Tiffani,
I understand that you're expressing your point of view about the psychology of men who would feel like a loser if we paid a girl to eat with us. We are expressing our point of view. And conceivably our point of view (about
our psychology, in fact) has some merit to it as well.
I emphathize with your friend and occasionally have similar thoughts, yet I think your analysis is incorrect with respect to me -- and possibly with respect to your friend and others. To wit:
It's because the men that connect with me don't have the separatist illusion that I'm just a hooker, and therefore different from a wife or a civvie girlfriend.
Originally Posted by Tiffani Jameson
Several ladies have alluded in this thread to clients being reluctant to pay them to have dinner because those clients think of the ladies as second-class citizens. I've heard none of the
clients who don't pay ladies to have dinner saying we think of the ladies as second-class citizens. Our attitude arises, in fact, from something quite different from the "class" of the person with whom we're eating.
It's true that many civilians buy into the stereotypes that prostitutes are drug addicts, morally challenged, or otherwise "inferior" in some way. I realize that some P4P clients hold on to those same stereotypes as well, but certainly not all of us or even the majority of us. I've perhaps run across a few ladies in P4P who resemble that stereotype, but I've also run into civilians like that. Most of the ladyfriends I've met in P4P are just . . . people. In many cases, rather extraordinary people. Continued exposure to a group of people has a tendency to dispel stereotypes. If civilians knew that the woman who lives across the street, or whose kids played with theirs, was an escort, gradually they would drop those stereotypes as well.
What I get from statements like 'you're a loser if you pay a working girl to eat' is that you should feel the same way if you have to pay me for anything.
I think you may be reading more into those statements than is intended.
In fact,
many civilians feel it's shameful to have to pay someone to have sex with them. It's an extremely prevalent male attitude. Perhaps we have overly fragile egos compared to women.
That's probably a contributing factor to the relatively low percentage of civilians who become P4P clients. They may try to pick up girls at a bar, or have an affair with a co-worker, but not P4P. That would accept an implication that we are not worthy (in the women's eyes) of having sex for free.
Those of us who are P4P clients have, for the most part, overcome that attitude -- although many do so by adding on some rationalization, such as that we
could get sex for free but see escorts to avoid emotional commitment or for convenience. Because otherwise we might have to admit that we can't (or would find it very difficult to) get sex without paying for it.
That would be a rather depressing thought: we have to pay + people are willing to pay the lady = we are inferior. I am not denying the accuracy or validity of this conclusion, by the way, merely explaining how it might make us feel.
P4P clients have mostly overcome the attitude that it's shameful to have to pay someone to have sex with us. However, paying someone to eat dinner with us is something qualitatively different. It's one thing to acknowledge that ladies would be unwilling to have sex with you for free; it's significantly more to acknowledge that a lady is unwilling to have a meal with you for free. The implication of inferiority, from having to pay, is much stronger when it concerns an activity that is less emotionally freighted, and less tied up with our image or sense of self-worth, than sex. Most women, in my experience, are significantly less selective in sexual partners than in dinner partners. If we don't even make the cut for the latter, that's even worse.
Although what happens after or before was guaranteed, we should not be seen as second class, or unworthy of a meal.
Most of us don't think of the ladies we see as unworthy of a meal. Many of the comments above have mentioned having meals with the ladies they see, just not paying them a fee for that time.
Personally, I would enjoy having a meal with most of the ladies I see, if an additional fee were not involved. I don't ask them, but that's because I understand many ladies are wary of such requests. Either they are concerned about a client getting too close emotionally and turning into a stalker, or they understandably just don't want to spend their free time with clients. I would not be offended if I offered and they said no, for those very reasons; I don't even ask so that I avoid giving offense or putting pressure on them in the first place. When ladyfriends have suggested it, though, I've been more than happy to take them (usually lunch), and I pay the bill, we don't split it.
That's because, once again, for me (and I suspect many other people), it's not about with
whom we're having that meal, but that we're asked to pay her an additional fee.
Above, you contrasted escorts with wives or civvie girlfriends. Well, when we take
them out to dinner, they don't charge us an additional fee. I'd gladly treat an escort I see the same as a civvie girlfriend in that respect -- take her out to lunch or dinner and pay the bill, but not pay her an additional fee for her time.
Neither would I expect a civilian date to feel obligated to have sex later on just because I bought her dinner. The two are not connected, in my mind.
As far as your families finding out, I didn't mean it in a literal sense. But if you had to say the girl your friend saw you with in a restaurant was an escort, or that you pay for our time in any fashion, I didn't mean to imply that you would be disowned, but for the most part, many of you couldn't live it down. They would crack a joke about it every time they saw you.
True. In fact, some of us might lose our jobs. And of course, those of us who are married might face even more consequences.
Any feeling of embarrassment or shame, however, is primarily the result of us "having to pay for it" (i.e.,
we are inferior, because unattractive as potential sexual partners) rather than because the
escort is inferior. It wouldn't be associated with the meal per se.
In fact, if we told our friends: "Yes, this lady I'm having lunch with is a professional escort, who is paid to have sex with her clients. I am not one of her clients, but met her under other circumstances. She's a really nice person. I consider her a friend and enjoy having lunch with her." -- I don't think they would disown us or crack a joke about it. They would disown us or crack jokes not because we know an escort or have lunch/dinner with her, but because in fact we are her client and "have to pay for it."
I just posted this to offer a different point of view on the subject, not to change anyone's minds. You fellows will only do to us what you're allowed to do, and there will always be a lady for every one of you, no matter how you feel about us or choose to patronize us.
I understand and respect your point of view. I don't look down on an escort who asks to be paid an additional fee to have lunch or dinner with a client. I fully understand and am not offended if a ladyfriend doesn't want to have lunch or dinner with me without compensation. I don't criticize clients who pay an additional fee for that lunch or dinner. That's up to them; they may value that service more than I do; they may not infer the same things from paying that fee. WALDT/CASG.
And I just posted this to offer my different point of view on the subject. Probably a waste of time as well, because I doubt if I'll change anyone's mind either.
When it gets down to the nitty-gritty, LIVE AND LET LIVE.
We agree.