A quack doctor can kill you without a knife. – Chinese proverb
A male reader writes:
So, I was talking with my therapist, and one of the things he asked me is if I had paid for sex. I said no, I want to have a connection with my lover. But what he said next shocked me: he claimed that ALL prostitutes are either sex slaves or owned by a pimp of some sort. Not some, not many, ALL. How can I show him he’s wrong?
I am not exaggerating when I suggest you should find another therapist. Anyone who could believe such a thing when there is overwhelming proof to the contrary (in the form of not only studies but personal accounts) is so irrational that it qualifies as a full-blown delusion; a person who could believe that can believe literally anything, including psychological fads like “sex addiction” with no basis in valid psychological theory or study. He obviously has no idea of how the female mind works, or is in deep denial; furthermore, he has an EXTREMELY low opinion of women’s agency and capacity for self-determination, which will affect everything he tells you about women. And though he’s not an economist, even the most rudimentary understanding of rational choice theory or the basics of undergraduate-level sociology would make it impossible for any sane mind to believe in such utter foolishness.
There is a MOUNTAIN of information which disproves this absurd myth, much of it linked on my Resources page and much more easily discovered by a quick Google search. If he believes all this information is wrong, he’s a megalomaniac or a religious fanatic; if he believes it to be deliberately falsified he’s paranoid, and if he doesn’t know it exists he’s woefully ignorant. In any case, he isn’t the kind of person who should be responsible for anyone else’s mental health, and in fact could benefit from a great deal of therapy himself. His belief is as irrational as the contention that an anthropomorphic god created the universe in six calendar days 6000 years ago, or that large numbers of extraterrestrials have abducted humans for experiment, or that vast Satanic cults enslave thousands of teenage runaways to breed babies for sacrifice; you should avoid him just as you would avoid a “therapist” who believed in such ideas.
Finally, There’s also one more possibility: He could know very well what he’s saying is a lie, and is just trying to scare you away from seeing sex workers. That would make him an amoral manipulator, which is just as bad as the other possibilities unless you actually want to develop False Memory Syndrome.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
