I believe that a man’s past use of prostitutes DOES says something about his viewpoints on sex. It says exactly the same thing as if he was to admit to me that he made a habit of getting plastered on weekends and having one-night stands on a regular basis.

I’d like to think I’m pretty open-minded about these things. I know that the men I have dated did not come to me as pure virgins (well, except one) and that they will have had some errr… experiences… that I may not have shared, whether it be bisexual experiences or kinky fetishes that I’m not really into. I even understand that sometimes you’re not ready for a relationship, but you still have an itch to scratch - but that’s what FWBs are for.

So I draw the line at dating any man who regularly engaged in sex with random strangers (whether for free or for money), because I’m only willing to have sex with people I know and like/love/lust after.

Attitudes about sex are important in a relationship, just like attitudes about money, children or marriage.

If we can see eye-to-eye on that point, then I don’t see a future for the relationship. Plain and simple. It’s not much to ask for, IMO.

71

It goes at least in part, to a viewpoint about sex. It is reducing it to a business transaction. I don’t get that. It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker on its own, but would certainly give me pause in considering a long term partner.

To be blunt, I don’t believe you. If that isn’t part of the calculation, then what is? As I understand it, one goes to a prostitute to have sex with someone who has no interest in them in exchange for money because they want to get off. How can you remove the business part of it?

This is where I differ. I have no problem with casual sex, if I said I did that would make me a hypocrite.

72

What is?

73

Let’s see. You’ve got two men. One man has no problem paying a stranger to have sex with him. The other man chooses not to do that. That’s an indicator that in at least one important respect, the two men think about sex differently.

I’m sorry if my reasoning doesn’t seem perfectly logical to you, ascenray. But we’re in the squishy realm of the heart here, where things don’t have to be reasonable. As long as there are women who won’t date perfectly nice men because they’re bald, I refuse to feel bad about not dating men who have sex with hookers. It hasn’t had a negative impact on my life to date.

74

I would never date a person who had purchased the services of a prostitute (especially a street prostitute) although someone who has dated a prostitute or former prostitute would not eliminate someone from my dating pool.

(Quick caveat, this applies to North American street, and escort service prostitution - I do not know what things are like in Europe or Asia)

When I was a teenager, I was a street kid, I have known and been friends with many prostitutes and many times I saw the temptation and coercion to pull a trick.

The biggest reason I am against prostitution is many street prostitutes are children, although they don’t look like it.

I have known girls as young as 12, who although they looked much older than Jodi Foster in Taxi were no less of children, damaged, abused children, being forced by poverty, hunger, pimps, and what not who were selling their bodies. I have seen the extended damage it does to these girls and their personalities, their souls, and their lives.

I have known 16 year old girls who were on cocaine and heroin, provided by the pimp to keep them in line. I have known girls who were kidnapped by pimps and forced into the trade.

I knew a girl who used to work the streets in order for both her 11 year old sister and her to have a place to sleep at night, and she was murdered almost 20 years ago.

I knew a 14 year old girl who had a miscarriage, and the next night was sent out to work.

I had taken girls I knew on hitchhiking trips to get them away from pimps who wanted them, or just to get them out of the job and in a new city.

Although young girls are the majority of prostitutes, I have also known boys, men, and adult women who were selling themselves.

I have known teenage boys who sold themselves to eat, I have known 14 year old transvestites, and 20 year old transsexuals who have no other way to make money.

I have known 20 and 30 something year old escorts who had their children taken away and plunged deeper into addiction, and even death. I had more than one friend who’s mother was an escort as well, and these children of the escorts, are often messed up too.

I have never met the happy hooker who did it because they just loved sex, although some were good at pretending, and even said those EXACT words. I knew these people as friends, I knew the life they had lived, I knew the truth behind the facade. Every single one of these people I met were damaged beyond the pale.

Because of what I have seen, I see the patrons of prostitutes as perpetuating and adding to the abuse these people already have lived without regard for anything but using another humans body to get off instead of using their hand. Any person who would not have enough regard for other humans to consider the age and emotional condition and is only concerned with achieving physical pleasure with another human being is not the type of person I could respect, never mind date.

75

This does not follow. There are many possible explanations: one man fears the consequences of getting caught, one man simply thinks the price is too high for something he should be able to get for free, for for a myriad other reasons. It does not necessarily reflect a different attitude towards sex so much as the fact that the transaction is not equally utility-maximizing for both men. To put it bluntly, I have never paid for sex because I just don’t see the value. I probably don’t think about sex in a way so fundamentally differently from a man who has patronized a sex worker. I am very happily married and am monogamous to the core.

76

You don’t have to apologize to me. But I wasn’t the one introducing a “reasoning” aspect to this. X (patronizing) implies Y (thinking) therefore Z (conclusion). Basically what you’re saying is “I find it icky, just like some people find bald men icky” which sums up a lot of the comments here, and it’s fair enough, but why not just say that instead of trying to squeeze it into some logical construction and drawing out inferences that aren’t really supportable?

77

So, in other words, one man thinks that paying a stranger for sex is worth it, while the other man thinks differently.

ETA: I’m not saying it’s a guarantee that the non-hooker-patronizing guy and I will have compatible attitudes about sex. But it is damn near certain that the hooker-patronizing guy and I won’t.

78

This is not what you said at all nor does it appear consistent with your revealed preferences. Why would you only date a man for whom the price was too high? This doesn’t say anything about his character.

79

You know, that’s a good point. I also wouldn’t date a man who’d say, “Well, I would have hired a prostitute, but it cost too much.”

But enough about me. I’m bowing out for a little while.