Despite an increasing public tolerance for erotic diversity, the mixing of sex and money is still taboo in the minds of most people.

This from the history of the courtesan article. I loved it... not because it made any sense... I loved that "still taboo" bit. And, it's got "diversity" too. Yeah! Everything worth its salt must have diversity, right?

What do you do when you've reached that cranky old fart stage where you've heard everything and seen everything and you realize that the "still taboo" bit is the standard, predictable ploy to try to create controversy so that people will pay attention to you? There's even a TV series on National Geographic that's constantly trying to outrage the couch potatoes with the latest daring expose on "taboos."

I always enjoy these erotica links you put up. They're so tame compared to the wild world of porn out there. And, since I am an old crank, every one is a rerun.

The Danielle the escort bit is the 1,000,000th rerun of that famous San Francisco/Berkeley story: "College Girls Take Up Whoring to Pay Their Tuition!" The Chronicle ran that story once a week when I lived in San Francisco.

And, the Roissy bit is college Freshmen bragging about the size of their dicks in the cafeteria. It's hilarious. Does that punk even have a job? I am especially amused by Roissy's "I'm never going to sell out" routine. Classic. I listened for about 30 seconds to some slash metal group yesterday and thought: "That's Roissy!" He's going to still be suffering from acne infestations and catching the clap from his latest whore when he's 50.

He'll need some serious drugs and alcohol to continue believing that he's heroically resisting selling out by then.

The getting pierced one brought me to my latest interest: What will the next generation of kids do to rebel against today's tattoo and piercing freaks? Outraging the parents is imperative. Of course, maybe every conception will be via the turkey baster by then. Wonder how that will work out?

Instead of a picture of Dad on the mantle, will the kids bronze the turkey baster and mount it on a pedestal?

Nothing is funnier than the human dementia of sexuality. I harken back to your posting on women's magazines. There's an old saying that these magazines only have 10 story lines for articles and they just keep changing the names and the adjectives and reprinting them. The world of erotica seems to be suffering the same syndrome.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on August 21, 2009 12:50 PM

The Danielle the escort bit is the 1,000,000th rerun of that famous San Francisco/Berkeley story: "College Girls Take Up Whoring to Pay Their Tuition!"

Not sure where you got that. She said nothing at all about using the money she makes to go to college.

Posted by: Alexa on August 21, 2009 5:09 PM

Re: Danielle -

1. I doubt these are written by actual women.

2. If she's really a whore, the level of rationaliztion and self-deception is enormous.

Posted by: Peter L. Winkler on August 21, 2009 7:52 PM

I find it grimly hilarious how these "escorts" manage to make sex seem boring. At least a $2 tramp has a heartbeat.

Posted by: Victor on August 21, 2009 11:29 PM

ST -- Hitting that point in life where it really does feel like you've seen it all is funny, isn't it? I wonder if, from then on out, the art-and-entertainment thing becomes all about how to make the same-ol' same-ol' feel fresh for a few minutes.

Alexa -- Enjoying your web activities. Where do you find the time and energy?

Peter -- You don't think "Danielle" may be being fairly straightforward about herself and her story? Why not?

Victor -- I certainly don't find their tales boring. Neither does ST. People leading oddball lives, trying to make a little something out of their gifts, personalities, and ambitions ... What's boring about that?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 22, 2009 12:44 PM

I think that Roissy needs to read "Bar Fly" by Charles Bukowski. Wouldn't hurt it he saw the movie, too.

That's his future.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on August 22, 2009 1:54 PM

Thanks for the link, Michael.

Shouting Thomas:

"The getting pierced one brought me to my latest interest: What will the next generation of kids do to rebel against today's tattoo and piercing freaks? Outraging the parents is imperative. Of course, maybe every conception will be via the turkey baster by then. Wonder how that will work out?"

I'm thinking we're getting to the point where staying on the straight and narrow would be outrageous enough to qualify as a form of rebellion.

Posted by: Ferdinand Bardamu on August 22, 2009 2:27 PM

I find Danielle's article unconvincing because it reads like something scripted to appeal to the eternal male fantasy that prostitutes are cheery little nymphs who all love sex so much that prostitution is the natural and incidentally, profitable, outlet for their desires.

Women who aren't whores base their relationships on elective affinity. Whores can't.

Posted by: Peter L. Winkler on August 22, 2009 4:17 PM

Peter, in a county of 300 million people, I don't know why it's so hard to imagine that there's a substantial number who *really are* "cheery little nymphs who all love sex so much that prostitution is the natural and incidentally, profitable, outlet for their desires".

Posted by: bryan on August 22, 2009 5:18 PM

Bryan makes a good point. Ignoring for the moment people who are desperate or coerced ... There really are people who have high sex drives, and instincts for what turns other people on, as well a taste for edgy living ...

