For everybody knows that it requires very little to satisfy the gentlemen, if a woman will only give her mind to it. – Margaret Oliphant
In a comment to my July 21st column, Imnoangel asked “How easy is it for a prostitute to play her part if the man concerned is personally unattractive to her i.e. smelly feet, bad breath, body odour, etc? That’s something I’ve always wondered about.” I gave her a short reply, but as I think it’s a question which deserves a full column I’ve decided to talk about that today.
For the most part, the customers of call girls are a higher, more affluent class of man with good sanitary habits who genuinely wish to make a good impression; I think most of them recognize that women are repelled by poor hygeine and they feel that offending the girl may result in a rushed job, which they usually don’t want at our price level. At least half of my customers were obviously freshly showered, shaved and tooth-brushed when I arrived, and even those who weren’t rarely had any noticeable problems. In my experience, the only customers with an offensive smell were those who were drunk and a few who clearly had physical problems such as extreme obesity or very advanced age.
There are, however, repulsive features which have nothing to do with hygeine; what about the obesity or age I mentioned above? What about physical deformity, massive scarring or just plain ugliness? Don’t these come into play? Paula, who started working for me on her 18th birthday, asked me the same thing: What if the guy is just really gross or ugly? My reply to her was, “You know who was the sexiest man who ever lived? Benjamin Franklin, and you get three pictures of him every time you do a call.” Paula took my meaning immediately and saw the truth in it, which is that this is a job for us, not a date; everyone who deals with the public has some unpleasant clients, and we are compensated much more generously than most for having to deal with them. It will probably be a lot easier for my female readers to understand this than my male, firstly because physical attraction is a much larger part of the male sexual equation, and secondly because men need to be aroused to sexually perform while women do not; on the most basic level, all that is required of a woman is her physical presence.
Obviously, it’s not a good idea for a call girl to offer that bare minimum; a low-rate girl may be able to get away with just lying there, but a client expects something more for $300. Still, that’s no problem for most girls; my male readers probably don’t really want to hear this, and most of my female readers already know it, but here goes: It really isn’t that difficult to convince a man that one is enjoying sex, even if one would much rather be elsewhere. All it takes is experience and practice, which are also the requirements for honing one’s other professional skills; my stock answer to the oft-asked question “Where did you learn to do that?” was a smile and a “Practice makes perfect,” before returning to what I was doing. And that raises an important point: Since sexual service is our profession and livelihood rather than an expression of intimacy or a mere pastime, we have to be good at it; men are a great deal more critical of expensive services than cheap ones, and the call girl who performs no better than the girl next door will find she has little in the way of repeat business. A professional level of skill at anything only comes with paying attention to the work, carefully noting what accomplishes the desired result and what doesn’t, and concentrating on doing one’s best without the distraction of one’s own feelings.
And this, of course, is another part of the answer to Imnoangel’s question; the whore does not focus on the client but rather on the job. Yes, she’s trying to please him, but in order to do so she must concentrate on what she’s doing rather than on her own sensory and emotional experience as the non-professional woman does. This focus on the task rather than the man not only allows her to ignore any repellent features he may have, but also creates an emotional distance between them which serves to insulate her from possible negative feelings most women might experience in such a situation. It’s also why most professionals (especially in the lower strata) don’t kiss; it requires face to face intimacy which would close that distance. I have found that my professional detachment even helped me to get through the times I was raped by clients (as I will discuss tomorrow and Monday), though in those cases I was concentrating on relaxing (so as to avoid injury), keeping myself calm and planning my next move should he become even more violent.
I think the fundamental reason most men and non-professional women are so confused about whoring is that they forget that it is essentially a performance, no different from acting or singing. And given that many people cannot separate other performers from their performances, it should come as no surprise that they are unable to understand our essential natures either. When I was a little girl many people believed that Cher was part American Indian merely because she had performed the popular song “Half-Breed” in which her character was, and Leonard Nimoy was sought after as a documentary host because people associated him with his cerebral character Mr. Spock. And I daresay few Americans over 35 will ever forget the commercial in which an actor introduced himself with “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” as though that qualified him as a medical expert. For most of human history the majority of actresses were also harlots, and though our professions have diverged to some degree the whore (especially the call girl) is still essentially an actress in a private erotic drama, with the customer as her audience rather than her equal partner.
It was the recognition of my role as entertainer which allowed me to bend the truth in performance of my profession. In case the title of my site hasn’t tipped you off, let me say that I consider honesty to be among the greatest of virtues; as I mentioned yesterday it even annoyed me to have to lie about minor details such as my weight or age. But an actress is not “lying” when she portrays a part, nor is a stage magician when he claims to have made a lady vanish. A film audience wouldn’t like an actress who broke character in the middle of a scene to talk about her personal life, nor do most people really want to know how the magician does his tricks; they pay to be entertained, and the illusion is intrinsic to the entertainment. At the same time, a good actress draws on her own personality and experience in order to flesh out a role, and the greatest performances are those which make the audience forget for a time that what they are watching is unreal. A great actress cares about her craft and her audience, and her audience in turn cares about the person she portrays in the play even if they intellectually know that the character they see does not exist in objective reality. There is a vast difference between truth and fact, and the persona and behavior of a whore or an actress can be true even if not factual.
I know this maybe a difficult concept, so I’ll try to explain it in another way. Many clients want to feel the sense of connection which can only result from honest personal interaction, the feeling that they are spending time with a real human being with hopes, dreams, loves, sorrows and quirks which make her a distinct individual. But at the same time, nobody wants to hear that his escort is having boyfriend problems, or that her kids are sick, or that she just found out her house is infested with termites; he has paid her to make him feel good, not to depress him. The competent professional knows how to strike the perfect balance between illusion and honesty which will give her client the most memorable and satisfying experience possible, and this is the secret of creating what “hobbyists” call the Girl Friend Experience, or GFE. As an unusually perceptive regular told me once, “I know that the face you show me is largely an illusion, but I love your illusion.”
