I never claimed to know you or to summarise your life. It was, in fact, you who did that of me and my life. I was merely interacting with the the ones you had presented here in your first comment with regard to waving the 50 years longevity flag as if it was in itself a sign of a happy relationship. We all know very well that your generation was effectively imprisoned in marriages, especially the women of your generation who were shamed and humiliated over marital status (often such ‘social control’ attitudes are masked as concern) in ways that men were not and never have been. Interestingly that “shaming” behaviour is what your trying to do here in your first comment and you obviously have enjoyed a sense of entitlement to behaving in such a way for far too long.

Love is not more important to me than honesty and integrity. We have different values. I do not think ‘love’ makes it okay to be involved in prolonged deception of your spouse. You obviously do.

Anyway, good postive post (strange to see negative comments on it tbh), glad you’re coming around from that stress; take care, have fun.

Liandra, my comments may have been worded poorly enough to piss you off, but let me suggest that my intent (past, present and, I hope, future) was to initiate a dialogue that helps you move beyond so much defensive negativity. Oops…there I did it again, didn’t I?

All your other nonsense aside the assumption that I’m hoping for a relationship that will last me for the rest of my days is wrong. I am not looking for quantity I am looking for quality. I don’t rate longevity by itself as anything to do with the qualities and experiences I am looking to share. Arranged marriages can last a very long time and love grows in them and surmounts all the same obstacles you and your spouse have but I wouldn’t want a bar of it. I would happily be divorced 30 times than that.

So, you did not answer my question. Did I hit a nerve in turn? Does your wife know that you’ve followed me for years and you (though I would beg to differ) feel you know me well enough to give me a lecture. I would love to hear from her too if you are completely open and honest with her about all your sexual adventures.

Finally, Liandra, I sense your genration is not particularly anchored and commitments are not something taken seriously in many cases…marriage is one such commitment. My generation took such a little more seriously and worked through issues…some of which took years and much love to address. I don’t mean to suggest in any way that our generation is without fault…afterall, some things we’ve done may have created the scenario by which you found yourself. For whatever role that played in your previous, difficult circumstances, I am sorry. Now, make this “love” thing a real commitment and get on with it!

I don’t know the prevalence of this (suspect it’s high though), but there are people who seek out prostitutes mainly from having lack of other options, and either wanting to experience intimacy or just wondering what it is like; often, this is comorbid with mental illness of some form or other.

I think in a society where sexual and relationship attitudes were more relaxed in general (much more so than now), and if there were proper services available to help properly treat all mental health problems (most countries have abysmal mental health services), and try to properly alleviate the remaining societal stigma surrounding it;.

If all that were the case, I don’t think prostitution would have a lot of demand, and maybe wouldn’t seem like the most available option for some, in cases of mental health issues (or who knows, maybe it could even be used as a part of specific kinds of therapy…offhand I much better like the idea of it as a rehabilitative service, for those that would benefit from that).

This isn’t a topic I’ve really had that much detailed thought about before tbh, but it raises the question (just throwing this out there; I don’t have moral arguments against paying for sex, even if wouldn’t myself), considering that many people may seek out prostitutes due to mental health (or other) issues, preventing them from having (or seeking out) other opportunities, is it right to charge them for sex like that?

On the one hand it may help them, give them an avenue for experiencing physical intimacy where otherwise they wouldn’t, but on the other hand, for people who may have no other such outlet, it could both be harmful to them emotionally (intimacy reduced to financial transaction; wanting emotional intimacy but finding it is still closed to them) and mentally (possibly growing used to seeking out this path of intimacy regularly, to the exclusion of working on their larger underlying problems), and would it not also be indirectly taking advantage of their vulnerability in this regard?

I’m not trying to judge with any of the above arguments (and while focusing on this one thing, not trying to ignore ethical issues on the punter side as well; judging from blog entry, many don’t have much respect for women), as I am not set on any of these arguments, just throwing them out there for discussion.
While I certainly think selling and buy sex should be perfectly legal (and not looked down on either), there still seem to be deeper ethical issues that are a bit complicated/tricky.

That said, an off license doesn’t have to be concerned about unknowingly selling alcohol to an alcoholic, and alcoholism is a wider problem that should be tackled separate to that; so analogously, a person selling sex maybe need not be concerned about clients issues (it’s the clients choice in the end), and the clients issues should (at least) be treated as the wider societal problems they are, but I don’t know, I still feel that so long as these wider societal problems exist and aren’t being dealt with, there probably is room for more ethical consideration/burden in that regard on the sex workers side.