SoulManX
The Inspector!
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- Oct 20, 2004
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For those of you who didn't see it, All Men Are Liars made it into the hard copy version of the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday for the very first time with a first person piece I wrote about visiting a prostitute. The reaction was not surprising and I received a tonne of emails from critics and supporters, including two offers from high-class call girls to do the job properly (thinking, thinking) and a mighty spray from Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox.
The reason I wrote the piece seemed lost on some readers so to clarify, it was thus: if you're honest in the dating game, i.e. you say to women, "I'm just interested in a sexual relationship", you will have a lot less success than if you lie, or omit the truth, i.e. intimate you may be interested in a relationship.
To my thinking, visiting a sex worker is a lot more honest than pretending you're in to someone so you can lure them to bed.
I'm not ashamed of visiting a prostitute and many of the people who tut-tut about the sex industry are still happy to get their thrills reading about it as evidenced by my piece being the the most-read article on the entire SMH site, Monday.
Anyway, I've decided to post the piece here so you can have a chance to comment on it, and to also include copy that was edited out because of space limits and which addresses some of the criticism leveled at myself, the Herald and the article ...
Sex, lies and prostitution
Earlier this year I visited a prostitute for one obvious, practical reason and another less so: I'm sick of lying to women. Being single and in my 30s, I find it increasingly difficult to justify the lies and manipulation involved in having a sexual relationship with women who I'm not in love with.
Call it a gift, but I can tell within about two hours whether I could fall for a girl. Through weary experience, I estimate she comes along about every two years - and wears cool shoes.
That leaves a lot of time between drinks and 24-month bouts of celibacy don't really appeal to me while I have a full head of hair and abdominals.
The problem I, and I wager many other single men, face nowadays is if you go on more than a couple of dates with a woman, the majority want to know where the relationship is going. If you're blunt enough to say nowhere except the bedroom, feelings get hurt.
If you've had sex before that conversation, it's often like you've reneged on an unspoken emotional IOU guaranteeing continued involvement in the partnership. You're a user. A player. A dog. I can show you the text messages if you don't believe me.
Having used prostitutes in my 20s, it occurred to me recently that the simplicity of a cash exchange would be a more honest, and I dare say, moral alternative to bull****ting women into bed.
Political correctness tells me I should be ashamed of visiting a sex-worker but I'm not.
Despite what some people would have you believe, men do not control the sexual spigot at my local pub.
Women are the guardians of that flow and while they may torture and bankrupt themselves with dieting, beauty regimes and cosmetic surgery to maintain that influence, men exhaust themselves accruing wealth and power with which to purchase their attraction in the marketplace known as matrimony.
Prostitution pares this transaction back to its base elements. An estimated one in six Australian men have at some point in their life visited a sex worker, according to the Australian Study of Health and Relationships conducted by La Trobe University.
But it is something blokes will rarely admit to and this stigma radiates directly from the prostitute, a woman whose career choice is sneered at by most and condescended to by the rest.
Critics of the sex industry, such as the US conservative Hadley Arkes, say that prostitution "inescapably implies that the intimacy of sexual intercourse need not be connected to any authentic sentiment of love and that it need not take place in a setting marked by the presence of commitment.
"In that sense it might be said that prostitution patronises the corruption of physical love: it reduces physical love to the kind of hydraulic action that animals may share, and as it does that it detaches the act of intercourse from the kind of love that is distinctly human."
The obvious reply to this is why does sex have to be so damn serious and why do I have to be in love to indulge in it? That's the rub, I guess, because though meaningless sex can be good fun, it's transcendent when you're in love.
The prostitute whom I visited most recently told me her name was Shannon and as she took her clothes off and I observed her body language, we fell into dismal syncopation; when I saw she didn't want to be there, neither did I.
Being wanted is perhaps the greatest turn-on in the bedroom, and though you can buy a prostitute's body, you cannot purchase her desire.