Like a film actress, however, a great whore must draw upon her own personality and experience in order to create a true interaction with her client, and unlike her actress sister she must do so without either a script or a director to guide her. One of my male correspondents recently suggested that “although a prostitute enjoys getting money from men, she also very likely feels underlying dislike, contempt, fear or animosity towards them”; I told him that although this might be true of many streetwalkers, a call girl who felt that way wouldn’t be very successful. An actress who had such feelings toward her audience would unconsciously project them in her performances and thereby rob them of their essential truth, and this is even more true of the high-class whore. As I said in my column of July 13th, I genuinely like men and sincerely want to make them happy, so whenever I arrived at a call I tried to use the initial conversation to discover something in the client that I could truly love or admire and concentrate my erotic energies on that thing. And this of course provides yet another answer to the question with which we began today: If one can find something to love or admire about a client, one can focus on that and ignore things which might cause one to dislike him.
For the most part, it was rare that I lied to customers about anything other than my weight and age; if there was anything I didn’t want to tell him I simply omitted it rather than falsifying it, and I found this both simpler and vastly more rewarding. For example, I often heard girls lie about how long it would take them to arrive at calls, or come up with ridiculous excuses as to why they would be late; I just told the truth instead. “Oh, I’m in the grocery store right now and I’ve got cold things; I just need to run home and put these in the fridge, then I’ll be right over.” Or, “Oh, honey, it’s raining really heavily outside right now and I’m a bit afraid to drive in it; do you mind if I wait until it slacks down?” Once I told a customer I was baking cookies and I had one batch left to go, so I would leave as soon as I got it out of the oven in twelve minutes. He asked what kind, and when I told him “chocolate chip” he asked if he could have some; of course I said yes and he was that much happier to see me. Yes, these truths (and the many others I told clients about every conceivable subject) were unromantic and unglamorous, but they were real and honest and established me as a real, honest, true person rather than some con artist or a stripper type (long on flash but short on substance). And this not only gave my clients a richer experience, but also protected me from a very real danger I will discuss in tomorrow’s column.
I’d wait twelve minutes if it meant I’d get chocolate chip cookies.
Sex AND chocolate chip cookies! Worth the wait, and worth paying for.
To be fair, that’s twelve extra minutes, plus drivetime. But as they were homemade chocolate chip cookies, from scratch, I’d say he got his money’s worth. 🙂
*sigh*
Well, sweetie, I did say you wouldn’t want to hear it…
More lies. More trickery. More fakery.
But, I guess this is the same thing that females go through when they realize that men don’t dream about a wedding, or care as much as they do about conversation, foreplay, & romance.
Solidifies again my desire to not get married…primarily because it’s an insult to my intelligence. The whole relationship could be a lie and I’d still have to pay for it. Can’t trust what’s she’s saying, or how she’s acting, because according to you, it could all be an act and I’d never know.
This is why when women wink at each other about how “stupid” men are, or about how they have us “trained,” it sets me off. But as you say, it’s just the way of things. So whatever, females can enjoy their sexual superiority, I think I’ll keep my money in my pocket and my heart in safety.
1. I see what you mean about how at least whoring doesn’t involve any pretense.
2. I’m better off with the fantasies in my mind. At least there’s no money required.
Exactly.
Right, just like a woman never knows whether “I love you” is just an act to get in her pants. The whole relationship could be a lie and she still ends up pregnant. It cuts both ways, love.
It sets me off as well, just like it does when I overhear men say their equivalent things about women. Neither is fair or respectful.
You mean like males enjoy their physical and economic superiority, or a different way?
No, you’re better off going into relations with the opposite sex honestly and armed with knowledge.
When I’ve frequented escorts in the past, I’ve always decided to be a repeat customer to those who were honest with me. I had one text message me once to tell me she missed me and loved me. Immediately alarm bells went off, and I was loath to have any contact at all with her in the future. Early last month, I called one and thought I had arranged a date. She let me know she was in the process of getting a hotel room and said in about 20 minutes time, she’d call me to tell me where she was.
Well, I didn’t get a call for an hour and then texted her. I got a litany of obfuscations and excuses culminating in her saying she was having transportation issues. That caused me to lose interest and make sure I told all my friends who patronize escorts never to contact her. As a proprietor of my own escort service, I put a premium on my girls’ veracity. If I catch the girls overtly lying to me or a client or not arriving at a scheduled date within in a reasonable amount of time of the scheduled appearance or without a damn good explanation for why, I give them a warning. Second time is when I part ways with them. Escorts are in a business, and that business is pleasure. If they can’t be honest with me or the clients, then they need to be doing something else. That said, as Maggie noted, if they get into how hard their lives are or all the problems in their family, then they become equally a detriment to what they’re doing. The most successful escorts are those who, like Maggie, can balance the two. The least sccessful will see their business drop off and end up out of the business rather quickly.
You’re a bit eeyoreish about this whole thing, Scorch. The point of being with an escort is to enjoy the time of a beautiful woman. If a guy marries a woman, he generally spends much more than he’d spend on an escort attending to his wife’s wants and needs. The length of time he spends with the escort just tends to be less. You don’t go in to work just because you like the place. You do it so you can ensure customers are pleased and you in turn can make money to sustain your lifestyle. Escorts are no different. Are there escorts who lose sight of what they’re doing and end up alienating people to the poin t where the escorts are no longer viable in the industry? Absolutely. The same goes for people in every other industry on Earth from manufacturing to the military to politics to booksellers to convenience store clerks. Escorts are in a business just as other people are.It’s best just to acknowledge that and enjoy the experience received from those most interested in pleasing those desirous of patronizing them.
