by Dish Staff
A reader has a “slightly different take on the topic that hasn’t yet been raised”:
I’m a gay man (married to a woman in a celibate relationship; she’s aware of my sexuality). I have seen male prostitutes for most of my adult life (I’m in my 50s) – sometimes once a year, sometimes a few times a year. In three instances, I became personal friends with the men I was seeing and maintained that friendship after any sex ended. I never got the sense from any of them that they felt exploited, and I never viewed them critically or as anything less than me. In fact, I tended to feel that they had more power in the relationship than I did … I was the one who was vulnerable – being “outed” for what I was doing – and they could say yes or no to anything.
What I don’t know is the degree to which a prostitute/John relationship is different between two men (or two women) and a man and a woman. My guess is that there is a fundamental difference between how men and women – mostly – view sex. But that in itself seems a sexist distinction to make.
Another wonders:
What happens if you make prostitution legal, and the women happens to get pregnant? There has been a lot of banter about a women having a right to do what she wants with her body. If she legally sells it to a man for a price, and a result, gets pregnant, who then has responsibility for the child? Has the man bought the child or the right to denounce the child and bear no responsibility? Even more concerning, has he bought the right to demand an abortion? I am a man and believe a women has a right to do as she pleases with her body, so make prostitution legal, but with equality and legality comes additional issues that should be discussed. The pill and condoms don’t always work.
The Dish 