Some of these people turn into publishers or producers ... The ones with physical good looks often go into modeling or performing ... Some decide to go the escort, callgirl, or hooker route ...

Some people really are born performers. Some gals really are born courtesans. Some guys really are born seducers.

These are their talents, gifts, drives, and instincts. Shouldn't they try to explore them, and maybe even make something of them? If not, why not?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 22, 2009 8:08 PM

Even people with a high sex drive have preferences and some sense of discrimination in choosing prospective sex partners. And that discriminatory sense is bound to conflict with the demands of prostitution.

I eagerly await Danielle's next article extolling the delights of prostitution after she has to let some grossly obese, greasy, stinky guy crap on her while jerking off because the rent's due and the repo men are at the door.

Oh, what fun that'll be.

Posted by: Peter L. Winkler on August 22, 2009 10:04 PM

Yes, there are women out there who have high octane sex drives. Some of them are a real joy to know. Others can't handle it in a sensible way and are driven nuts by it.

Women who are active in the performance art forms usually have higher sex drives and enjoy sexual variety that most women shun. The fact that you like to perform, and like people looking at you, most often means that you find the visual part of sex very exciting.

I've lived a dissolute life, so believe me when I tell you I know what I'm talking about. Some whores live tired, beat up and sad lives. Some whores have a hell of a lot of fun, enjoy their clients and ride off into the sunset fulfilled and happy. I'd like to draw some general moral conclusions from this, but I can't.

Integrity and fair dealing are important parts of this business. Whores who are tricksters, cheats, thieves and con artists usually get about what they deserve. Whores who genuinely like their men, deal fairly and give more than they get don't get the hell beat out of them.

One of Roissy's really stupid themes is that men will be unhappy and cuckolded if they team up with a woman with a big sexual appetite and a history of sleeping around. This is sometimes true, sometimes not. There are no rules here. If you pay attention, you will see that there are couples out there who are finding a way to satisfy that big sexual appetite and having a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Life is a lot more of a twisted road than Roissy thinks. Everybody gets humbled along the way. That is, if you have any sense. The Roissys of this world get the sense beaten into them over time.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on August 22, 2009 10:46 PM

Shouting Thomas,

I dont know statistically about this, but I do have one experience of a "town pump" turning into a good wife.

Our old football coach told us about a slut at Whatever-directional Kentucky University he attended (can't remember, was it Western?) that many of the guys on the team passed around. One of the guys on the team, a big country lineman, eventually started going out with her. Coach said this guy was a big raw country boy who wasn't suave or anything, a real hick. Some of his teamates started to rib him a bit, but he bared his fangs and they all backed off (he was big).

They apparently have had a long happy marriage with many children.

Maybe she got religion, or maybe she liked his physical dominance over other men, but she apparently has remained faithful and true up till at least the late 80's. Im guessing they married in the mid-60's.

I think in all honesty youth is the time to really fall in love, when people have their young faces and bodies, and have less cynicism about themselves and haven't been emotinally heartbroken by others. After we get into our 30's, its a bit harder. The women certainly dont look like they did at their 18-year old fresh-faced blossoming years. Both of you will have several other ex's to compare your current paramour with also, and will usually find at least a few things wanting in the newer partner vs. the memory of a younger ex who was closer to their prime years, etc.

Roissy has put a lot of thought into his positions and defends them extremely well. He is certainly an interesting person. You dont come across someone like that very often.

Posted by: miles on August 23, 2009 3:18 AM

Unless the guy is a total Alpha dominant, ala Michael Douglas, yeah the betting line will be pretty heavy to be cheated on if he marries or shacks up with some gal that's got a heavy promiscuous past. What, suddenly partner #83 is "special?"

What a laugh. You are your habits. If you screw around, you'll do it married or single.

This makes most professional women in urban settings with high partner counts (30+) pretty poor marriage prospects -- they'll be taking it from whatever guy strikes their fancy and justifying it, because it's habit.

Just like the car can drive itself when you habitually turn onto the freeway and take a certain route. Habit.

Posted by: whiskey on August 23, 2009 3:22 AM

Peter -- You don't think escorts and hookers can and/or do pick and choose among potential clients?

ST -- Well said!

Miles -- I like reading Roissy too. I think he brings up and pushes all kinds of worth-attending-to points, and he does so very entertainingly. But I agree with ST when he writes "One of Roissy's really stupid themes is that men will be unhappy and cuckolded if they team up with a woman with a big sexual appetite and a history of sleeping around. This is sometimes true, sometimes not. There are no rules here." That jibes with my experience, though maybe it's worth keeping in mind that ST and I are of a different generation than y'all.