No….I wasn’t trying to be an ass about anything. Just giving honest feedback as Maggie is being honest with us.
My background is different, so I’m wrapping my mind around some truths that have been staring me in the face for awhile, but I haven’t fully processed.
But I do get it. I do get that it’s a job like any other, and I certainly understand the financial ramifications and differences between marrying someone and hiring an escort.
That can be a very painful process, but I assure you it’s worth it in the long run. 🙂
I guess the problem here is that ‘honesty’ is never full between humans (even if only because we usually don’t even know ourselves that well; lying to yourself is not an oxymoron).
I understand where Scorch is coming from. All I can say is that in the process of learning to know myself, of finding out which lies I was telling myself about who I was, I learned to be a bit more tolerant of lies from others.
Of course you can never be sure that “I love you” is true. Because ultimately even the person who says it, male or female, doesn’t know for sure that this is true — rather than some form of self-delusion.
So we learn to live with uncertainties. As a much-respect professor told me when I was in grad school, life is dangerous. Whatever you think about some other person is wrong. Still relationships do exist — commercial and otherwise — and they can be successful, mutually beneficial, and even create bridges and understanding between people.
Maggie, this post makes me feel curious about one thing. It is easy for me to understand why I pursue women — nature/nurture (= humanness) has made them such attractive beings for me that it would indeed take me a conscious effort not to. It’s easy for me to ‘feel’ why it is that I want to be with women, why I want to please and be pleased by them, why I want to make them happy — sexually, outside the realm of pure human needs for companionship and human interaction. But then why, in your opinion, do women want men, then (again outside of the realm of financial security and friendship/companionship/emotional support)?
I mean, you say yourself that you like men and sincerely want to make them happy; but why? Is this different from the way in which you would simply like people, and want to make people happy, including women? (I understand that, since you’re bisexual, this may be tricky; perhaps I should restate the question as ‘why would a heterosexual woman…’?)
You men, always conflating love with sex! Why wouldn’t a heterosexual women want to make men happy? If women had no love for men, society would’ve disintegrated long ago. Just because we don’t have the kind of sex drive y’all do doesn’t mean we don’t want male love, attention, companionship, approval etc. 🙂
Ah, but that’s not the point of my question. It’s easy separate love from sex; I was asking you why you’d want to have sex with men and make them happy sexually (rather than other ways to make them happy — there are many, since men are, after all, complex beings).
What you wrote above suggests that you, or women in general, would want to make men sexually happy because of non-sexual reasons — love, attention, affection, companionship, approval, etc. It’s almost as if you’re saying women have no sex drive independently from these things, i.e. that it’s women who confuse sex with love. Is that so, or am I missing something?
Let me give you an example. A former girlfriend I had once told me she had a strong, visceral reaction to penises (ik ben geobsedeerd met piemels, “I am obsessed with penises”, she said in her native Dutch). Since at the time she said this I wasn’t (yet) her boyfriend, and she was actually using me as a confidante to discuss what she thought were the problems in her life, sexual and otherwise (we were in a little cafe, and she was in a rather sad mood because of a recent unpleasant experience with her work), I took this as suggesting that she did have a sexual reason to want to please men — she found the process of erection fascinating, and had fun playing with penises; perhaps even a little bit too much, or so she thought.
Is this true at some level, or is she just ‘playing the whore script’? (Given the situation, I found this hard to believe; she wouldn’t have to play any scripts, and besides the reasons for her sadness that day were non-sex-realted; still she said that, as if that thought — she liked penises too much — were a frequent one in her mind.)
Men seem unable to understand that most women like sex just fine; it’s just that most of us don’t care for it alone. To the typical woman, sex for sex’s sake without any other feelings would be as if some stranger walked up to her in public, asked her to hold out her hand and then slapped a scoop of ice cream into it. When she expresses her dismay and disgust, nearby men then say, “oh, she must not like ice cream.” No, it’s just that she doesn’t want a nasty scoop of cheap vanilla ice cream slapped into her previously-clean hand by some random stranger when she wasn’t even in the mood for ice cream! She wants the flavor she likes in a brand she likes at the right time served neatly in a cone or dish, maybe with sprinkles, and preferably eaten with a friend, her boyfriend or her kids.
Does that make more sense now?
Pro-sex feminists specify that more narrow set of constraints within which women enjoy sex is a result of cultural programming and that it can be rewritten. I also have a personal observation that women, in general, are more easily programmed by cultural norms than men. I’ve seen quite a few pro-sex women write that yes, they also often want to “just fuck”. And some not-so pro-sex as well.
Peace,
WB
Maybe it does. I’m now wondering if the problem is semantic… As a man I can also imagine situations in which I wouldn’t want sex, because of the circumstances — like your ‘icre-cream-on-hand’ situation. For instance, I certainly would refuse to have sex if it had to happen in front of my grandmother… no matter how tasty the ice-cream was.
But at least for me there is a clear difference between the ice-cream itself, and the circumstances around it. Some circumstances would make me refuse the ice-cream, or even feel disgusted that it was being offered; but still, it’s the fault of the circumstances, not of the ice-cream.
From what you write, it seems that, to you, the ice-cream just wouldn’t be appetizing without the specific situation–the cone or dish, the sprinkles, the right brand, the right taste? Better yet, maybe the ice-cream simply wouldn’t be ice-cream without all that context? If that’s the case, the difference would be that women are more specific. To men, the necessary features (no grandmothers around!) are few; to women, there are many more (right guy, emotional connection, feeling of warmth, right music in the background, etc. etc. etc.).