I'd speculate this is part of the attraction for many men who use sex workers; the knowledge the woman is more than likely doing something she'd prefer not to, and an entire soundtrack of mumbled bedroom cliches couldn't convince me Shannon was excited about our coupling.
It was, in short, the unsexiest experience I've had in about 10 years. But when I woke alone the next day, my conscience was clear.
I knew there'd be no midweek recriminations because I didn't want to see Shannon again.
Shannon didn't want to see me again either; in fact she'd probably forgotten me before I'd even reached the staircase of her Darlinghurst terrace.
In many ways she was the female mirror of a man who tells beautiful lies to bed a woman, then disappears before dawn. At least with Shannon, we both understood the deception.
********* So that was the article as it appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald hardcopy and online. Now to answer a few criticisms.
Kathleen Swinbourne of Maroubra came out swinging in the letters section on Tuesday to say: "Guess what, Sam de Brito? There are many, many people, including women, out there having sex without being in love. If you want to meet them, try some honesty rather than 'bull****ting' them into bed.'"
"'Here's a couple of phrases you could try: 'I'm only interested in a one-night stand, so no, I'm not giving you my phone number and I don't want yours', or 'I'm just looking for somebody to have some fun with, go out with sometimes, and have some great sex. No commitments, nothing serious.'"
Thanks for the tip, Kathleen, but I'm way ahead of you. The following passage was removed from the original article.
Some would say "why not just be honest with a woman from the beginning?" and this is
how that usually unfolds.
Me: "I'm really not interested in a relationship but I'd like to have sex with you."
Her: "Please don't call me again."
Which leaves you with the option of those 24-month bouts of celibacy or half-truths like
"I'd really like to see you again", "Yes I want to meet your friends" and "sure, let's go
to Bali in July."
The fact is Kathleen, most women, when faced with the option of meaningless sex will decline. I've tried it many, many times and not just by walking up to a woman and saying "how about it?"
The usual scenario is you have a smooch with a girl (so it's safe to assume she's attracted to you), you're honest about your intentions and she then declines and moves on. It's that simple and I'm gonna guess I have a little more experience in this than you do.
Then there was Jackie Wilson of Greenwich who said:
"Sam de Brito's attempt at justifying using prostitutes rather than telling lies to get women into bed missed the point."
"Surely, buying a woman like she is a piece of meat at the butcher's shop is far worse on the scale of human compassion than cheating a woman into bed."
"Surely, exploiting the childhood abuse that many sex workers suffered, rendering them the ability to separate their bodies from their minds, is a less noble deed than convincing someone you love them for a night?"
"When men such as de Brito start seeing women as equals and not slaves who can be bought for self-gratification, women might feel more comfortable with a no-ties one-night-stand."
This attitude is what I referenced in the article when I said "this stigma radiates directly from the prostitute, a woman whose career choice is sneered at by most and condescended to by the rest."
As I've written before, in the post 'Lessons from of a prostitute', this sort of patronising attitude does not take into account the vast numbers of functional, adjusted women who chose the sex industry as a career and enjoy the financial freedom it gives them.
As I said in the unsubbed article and in the blog posting that prompted the SMH to ask me to write the Op Ed piece:
The Professional, a publication produced by and for Sydney's sex workers, is filled with fascinating first person accounts written by working prostitutes, a couple of which caught my attention during my visit with sin.
In the Spring 2006 issue (which includes a tasty recipe for grape chicken), Rebecca talks of the relentless questions she gets asked when "real people" discover she's a sex worker.
"How long are you going to do this for? I mean you don't plan on doing this forever?"
The intimation being if "in five years' time I am still 'doing this' ... will you think I am 'stuck in a rut?' That 'all I became in life my life was a sex worker?' That I 'could have been so much more?' And, heaven forbid, that 'I wasted my life?'"
But I guess it's easier for the Jackie Wilson's of the world to just assume all sex workers are screwed in the head by child molestation because it sits easier with their world view.
