| You're asking why men don't turn to prostitution out of anger against
women? I would have thought the answer obvious - the market for male
prostitutes is infinitesimal compared to that for females. In a society
where almost any woman who wants sex can get it for free, or even have
a man "pay" her for it, how many women would seek out the services of
a gigolo?
These men who want to channel their anger in this fashion will sometimes
turn to violence, especially rape, as it is the easiest and "most socially
acceptable" channel available to them.
Now I understand that in the gay world, male prostitution is more common, but
I don't know if the motivation is often anything other than money.
Steve
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| re.1
This is true what you say. The market is better for women prostitutes.
What do you mean by "socially acceptable"? I also comment on the
motivation factor as it pertains to male prostitutes. The motivation
for the woman prostitute is also money. One has to really keep
2 minds when selling sex and giving love. They're entirely different.
To be able to do this, I think at some point that person has become
depressed. Or if not, but to continue in the selling of sex, one
may become dissillusioned or confused between dissassoiated sex
and loving sex.
But anyway, as a theory: the woman has sex with a paying man. Maybe
she feels like she's getting even. If a woman rapes a man, does
he feel violated or lucky? Whereas, if a man rapes, that woman
would definitely feel violated, not lucky at all.! So, she couldn't
get back at men by raping them, but by making him pay very dearly
instead. She gets rich, easily, since sex has become so robotic
and non-emotional. But, if a man were to behave in this way, is
it the same. Or must he act his anger agressively?
These are all a collage of thoughts that welcome discussion. It
was while watching a documentary about serial killers; they were
all men, and for the most part, hated their mothers or did not have
healthy relationships with women, that these questions came to my
mind.
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| Re: .2
What I said was "more socially acceptable", in quotes. By this I meant that
a large part of our society believes, deep inside, that sexual and physical
violence against women is acceptable, and that the women "deserve" it. This
is fostered by the glamorous treatment given such behavior in art and
literature, as well as the "look the other way" tolerance in real life.
Though the "official" stance is that it is reprehensible, in reality many
men - and women - tend to excuse or explain it away. It's all part of the
pattern of male power over women which has been with us for thousands of years.
And all you have to do is look at a newspaper, read a book or watch a movie
to see that it's still there.
Though I in no way claim to be an expert on this, I don't think most women
who turn to prostitution do it directly as an act of revenge against men.
Most likely, they were (and many still are) abused by men in their life,
and they have come to feel that their only value in life is as an object
of sexual fulfilment for men. I think that the number who do so purely
for the money (little of which they get to keep), or because they enjoy
it, is very small indeed.
As for women raping men - physiology makes this near impossible. It does
happen, and from what I have read, the men involved have felt just as
violated as women who are rsped. But rape of men is so rare as to be of
no real consequence.
Steve
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|
This is taken from "Woman Who Love Too Much" by Robin Norwood.
Although not directly answering the base note, it covers some of
the replies and may give an insight into the downward spiral.
I hope it doesn't loose any emphasis by cutting bits and pieces out.
If you want further details or expansion, I suggest you read the
book as I'm all typed out ...... Perhaps that a new acronym ATO
Steve
From the Preface.
Addiction is a frightening word. It conjures up images of heroin
users jabbing needles into their arms and leading obviously self-
destructive lives. We don't like the word and we don't want to
apply the concept to the way we relate to men. But many, many of
us have been "man junkies" and, like any other addict, we need to
admit severity of our problem before we can begin to recover from
it.
If you have ever found yourself obsesed with a man, you may have
suspected that the root of that obsession was not love but fear.
We who love obsessively are full of fear - fear of being alone,
fear of being unlovable and unworthy, fear of being ignored or
abandoned or destroyed. We give our love in the deperate hope
that the man with whom we're obsessed will take care of our fears.
Instead, the fears - and our obsessions - deepen until giving love
to get it back becomes a driving force in our lives. And because our
strategy doesn't work we try, we love even harder. We love too much.
I first recognised the phenomenon of "loving too much" as a specific
syndrome of thoughts, feelings and behaviours after several years of
counselling alchohol and drug abusers. Having conducted hundreds of
interviews with addicts and their families, I made a suprising
discovery. Sometimes the patients I interviewed grew up in troubled
families, sometimes they did not; but their partners nearly always
came from severely troubled families in which they had experienced
greater than normal stress and pain. By struggling to cope with
theiraddictive mates, the partners (known in the alcoholism treatment
field as "co-alcoholics) were unconsciously recreating and reliving
significant aspects of their childhood.
It was nearly always from the wives and girlfiends of addictive men
that I began to understand the nature of loving too much. Their
personal histories revealed their need for both the superiorty and
the suffering they experienced in their "saviour" role and helped
me make sense of the depth of their addiction to a substance. It was
clear that both partners in these couples were equally in need of
help, indeed that both were literally dying of their addictions, he
from the effects of chemical abuse, she the effects of extreme stress.
These co-alcoholic woman clarified for me the incredible power and
influence their childhood experiences had on their adult patterns
of relating to men.
From Chapter 1
No one becomes such a woman, a woman who loves too much, by accident.
To grow up a female in this society and in such a family can generate
some predictable patterns. The following characteritics are typical of
woman who love too much.
1. Typically, you come from a dysfunctional home in which your
emotional needs were not met.
2. Having received little real nurturing yourself, you try to fill
this unmet need vicariously by becoming a care-giver, espeecially
to men who appear, in some way, needy.
3. Because you were never able to change your parent(s) into the
warm, loving cartakers(s) you longed for, you respond deeply to the
familiar type of emotionlly unavailable man whom you can try to change,
through your love.
4. Terrified of abandonment, you will do anything to keep a relationship
from dissoving.
5. Almost nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time, or is too
expensive if it will "help" the man you are involved with.
6. Accustomed to lack of love in personal relationships, you are
willing to wait, hope, and try harder to please.
7. You are willing to take more than 50 percent of the responsibility,
guilt, and blame in any relationship.
8. Your self-esteem is critically low, and deep inside you do not
believe you deserve to be happy. Rather, you believe you must earn the
right to enjoy life.
9. You have a desperate need to control your men and your relationships,
having experienced little security in childhood. You mask your efforts
to control people and situations as "being helpful".
10. In a reltionship, you are much more in touch with your dream of how
it could be than with the reality of your situation.
11. You are addicted to men and emotional pain.
12. You may be predisposed emotionally and often biochemically to
becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and/or certain foods, particularly
sugary ones.
13. By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by
being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain, and
emotionally painful, you avoid focusing on your responsibilites to
yourself.
14. You may have a tendancy towards episodes of depression, which you
try to forestall through the excitement provided by an unstabble
relationship.
15. You are not attracted to men who are kind, stable, reliable, and
interested in you. You find such "nice" men boring.
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