Am I getting it now?
(But if so, how do I understand that former girlfriend’s claim that she was “obsessed with penises”? It feels like she was saying she was not very specific about the kind of ice-cream or the circumstances around it… And she’s not the only one I’ve heard this kind of claim from.)
Yes, you’re getting it. But as for your girlfriend’s claim, I can’t answer that without knowing her. Women do sometimes say things like that to men to provoke a desired reaction, but it could also be either that the girl was misinterpreting her own feelings (in the same way many women use food as a replacement for love) or that she was an exception to the general rule. Even horny women don’t usually objectify the desire (“wanting cock”) as men tend to (“wanting pussy”).
The ‘replacing love with food’ thing does ring a bell with respect to that particular woman, Maggie. You probably have seen others of this kind before — she liked attention, like a little girl who wanted to please her daddy so he would tell her what a good girl she was (I actually know she did have a couple of daddy issues along these lines). So maybe her fascination with penises had something to do with seeing them as measurers of the level of interest/attention a man was giving her.
It’s a bit simplistic — she was more complicated than that — but I think there may be something there.
Or,maybe she was just telling you that because she had learned that men love hearing about how much women want their cocks. In any case, it almost certainly wasn’t really a sexual thing.
Maybe both, Maggie. There was no real reason for her to try to seduce me then (we were talking about her work problems, she was depressed because she realized there were people there who didn’t like her for whatever reason and that it wouldn’t matter how smart she really was — she was a paralegal in an attorney’s office — still these people wouldn’t like her work).
But indeed she enjoyed very much the thought that men liked her, even men who she wasn’t attracted to or trying to seduce. (I think she was insecure, she didn’t think she was ‘smart enough’ or ‘skilled enough’ to be worth much by herself; having the attention and interest of as many men as possible would compensate for that.) So maybe that’s what it was.
She wasn’t trying to seduce you! You still don’t get it! Being attractive to men is an end in itself, not a means to an end. I make myself attractive every time I go to town, but I can assure you I have zero desire to sleep with anyone other than my husband. A woman doesn’t want to be attractive “because…”; she simply wants to be attractive.
Hm, maybe. But I don’t see this particular friend in this situation trying to even look attractive by doing this, Maggie. In fact it seemed to pain her that she was ‘too fascinated with penises’ (which I translate as having daddy issues). This is not getting dressed attractively to go to town.
Also, being attractive — as far as I can tell — can be a goal in itself, even independently from men. Or do you never feel like dressing up even when there are no men around? If men disappeared from the world, so would your desire to look attracrive?
She wasn’t trying to look attractive, she was trying to be fascinating to men (probably unconsciously). Same difference.
Talking about “being fascinated by penises” in a context in which she wasn’t at all looking attractive (she was actually rather depressed) doesn’t seem to make sense. Would you do that if you wanted to look attractive to a relatively recent friend who you were talking about your problems with?
Naah–I think her “fascination with penises” is part of her daddy issues. It was, I think, her way to say she craves too much approval from men for what she does — more than she should.
I said “attractive”, but I meant to say “fascinating” — sorry for the mistake! :-|…
“What you wrote above suggests that you, or women in general, would want to make men sexually happy because of non-sexual reasons — love, attention, affection, companionship, approval, etc. It’s almost as if you’re saying women have no sex drive independently from these things, i.e. that it’s women who confuse sex with love. Is that so, or am I missing something?”
Don’t even try Asehpe. Like me, you’ll give yourself a migraine trying to figure it out. A woman’s mind & motivations are a complex set of unmarked wires that even THEY can’t explain the schematics to. They are by conception complicated and complex creatures.
So yes, sometimes they’re horny and want sex, sometimes what gets them off is the fact of *feeling* sexy & wanted, sometimes they want to please you, sometimes they’re manipulating you, sometimes they’re doing what you paid them for(officially or unofficially), lots of times they get off on being chosen above another female, and more often than not they’re making love to the man of their dreams in their mind, whether or not that’s actually the dick that’s inside of them at the moment, sometimes while they’re moaning & calling your name they’re also thinking about things that they have to do around the house & grocery shopping lists, and guess what? They can feel all of the above plus more AT THE SAME TIME!!
….Makes me ever more glad I’m a man. The switch is flipped, the general stands at attention, the mission is clear, the result is expected and heavenly every time.
God Bless America.
LOL! 😀
😀 SNARK SNARK SNARK!
…I do get the ice cream analogy though…it’s all in the presentation men!
It’s not “what” that women focus on…it’s “who,” and “why,” and “how” she was approached.
Chop chop men get with the damn program Maggie’s tryin’ ta learn ya somethin’ here!!
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Scorch!
Exactly. 🙂
Which is why I wonder if the problem is semantic. To men sex is ‘what’, to women it is ‘how’. Not that men don’t care about ‘how’, or that women don’t care about the ‘what’… Maybe it’s all a matter of emphasis.
That’s a wonderful summary, Scorch — I feel like printing it out, putting it in a frame and hanging it on my wall. 🙂
Most of these things men also do, of course. Except in men all of this translates into how easy it is to achieve and keep an erection… Simple projection of a complex multimentional tensor onto a simple one-dimensional vector space.
Women tend to want the outside context to be good, men tend to provide their own context.
“Which is why I wonder if the problem is semantic. To men sex is ‘what’, to women it is ‘how’. Not that men don’t care about ‘how’, or that women don’t care about the ‘what’… Maybe it’s all a matter of emphasis.”