As for me seeing women as less than my equal and as "slaves who can be bought for self-gratification", she's simply ignoring the text of the piece.
I would love to be in a meaningful relationship, but until that comes along, does that mean I have to be celibate? Because if you're honest in the dating game that's what you end up being, nine times out of ten.
Perhaps the most surprising response to the article was from Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox who emailed me to say:
"I wouldn't ordinarily waste the time of day on such a narcissistic person, but the compassionate human in me says you're a man in need of psychological help.
"I hate to think with what contempt your father may have treated your mother, and to what extent you were indulged and never crossed or told no as a child, but I think a lengthy stint on the psychologist's couch might help you to see your way to being a functional, loving human being capable of having a relationship which is not all about gratifying your vanity and your needs."
I particularly enjoyed this because Wilcox tried to pass herself off as a "compassionate human" before going on to insult myself (which is cool), my father (he's dead Cathy) and my mother (she loved the piece).
Wilcox then took her distaste public and penned this cartoon for the letters section.
I was so bemused by the nature of the email I called her and we had a long chat, during which she expressed amazement the Herald had published such an item in its Op Ed pages and, like some of the critics above, took offense to my assumption that you had to lie in order to bed women.
I explained I was approached to write the piece by the Herald, not the other way around, so she should broach the matter of appropriateness with the Op Ed pages editor and that I no longer lie (or omit truths) when dealing with women (what a saint I am, eh?), which is why I haven't had a shag for some months.
However there is hope on that front.
This email from Sydney sex worker, Lucy, claimed she was outraged by her colleague Shannon's performance.
"I'm sorry it was such a dismal experience because it was the perfect opportunity for some good PR to be done for the industry.
"That and the fact that if done right it should be something you get excited about, put time into, planning a secret squirrel adventure which is exciting and then have awesome, exciting sex. What a complete let down for you.
"I assure you not all sex workers are like that. If you ever decide to have an adventure again let me know. You can find me at ... "
Sounds like a blog post to me.
I wonder if I can claim it on expenses?
http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/a...es_and_prostitution_redu.html?page=2#comments
The reason I wrote the piece seemed lost on some readers so to clarify, it was thus: if you're honest in the dating game, i.e. you say to women, "I'm just interested in a sexual relationship", you will have a lot less success than if you lie, or omit the truth, i.e. intimate you may be interested in a relationship.
To my thinking, visiting a sex worker is a lot more honest than pretending you're in to someone so you can lure them to bed.
I'm not ashamed of visiting a prostitute and many of the people who tut-tut about the sex industry are still happy to get their thrills reading about it as evidenced by my piece being the the most-read article on the entire SMH site, Monday.
Anyway, I've decided to post the piece here so you can have a chance to comment on it, and to also include copy that was edited out because of space limits and which addresses some of the criticism leveled at myself, the Herald and the article ...
Sex, lies and prostitution
Earlier this year I visited a prostitute for one obvious, practical reason and another less so: I'm sick of lying to women. Being single and in my 30s, I find it increasingly difficult to justify the lies and manipulation involved in having a sexual relationship with women who I'm not in love with.
Call it a gift, but I can tell within about two hours whether I could fall for a girl. Through weary experience, I estimate she comes along about every two years - and wears cool shoes.
That leaves a lot of time between drinks and 24-month bouts of celibacy don't really appeal to me while I have a full head of hair and abdominals.
The problem I, and I wager many other single men, face nowadays is if you go on more than a couple of dates with a woman, the majority want to know where the relationship is going. If you're blunt enough to say nowhere except the bedroom, feelings get hurt.
If you've had sex before that conversation, it's often like you've reneged on an unspoken emotional IOU guaranteeing continued involvement in the partnership. You're a user. A player. A dog. I can show you the text messages if you don't believe me.
