Tempted to Hire a Male Escort

I've been married for 20 years but my husband no longer has sex with me. A friend suggested that I hire a male escort and I'm tempted. Any advice?

DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD

Enough husbands and wives write to newspapers about long-term, otherwise happy marriages that are blighted by little or no sex to keep agony aunts and uncles in employment for the rest of their professional lives.

Like well-worn sofas or comfortable, broken-in shoes these marriages provide comfort and the pleasure afforded by familiarity, but in these relationships, drama, passion and lust don't extend beyond the TV screen.

Like one in three marriages, yours seems to have become a brother-sister relationship characterised by friendship and mutual esteem but without a sexual component.

Your suggestion that you hire what you term “an escort” could spell marital disaster. Think carefully and bear in mind what you may be sacrificing.

Since your obvious intention is to have sex spiced by animal passion, and that you are intending to pay him, your description of the man you want is euphemistic.

You are not looking for a gigolo, walker or convivial companion but a male prostitute, albeit possibly an enthusiastic young man temporarily strapped for cash, rather than a case-hardened old lag.

Have you thought what the consequences would be if your husband either happened to discover that you were paying for sex or was tipped off?

If this happened by chance the likelihood is that, by then, your children will have heard the gossip and many of his friends and neighbours would also know. The old cliché about a husband or wife being the last to hear bad news about a marriage happens to be true.

Conversely, if your prostitute did a sideline in blackmail and had some snaps - remember Max Mosley or Profumo - there could be real trouble. It wouldn't only be your husband who will have seen the photographs.

He may have been hurt by them, but his friends at the office, in the bar of the George and Dragon and your neighbours at the local dinner parties will drool and smile over copies of them.

they will quip about your physical appearance even as they condemn the action-packed revealing nature of the pictures they have been passing round.

Is your hunger for sex so great that you will risk divorce, public ridicule and social ostracism for an hour of pleasurable escapism and an orgasm or two?

I have had many patients who would answer yes to this question, but bear in mind that there are still remnants of the old double standards.

Men may be condemned for using prostitutes, occasionally, but they won't be vilified and laughed at. It is unfair, but that is how it is in our leafy suburbs and rural villages.

My female patients who have paid for sex, or who have used casual contacts such as van drivers, builders, plumbers or an attractive wine waiter, have always worried more about infection than what the neighbours would say.

Obviously, a regular professional sex worker is more likely to be a risk than an enthusiastic amateur, or an equally hungry male sex addict met at a bar, party or on an internet site.

If you go ahead with your plan, pay in cash, avoid your home town, use condoms (most prostitutes will provide them but take some just in case) but remember that they provide only safer not safe sex. Also bear in mind that sexually transmitted diseases can be spread by oral sex as well as vaginal intercourse.

SUZI GODSON

Although the internet is awash with escort agencies professing to offer women absolutely anything they want - for a price - it would probably be more rewarding, and certainly less expensive, to try to get a rise out of that husband of yours.

I say this because, on your behalf, I have spent the last three hours trawling the net for male escorts and it was an incredibly depressing experience.

Though the idea of “dial a man” is cute in theory, in practice most of the agencies offering male escorts find it difficult to recruit men who want to do the job.

Female prostitutes can fake arousal, but men can't fake an erection so there are more “male escorts wanted” ads than there are agencies offering men.

None of the sites that I found offered photo galleries of their gents, but I had a little more luck with individual males advertising themselves as escorts.

Some of these men also declined to provide images, but others such as, let's call him Mr X, appear in a range of looks, well, two to be exact: “businessman” and . . . could that be “rambler”?

Mr X describes himself as an “independent professional male escort” who is also a sports coach with two degrees.

He is easy-going, a great listener, has a keen sense of humour, natch, and enjoys good food, wine and conversation. In his blurb he asks whether “you would like to relax with some soothing aromatherapy?”

Or perhaps you might have “some issues or problems that you would like to discuss?” He doesn't say anything about the size of his penis or how many positions he can get in to, but there is a detailed price list which reveals that the bland nearly bald male escort in the Walmart suit is available “for any occasion” and can be yours for only £150 an hour.

And what do you get for that? In theory, you get “no-strings sex” with guaranteed discretion. An escort won't jeopardise your marriage because the relationship is a purely financial transaction.

However, though you may try to rationalise it, in reality it is a far more complicated exchange. I can't begin to consider the mix of need and confusion that would drive a man to sell himself for sex, but I can tell you that women find it difficult to divorce sex from emotion.

Although attention bought from another man might, temporarily, make you feel more sexual, and the clandestine nature of your meetings would probably exhilarate you, betraying your husband would almost certainly leave you feeling guilty. And fear of being found out will make you feel anxious and probably ashamed.

You think you would be satisfied by sex alone, but having sex with someone who knows little and cares less about you, is generally not a self-affirming experience.

You are clearly miserable in your marriage, but before you shell out £150 for sex with a stranger, it is worth giving your husband one more chance.

The longer a couple avoid sex, the harder it is to restore in the relationship.

Sex therapy (www.basrt.org.uk ) might help and he might benefit from a course of Viagra to boost his confidence. If he is suffering from any kind of erectile dysfunction, he needs to see a doctor as it may indicate an underlying illness.

It's not going to be easy, but paying for sex is not the solution because you will continue to share a bed with the problem every night.

tags: women  sex  male  prostitutes  escort  

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