Well again, I think that you’re making an attempt to codify something that is in itself beyond strict attempts at drawing unyielding lines, or more flexible than the boundaries that we set.
Men indeed *do* care about both “who” and “how”, but for us the need for physical release, and our general attraction to the female form can preclude & supersede any built in hesitation as a result of these concerns. And, as Maggie said, makes it entirely possible and common for us to objectify the act & the woman.
Women are by nature relational creatures…they are by nature creatures of detail, and words & emotions & context has a lot to do with how they experience life and define their worldviews. Also, again, remember, biology drives psychology. We have 10-20 times the testosterone in our bodies that they do…also, a woman is vulnerable while pregnant, and vulnerable while giving birth, and then is put in a position to need care for both her & her child…so if you think about it that way, it makes perfect sense that women would value security more than we do…hence the natural female predilection towards focusing on “who” and “how” and “why.”
When women ignore those voices/impulses, remember that they can end up pregnant, responsible, and abandoned…that’s NEVER true for us. We just wanna blow our load, and then we’re physically done, aside from support, until the child comes out.
The issues happen because women can use those truths against us….but you have to remember as well, that *some* women go through their entire lives and never achieve orgasm. Like, NEVER.
Think about how impossible of a concept that is for a man to even begin to grasp…so, as I’ve studied the phenomenon as well, a lot of things make more sense to me now.
But if all that’s too convoluted, remember it this way:
(Generally speaking)
Men are like padlocks. They all work the same way, you just put the key in the lock, turn it, and it works every time, and you don’t even have to think about it.
Women are like combination locks. Each one is different, and you have to dial the right numbers or the lock won’t open, and here’s the big one: *the combination is subject to change!*
😀
Scorch, I am seriously, honestly proud of you. 🙂
That’s a beautiful text, Scorch, and one that gives me food for thought. Why, thank you!
My impression, though, in the end, is that it’s not so much about different elements than it is about different intensities. Different testosterone levels = different intensities. All the elements of the equation are there; but the testosterone levels make one of them seem much more urgent, important, necessary. It biases the cost-benefit function.
So, I don’t think men are really like padlocks — or else, why would we ever have ‘performance anxiety’ and need Viagra, even in the absence of physical problems? (From what I hear, the men buying it are getting younger and younger…) I certainly agree that women are more complicated in this area; but men aren’t all that simple either. Certain things in your mind must also be in place for the little mechanism to work.
Mme de Staël said once that the man desires the woman, while the woman desires the desire of the man (or something like that). There’s truth in that; and yet, when I think of all those body parts in an adolescent man’s mind, all those endless copulations and pussies and tits… the tits always have erect nipples, the pussies are always wet, or at least invintingly open; and if the mental camera goes up to look at the face (and it does that remarkably often), the face is smiling and inviting, flushed, red with desire. Yes, it seems to me that men also desire women’s desire. There is nothing as unsexy as a woman who clearly doesn’t want you. (Which is why I find a rapist’s mentality definitely puzzling. How the heck does he even manage to get an erection? — hm, that’s another big discussion…)
To me it’s the intensity. It’s indeed all in that higher level of testosterone. Men want women’s desire, but they get horny by looking at its external signs. Women want more. For all the reasons you mention — danger of pregnancy, need for security, vulnerability while pregnant and giving birth — it makes sense that their sex drive would be less intense, so that they would be less driven by the desire to achieve orgasm and would allow all those other considerations to influence them more deeply than men.
Because, in the end, all those other considerations of security and vulnerability (for reasons other than pregnancy), and so on, also motivate men to complex behavior — if you look at what they do outside of sex, you see all the same factors at work. They’re there for us, too.
But when it comes to sex… the higher testosterone level makes us see the objective (orgasm) as more important than it may seem to a woman. Our calculations, though based on the same factors, become biased towards orgasm. If need be we even project female desire onto a woman who isn’t feeling it (which maybe is after all what rapists do), so that we can keep going.
Man, that’s beautifully said. And contains deeper truths than I can analyze now. Thank you very much for saying this. I won’t forget it.
It isn’t just a difference of degree but of kind. Spend the sperm, guard the egg; this occurs throughout the animal kingdom. Humans just love to pretend we’re different.
Maggie, what difference of kind is there? What exactly would still be different in women’s sexuality (except for the obvious mechanics), in case their desire for sex increased its intensity 10-20 times?
I would say actually the opposite — our society loves to think that there is a difference of kind between men and women. That was the justification for many a difference in their legal status. I don’t think science actually supports that.
Pretending that female sexuality is “just like male sexuality but weaker” is exactly like saying the female body is “just like the male body but weaker”. They are different things, not merely two degrees of one thing.
Maggie, consider the claim: “women are in general physically weaker than men”. This is a true fact, and it has a number of biological reasons (there are several differences in the muscular and bone system, not simply “less muscle” — though the latter is also true). The underlying differences can even be complicated. But this doesn’t mean that women have no physical strength, or that their physical strength is of a different kind than men’s. No — it’s perfectly OK to say that women’s physical strength is of the same kind as men’s, only weaker.
In the same way, claiming “women’s sex drive is like men’s, only weaker” is not an attempt at denying underlying complexity; only at saying that this complexity generates a scalarly measurable difference. It is an attempt at saying that sex feels good both to men and women, and that both want it. I’m not trying to recreate the myth of the Wanton Woman; I’m just saying women are not asexual.
Or else, as I asked: what features of the female sexual impulse do you think would still be different from men’s — what difference in sex-seeking behavior would men and women still have — if the intensity of women’s sex drive increased 10-20 times, to match men’s? Or if men’s desire decreased 10-20 times, to match women’s? What would you expect? (I’m not asking a rhetorical question, I’m honestly curious. I understand my opinion doesn’t have to be right just because it’s my opinion.0 I’m honestly trying to get more data to think about.)