Having used prostitutes in my 20s, it occurred to me recently that the simplicity of a cash exchange would be a more honest, and I dare say, moral alternative to bull****ting women into bed.
Political correctness tells me I should be ashamed of visiting a sex-worker but I'm not.
Despite what some people would have you believe, men do not control the sexual spigot at my local pub.
Women are the guardians of that flow and while they may torture and bankrupt themselves with dieting, beauty regimes and cosmetic surgery to maintain that influence, men exhaust themselves accruing wealth and power with which to purchase their attraction in the marketplace known as matrimony.
Prostitution pares this transaction back to its base elements. An estimated one in six Australian men have at some point in their life visited a sex worker, according to the Australian Study of Health and Relationships conducted by La Trobe University.
But it is something blokes will rarely admit to and this stigma radiates directly from the prostitute, a woman whose career choice is sneered at by most and condescended to by the rest.
Critics of the sex industry, such as the US conservative Hadley Arkes, say that prostitution "inescapably implies that the intimacy of sexual intercourse need not be connected to any authentic sentiment of love and that it need not take place in a setting marked by the presence of commitment.
"In that sense it might be said that prostitution patronises the corruption of physical love: it reduces physical love to the kind of hydraulic action that animals may share, and as it does that it detaches the act of intercourse from the kind of love that is distinctly human."
The obvious reply to this is why does sex have to be so damn serious and why do I have to be in love to indulge in it? That's the rub, I guess, because though meaningless sex can be good fun, it's transcendent when you're in love.
The prostitute whom I visited most recently told me her name was Shannon and as she took her clothes off and I observed her body language, we fell into dismal syncopation; when I saw she didn't want to be there, neither did I.
Being wanted is perhaps the greatest turn-on in the bedroom, and though you can buy a prostitute's body, you cannot purchase her desire.
I'd speculate this is part of the attraction for many men who use sex workers; the knowledge the woman is more than likely doing something she'd prefer not to, and an entire soundtrack of mumbled bedroom cliches couldn't convince me Shannon was excited about our coupling.
It was, in short, the unsexiest experience I've had in about 10 years. But when I woke alone the next day, my conscience was clear.
I knew there'd be no midweek recriminations because I didn't want to see Shannon again.
Shannon didn't want to see me again either; in fact she'd probably forgotten me before I'd even reached the staircase of her Darlinghurst terrace.
In many ways she was the female mirror of a man who tells beautiful lies to bed a woman, then disappears before dawn. At least with Shannon, we both understood the deception.
********* So that was the article as it appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald hardcopy and online. Now to answer a few criticisms.
Kathleen Swinbourne of Maroubra came out swinging in the letters section on Tuesday to say: "Guess what, Sam de Brito? There are many, many people, including women, out there having sex without being in love. If you want to meet them, try some honesty rather than 'bull****ting' them into bed.'"
"'Here's a couple of phrases you could try: 'I'm only interested in a one-night stand, so no, I'm not giving you my phone number and I don't want yours', or 'I'm just looking for somebody to have some fun with, go out with sometimes, and have some great sex. No commitments, nothing serious.'"
Thanks for the tip, Kathleen, but I'm way ahead of you. The following passage was removed from the original article.
Some would say "why not just be honest with a woman from the beginning?" and this is
how that usually unfolds.
Me: "I'm really not interested in a relationship but I'd like to have sex with you."
Her: "Please don't call me again."
Which leaves you with the option of those 24-month bouts of celibacy or half-truths like
"I'd really like to see you again", "Yes I want to meet your friends" and "sure, let's go
to Bali in July."
The fact is Kathleen, most women, when faced with the option of meaningless sex will decline. I've tried it many, many times and not just by walking up to a woman and saying "how about it?"
The usual scenario is you have a smooch with a girl (so it's safe to assume she's attracted to you), you're honest about your intentions and she then declines and moves on. It's that simple and I'm gonna guess I have a little more experience in this than you do.