Something else Roissy seldom writes about -- and something his fans seldom seem to want to wrestle with -- is what a pain inexperienced women can be, and how miserable they can make a dude. FWIW, if we're going by generalizations and numbers only, I'll choose a woman who's had a decent number of adventures over a virgin any day. If you're interested in making music, why wouldn't you choose a partner who's already good at playing an instrument, rather than one who's a confused, naive, and inept fumbler?

Whiskey -- I don't find a lot of the "urban professional women" you're talking about appealing either, not that it matters given my age and marriage status. But why focus so determinedly on them?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 23, 2009 3:56 AM

Michael:

No. And calling yourself an escort is just employing a euphemism to decieve oneself about the realities of the job. Also, Richard Gere will not sweep you off your feet and marry you.

Posted by: Peter L. Winkler on August 23, 2009 5:30 PM

Hope's post was lovely.

Posted by: hello on August 23, 2009 10:07 PM

Besides, a woman with a large number of sex partners may not be highly sexed in the first place. Men want sex and women give it, in some important deep way that transcends the individual libido. Women can give sex because they want to be liked, for example, or want to be more deeply involved with the guy, or because they're angry and messed up after a bad breakup, or for any number of bizarre incomprehensible-to-guys womany reasons.

So a woman has plenty of opportunity to sleep around, and a rainbow of motives for doing so. A woman who's single for 10 years after becoming sexually active and who has the enormous mind-boggling nymphomaniacal total of three partners a year (what a slut!) would end up with 30 partners by the time she settles down.

A man with 30 female partners must have spent a huge amount of energy seducing those women. A man with 30 partners or more is a horndog with a roving eye...and that's more likely to be trouble than a woman with 30 partners. Jeebus, a woman can pick up 30 partners in a year without breaking a sweat.

And then there's this other phenomenon: remember Catherine M? The French woman who had hundreds of men in every possible orgiastic combination you can think of? She later discovered the joys of self-pleasuring via a d*ldo and experienced real sexual pleasure for the first time in her sexual life.

When she was asked about all that sex with all those other men, she replied that "it meant nothing. Nothing at all."

Anti-slut defense? Maybe. Or...the truth. She engaged in sex without ever being engaged in it. So all those partners never did mean anything to her. It's a peculiar assumption of some of the commenters here that a woman who has lots of sex must have a huge sex drive. All sorts of sluts don't even like sex. Which is the tragedy of the slut, I should think. Selling her birthright, her sexual mystery, for potage...the momentary affections of some guy she met drunk in a bar.

There's a lot more intercourse engaged in by women than there are women engaged by intercourse.

Posted by: PatrickH on August 24, 2009 1:59 PM

Nicely detailed set of complicating factors. Phew: chicks, eh?

I'll add one more: women go thru phases. They morph, and reincarnate, and then change again. One gal I know, for instance, had an awe-inspiring sexual appetite in her 20s. I mean, you'd never have doubted that she liked the adventure and that she loved the sex. There was nothing (or not much) that was neurotic or needy about it.

Then, in her 30s, she reincarnated -- now it was time for settling down and having a kid. Bein' a ma. Now she's in her 50s ... The kid's out of the house and doing well-enough ... And her old taste for adventure is reasserting itself. She's getting in shape and looking around hungrily. How many more juicy and rewarding sex experiences can she squeeze into her life?

Women screw for a lot of different reasons, god knows. But one of them can be a big sex drive.

And, as Bryan points out, it's a big country and a big world. Even if at any given moment only, say, 2% of women have genuinely big sex-for-the-sake-of-sex sex drives -- at least of a sort that most guys would recognize as "a genuinely big sex drive" -- that's still millions of women.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 24, 2009 2:48 PM

Re the celeb unsex tape:

"Eric Dane features in a naked video with his wife Rebecca Gayheart, pictured, and former Miss Teen USA Kari Ann Peniche..."

After The Hollies: "Hey, Kari Ann, what's your game now, can anybody play?"

And just what the hell are the odds that an actor best known to non-fans for a scene in which his character "breaks" his penis during sex in the docs' R & R room (tip: The Soup with Joel McHale on E!) ends up in a video with a co-star named, heaven help us, Peniche - and a sex-free one, no less, as apparently like Michael Palin's gynecologist character, he was on his lunch hour, as it were.

As Dwight Macdonald would say, "Parody is disarmed before such candor."

My work here is done...

Posted by: Scott Lahti on August 26, 2009 2:11 AM

The amazing thing about Roissy is that over the last six months or so especially, but starting back a year ago some, there really has grown up a Roissysphere, that extends well beyond the hugely voluminous commenting at his own place.

He's definitely now making waves. You were early to recognize that.

Posted by: Doug1 on August 29, 2009 7:58 PM






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