“Spread the sperm, guard the egg” is a universal biological principle. Spreading and guarding are NOT differences of degree, but of kind; they are OPPOSITE behaviors. Guarding is not just weak spreading, it’s a completely different strategy.
But “guarding the egg” doesn’t have to come from the sex drive itself, Maggie. It can be a behavior that results from the interaction of the sex drive (‘lust’) with other aspects of the female psyche. Just like male aggressiveness is not necessarily a byproduct of male sex drive: it may result from other factors in a male’s psyche that also interact with his sex drive.
Look, Maggie, I’m not trying to win at any costs: I’m just sincerely interested in any real features of female desire that aren’t the result of either (a) polarity or (b) different intensity (and of course (c) cultural norms and stereotypes).
For instance, from some other people, I got answers like: females trust secondary signs of desire in male (presents, flowers, compliments) more than primary signs (erect penis): the former excite them more than the latter. With men, it’s the other way round: primary signs (wet pussy, erect nipples) are more valued than indirect signs.
Another answer I got: men are more visual, so they react more strongly to visual stimui (hence porn); women are more imaginative, they tend to like indirect/cognitive stimuli (hence romance novels with ‘scorching’ scenes).
That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about; if you know others, I’ll be thankful if you mention them. I think there are good intensity-based explanations for the two ones above, but unless you’re interested I’m not going into details, because I’m getting the impression you don’t like the topic, or my take on it… Ahn… If you want to drop it, OK with me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from women, it’s that it’s not a good idea to get them angry. 🙂
You’re absolutely right about my disliking the topic. Occam’s Razor provides a perfectly reasonable biological explanation for the differences, and most people (I’m sure not you, but most) who attempt to find “alternative explanations” do so in order to advance a “social construction of gender” agenda which flies in the face of logic, common experience, neurological studies, cross-cultural studies and observable primate behavior. So even if your questioning is honest and not intended to advance such an agenda, I’m pretty sick of fighting over the topic with neofeminists. It’s not you; it’s just that I’m sick of rehashing the subject for what seems to me no good reason. 🙁
Having myself wrestled with people who thing social agendas are a good substitute for curiosity and interest in the truth, I understand what you’re talking about. No, I don’t want to advance any agendas (I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know what a ‘perfect society’ really looks like and what I have to do to get there). I’m sincerely curious. Also, I’m a bit of a theoretician: I find it elegant if I can explain several things (large differences in behavior) with one element (differences of intensity) — also a version of Occam’s Razor. If I’m defending anything, it’s at most my own little ego. 🙂
“Social constructivists” are among the people that make me sigh loudest… There is some truth in their approach, but they are so skilled at missing it and taking to sticking round pegs in square holes… Ugh! The only worst bunch I’ve met are the deconstructionists, especially after Sokal’s hoax (seen the one who claims Sokal’s hoax is itself a postmodernist move and therefore validates postmodernism?)
Anyway… I do find it an interesting topic (even though I’m not a specialist), and you mentioned having talked at length (elsewhere? here on this blog?) about the aspects of logics, common experience, neurological studies, cross-cultural studies and primate behavior that support a non-intensity-based explanation. Would you mind giving me a link to them? That way you wouldn’t have to rehash the subject just for my entertainment… 🙂
“Scorch, I am seriously, honestly proud of you. :-)”
Why thank ye! I’m tryin’ ta learn here 😀
….Learning also sure beats being angry about things that you can’t change, and that aren’t even necessarily ‘right’ or ‘wrong’….they just kind of…are.
Plus I’ve got a seasoned, sexy teacher, maybe you’ve heard of her…;)
Ever heard the expression “…could make a whore blush”? Y’all are accomplishing that today! 😀
“She wasn’t trying to seduce you! You still don’t get it! Being attractive to men is an end in itself, not a means to an end.”
Again. There it is. A definitive statement that clarifies *everything.*
Women don’t act sexy because they’re trying to initiate sex…that’s what WE want, and what WE think. Women act sexy because the satisfaction of knowing that they are sexy and attractive is what feels good to them.
Again, completely foreign to a man…any overture to sex is supposed to result in the horizontal mamba, or else, what is the point? I can’t relate, but now I understand why they get that smile on their faces & then run away…now I understand why they will flirt, stick their titties in your face, shake their asses, and then get comPLETEly freaked when you want to fuck them as a result of that behavior. Because that wasn’t the point for them.
But.
1) That makes me hate cockteases even more than I already did.
2) It’s going to sound bad, but it makes me have less sympathy for said teases. Because they don’t have any respect for the male energies that they’re stirring up in their incessant quest for attention. Sorry. 😐
The blatant proof of this is in rape cases. Male defense attorneys say, “but she was dressed like a tart; clearly she wanted it!” and the male judge and male jury members, even if they’ve been schooled properly, tend to believe it on some level. The truth is that NO, she wasn’t “asking for it”; she just wanted to look attractive.
Most sexually mature women dislike cock teases as well. It’s one thing to look sexy and even flirt, and another thing entirely to actively tease. 🙁
And yet, Scorch, as you yourself pointed out, how does that explain lesbianism? Or the simple fact of female masturbation? (I’m the father of an 8-year-old daughter; I know…).
I agree women don’t (usually) act sex because they want to initiate it. But you seem to be saying that this means women NEVER want to initiate sex. That seems less likely to be true to me.
It’s simply that men are more likely to mistake anything that remotely looks like interest in initiating sex with actually wanting to initiate sex — because men usually get a lot less sex that they want (or even need). They’re usually starved, so everything that looks remotely like a come-on has a high risk of being understood as a come-on.