Then there was Jackie Wilson of Greenwich who said:
"Sam de Brito's attempt at justifying using prostitutes rather than telling lies to get women into bed missed the point."
"Surely, buying a woman like she is a piece of meat at the butcher's shop is far worse on the scale of human compassion than cheating a woman into bed."
"Surely, exploiting the childhood abuse that many sex workers suffered, rendering them the ability to separate their bodies from their minds, is a less noble deed than convincing someone you love them for a night?"
"When men such as de Brito start seeing women as equals and not slaves who can be bought for self-gratification, women might feel more comfortable with a no-ties one-night-stand."
This attitude is what I referenced in the article when I said "this stigma radiates directly from the prostitute, a woman whose career choice is sneered at by most and condescended to by the rest."
As I've written before, in the post 'Lessons from of a prostitute', this sort of patronising attitude does not take into account the vast numbers of functional, adjusted women who chose the sex industry as a career and enjoy the financial freedom it gives them.
As I said in the unsubbed article and in the blog posting that prompted the SMH to ask me to write the Op Ed piece:
The Professional, a publication produced by and for Sydney's sex workers, is filled with fascinating first person accounts written by working prostitutes, a couple of which caught my attention during my visit with sin.
In the Spring 2006 issue (which includes a tasty recipe for grape chicken), Rebecca talks of the relentless questions she gets asked when "real people" discover she's a sex worker.
"How long are you going to do this for? I mean you don't plan on doing this forever?"
The intimation being if "in five years' time I am still 'doing this' ... will you think I am 'stuck in a rut?' That 'all I became in life my life was a sex worker?' That I 'could have been so much more?' And, heaven forbid, that 'I wasted my life?'"
But I guess it's easier for the Jackie Wilson's of the world to just assume all sex workers are screwed in the head by child molestation because it sits easier with their world view.
As for me seeing women as less than my equal and as "slaves who can be bought for self-gratification", she's simply ignoring the text of the piece.
I would love to be in a meaningful relationship, but until that comes along, does that mean I have to be celibate? Because if you're honest in the dating game that's what you end up being, nine times out of ten.
Perhaps the most surprising response to the article was from Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox who emailed me to say:
"I wouldn't ordinarily waste the time of day on such a narcissistic person, but the compassionate human in me says you're a man in need of psychological help.
"I hate to think with what contempt your father may have treated your mother, and to what extent you were indulged and never crossed or told no as a child, but I think a lengthy stint on the psychologist's couch might help you to see your way to being a functional, loving human being capable of having a relationship which is not all about gratifying your vanity and your needs."
I particularly enjoyed this because Wilcox tried to pass herself off as a "compassionate human" before going on to insult myself (which is cool), my father (he's dead Cathy) and my mother (she loved the piece).
Wilcox then took her distaste public and penned this cartoon for the letters section.
I was so bemused by the nature of the email I called her and we had a long chat, during which she expressed amazement the Herald had published such an item in its Op Ed pages and, like some of the critics above, took offense to my assumption that you had to lie in order to bed women.
I explained I was approached to write the piece by the Herald, not the other way around, so she should broach the matter of appropriateness with the Op Ed pages editor and that I no longer lie (or omit truths) when dealing with women (what a saint I am, eh?), which is why I haven't had a shag for some months.
However there is hope on that front.
This email from Sydney sex worker, Lucy, claimed she was outraged by her colleague Shannon's performance.
"I'm sorry it was such a dismal experience because it was the perfect opportunity for some good PR to be done for the industry.
"That and the fact that if done right it should be something you get excited about, put time into, planning a secret squirrel adventure which is exciting and then have awesome, exciting sex. What a complete let down for you.
"I assure you not all sex workers are like that. If you ever decide to have an adventure again let me know. You can find me at ... "
Sounds like a blog post to me.
I wonder if I can claim it on expenses?
http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/a...es_and_prostitution_redu.html?page=2#comments