I’m not denying there are differences, Scorch and Maggie; I’m trying to account for them.
Well, again, I don’t think the subject lends itself to comprehensive definition.
I think you’re right, and I agree with you, that females have to have SOME sexual desire that’s innate & internal, and can’t ALWAYS be rooted in pleasing a man and/or attracting male attention & a mate, hence, as you say, female masturbation, lesbians, etc.
But trying to account for those differences between women is damn near impossible. As I said, I personally chalk it up to the complexity of the female wiring, because women are capable of processing so many different things, on so many different levels, for so many different reasons.
Men tend to be, not UNcomplex, but perhaps LESS complex in their motivations when it comes to sex, comparatively speaking.
I also believe that social conditioning has something to do with the female approach to sexuality, as women are often way more worried about how they come across socially than men are.
In principle, nothing that relates to humans lends itself to a comprehensive definition — humans are complicated beings. Men, too, by the way. There is not a single psychological theory in existence that can predict human behavior with much accuracy — we’re not easy things to model.
My entire point is that females DO have some sexual inherent, internal sexual desire (that’s why, I think, they can understand men’s: it’s not completely foreign to them).
Men are less complex? I don’t know. In any other topics in life that you’d care to mention, men are just as complex (if not more so) as women. Why would they suddenly become simple when it comes to sex?
What I think is that the intensity of their sex drive is such that it’s hard to feel the other factors — which are there. When a big, bright star is near a small one, the latter hard to see — if your telescope’s resolution is low, you will see them as one single dot. Yet they are two stars, not one. (Hell, sometimes the only way to detect the other star is by its gravitational effect on the larger one.)
Or, to use an example from physics: if the first-order components of the energy function for a given system has a big exponent, then you can on first approximation ignore the lower-order terms — for a number of purposes, things work as if the first-order term were the only part of the equation. It’s a reasonable approximation. But the other parts of the equation are still there — and if you’re smart enough, you can design experiments in which they become crucial.
Intensity in one factor can mask underlying complexity. Or, to put it in other words: even sexually, men aren’t simple, they’re just hungry.
There is of course social conditioning too, and it blurries the picture and makes the effect of nature hard to see. Indeed society also tell (or used to tell) women that they aren’t supposed to be interested in sex (in olden days, women were supposed to just spread their legs and ‘think of England’). But then again, men were also told to suppress their desires and feel guilty because of them… Hence all those self-flagellating monks, all those campaigns to eradicate masturbation (which was supposed to have all kinds of negative effects on your health).
I realize how silly it is to comment on posts that were made months ago, but I had to jump in just to say that:
1) I just discovered this site a few days ago, and I’m hooked (*ahem*); and more particularly,
2) that’s mostly because of posts, and especially discussions, like this one. Maggie, scorch, and Asehpe, if any of you ever read this: fantastic discussion, and each of you crystallized points I’ve considered myself in ways that made me see them anew and provided fresh insight. Which is always a thrill… really, isn’t it the only reason to talk to other people in the first place? 😉 Asehpe, your post above was particularly good, which is why I’ve posted this as a reply. Thanks to all of you!
Please don’t ever hesitate to comment on a post just because it’s old, Justin; if you look at the dates above you’ll see that Asehpe’s posts were made months after this column was posted!
I’m really glad you’re enjoying the site, and I hope to keep you “hooked” 😉
>the whore does not focus on the client but rather on the job. Yes, she’s trying to please him, but in order to do so she must concentrate on what she’s doing rather than on her own sensory and emotional experience as the non-professional woman does.
Yes. Exactly. I’m glad someone finally explained this.
>I think the fundamental reason most men and non-professional women are so confused about whoring is that they forget that it is essentially a performance, no different from acting or singing.
Again, yes! That’s why whoring is a very mental-intensive job. Through out the session, your mind is working, monitoring, open to every signal from the man, planning the next move, conscious of impacting all his senses. I did often enjoy my work, but that was an extra. It was never about that.
As for how to deal with unattractive clients-
I had a man see me occasionally who was badly scarred below the waist- badly burned. But that man had gotten that way saving several lives when he was a firemen. Did I find him unattractive? Absolutely not.
For each client, there was something I could find attractive and focus on. Maybe his voice, his hands, something. It’s how I did my job.
This “But at the same time, nobody wants to hear that his escort is having boyfriend problems”. Not necessarily so.
i have been seeing a girl over nearly 2 years. She’s on and off with respect to advertising, but I keep seeing her (I’ve seen no other escort in my life).
She tells me her boyfriend problems, her health problems, her parent problems, her work problems, her depressions and moods.
I guess you could say that she could have an amazing intuition about me, and see that what I value is this kind of self disclosure, and so even this is an illusion. But, I don’t think so, because she is honest almost to a fault. She never fakes in bed. She never fakes pleasure….and simply told me that she feels no pleasure or physical enjoyment from sex with me. She engages with me of course, but she puts on no act that she’s getting any pleasurable sensations. She tells me she is attracted to pretty boys not manly men (I’m a middle aged fairly manly man).
And I guess it is that honesty that kept me going for so long with her. I know exactly what is going on. No silly illusions. And so it makes it easier to connect in some small way on shared intellectual interests.
She lives 2000km from me, and when I colud not see her for 4 months, she kept up an uncompensated correspondence.
I’m a little bit in love with her of course, and told her that. She says its sweet, and then keeps talking about her boyfriend lol. No illusions. Not all of us want that.
Lovely writing. Thank you.
Thank you, Ivan; I’m sure you understand that you’re an exception, though.
So it seems. That’s not an unpleasant thought 🙂
And yet, and yet (and no offense intended), but I am a little bemused, because taking you at face value as an experienced escort, how can you not know that mutuality is what men seeking companions crave the most? Yes, of course you have to play a part, but surely you realise that the men that saw you were desperate for a connection (one that transcends role play). Why else would men pay so much money, often scraping savings together to do so (not all of us are truly wealthy). Yes, the men know that by the very act of the commercial transaction, authenicity must be foregone, but the desire is their all the same.
Or is all this not obvious. Do (we) men appear so…(stretching for a word here)…simple? Are the sexes doomed forever to engage each other through false stereotype?
Maybe so, because if your two major points are both correct (and I guess they must be) that (i.) prostitution is role play and performance, and (ii.) all male/female relationships are varieties of prostitution…..then intimacy is impossible, and we are all lost.
Ivan, all humans play roles with each other, even friends and lovers; that doesn’t make intimacy impossible. Far from it; a certain degree of self-control is necessary if a relationship is to survive. Furthermore, you’re muddying the difference between a professional sex worker and an amateur; in amateur relationships there is time to develop deeper feelings, whereas in professional ones there is neither time nor opportunity. Finally, if true mutuality (in the sense you appear to be using the word) and not merely the appearance of such is what some men seek, they’re not going to find it with an escort any more than they will find it with a psychologist or nurse; it’s simply not our function and (except in the cases where a real relationship grows between client and escort) not even humanly possible.
I’m not going to go too much into this–because I could go on for quite some time : P–but what people forget is that while there are statistical trends, people are individuals with different tastes due to things like their own personal chromosomes, hormones, experiences, gender, sex, etc. Heterosexual cis-males tend to have more testosterone and therefore a higher and more orgasm focused sex drive, while heterosexual cis-females tend to have a more circumstantial and relational sex drive. However one cis-woman’s reason for doing something is not going to be the same as another, just as one gay man or lesbian or transsexual etc is going to be different from having their own personal motivations.
This is a very interesting discussion… I’m still confused about something. Hope it’s not too late to ask.
Now I know that there ARE visible signs of woman’s sexual arousal, even though they are not as visually obvious as male erection. I’m talking about vaginal secretions, clitoris, nipples hardening, skin reddening, pulse speeding up, contractions during orgasm and so forth… How do you manage those, if “manage” is the right word at all? Some of the more sensitive men would not be fooled, and would in fact be thwarted by a pretended pleasure while the more subtle signs are not there.
Or is it possible to say that even when acting out you do feel a measure of sexual arousal, but you are just not into it emotionally, and that is what you mean by “concentrating erotic energies”? Do you ever feel arousal and experience orgasm at all while working? I’m asking because I’ve read some sex workers testimonies on reddit, and many do say that they enjoy the sexual experience that they have with clients.
Also, as someone for whom the sexual pleasure of the woman I’m with is very important, I’d like to ask this: have you encountered clients for whom your arousal and orgasm was important? clients that asked to please you and give you orgasm as part of the session? I, for example, live giving cuni, and love giving orgasms and pleasing, without that the experience for me would be of very little value. How would you manage that?
Sorry I took so long to answer you, WB; I’ve just been really busy lately. I’ll feature your question and my answer in the column for June 19th.
Maggie I think I am in love with you. (Your mind, your soul, not wanting to have sex with you . Very heterosexual IRL). I have stumbled across your blog, and the feelings I have tried to articulate to the myriad male friends who come to me…asking for advice…..I get it. I can cut through the b.s., the societal constraints, the shame, the false bravado…but not nearly as cleverly as you have. If I had a sex drive equal to that of a man, I would have had hundreds of sexual encounters. (And the sex trade was not my profession.) The vast majority of men cannot comprehend that. Of equal importance; had I acquiesced; subsequent men would have shamed my sex drive.
It boggles my mind at how men have no idea about female sexuality. Most of their opinions are based on porn, church teachings, shame, media, etc. Women play into this dichotomy until…they get married and don’t have to. The
PUA (pick up artist) web sites offer up advice to help dweebs overcome reluctant females…because every stud male knows once you overcome her “reluctance” the keys to the castle are his. What folly.
I’m old. Experienced. Wise. I have yet to meet a female who hasn’t faked an orgasm. I have yet to meet a man who believes he has been the recipient of a faked O.
(Yeah, there are men who claim they don’t care; but they are the vast minority and usually sexually inexperienced due to ugliness, no money, lack of muscle or overabundance of fat, but even then: men want to think women think of them as erect manly men).
I own a vibrator. I know how to use it; much like a man can use his hand. I like the vibrator and I’m happy I was born in a century where the use of one is not frowned upon. But still, I realize I am in the minority. Most of my female friends…don’t care and rarely if ever use the one I purchased for them. And their husbands are none the wiser. I do honestly wonder if a lot of women even know what an orgasm is. Whatever it is; random sex with random men is not the key to having one. However, I will happily fake one if it gets him off! (of me)
Benjamin Franklin. Sexiest man I know. You nailed it. I am not that cynical, nor jaded, but am overcome at your honesty. Thank you for telling it like it is.
You’re very, very welcome. 🙂
One of the best cinematic examples I know. of the very different “faces” that actors might wear, is in the 1986 movie “Sweet Liberty.”
In one scene in that movie, Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, an actress, blows the mind of Alan Alda’s character, a history professor, when she shifts effortlessly from the “don’t shit me” “face” she presents to her agent to the “sweet colonial lady” “face” of the character she will play in the movie that will be based on his book.
Pfeiffer, as it happens, is remarkably adept at presenting the “faces” of radically different people, from one role to the next. But then, that’s her job. She is simply exceptionally good at her job.
Your point makes total sense.