I Was Forever One of the Johns Now

I had sex with a prostitute once, when I was in my mid-twenties.

I came about as close to going crazy that year as I have so far. (Knock on wood). I was single and living alone, being stressed beyond all previous experience by a job. (It amazes me now to think of letting an employer drive me to this state.) Though I wasn't consciously tracking it, I had also been going up a steady ramp of commercial sex trade, from porn to phone sex to strippers.

I grew up in a small town, and I was pretty unworldly. I don't remember how, probably through some movie, I realized that you could actually find escorts in the telephone book. I went to look and sure enough. For a couple weeks, every so often I would look at those listings. But I didn't think I would actually do it.

One day, I went to the movie theater alone--the way I did most things those days. The movie I saw was "Angels and Insects." Throughout that strange, messed-up story of class, repression, and incest, I felt like a bubble of hot blood was swelling in my head and chest. I was also plagued by hypochondria during this period. In the end of the movie, two of the main characters escape their damaged, repressed situation together. I knew that there wasn't any escape in the cards for me.

When I got home, I put myself into the sort of unthinking trance I do when I want to do something I don't think I should and don't want to think about it and dialed a number selected based on an unremembered criteria. I hadn't even thought about money, I was relatively poor, and the amount cited (a couple hundred) surprised me. I said I didn't have it on hand and didn't know if I could get it, thinking that might be the end of it, but she said she would call back in half an hour and see. It must have been a slow day. I walked to a nearby convenience store (I had no car) and took out the money plus an fifty extra because I figured I ought to, as a cash advance on a credit card. I went home and told myself she probably wouldn't call. But she did.

I was very excited, the kind of rush I used to get going into the adult store (or, when I was a kid, shoplifting), but in the time it took for her to arrive the feeling decayed and I felt like I'd made a mistake. But the doorbell rang and I figured: in for a penny, in for a pound.

I think she said her name was Laurie, but I'm not sure. She was pretty, buxom, and slender, though she had her hair gelled to the point of being crunchy, which made touching it sort of unpleasant. I almost forgot what I was about for a minute, until she told me I couldn't kiss her. Oh, right. I fumbled over some stupid line I thought would protect me from a potential police sting (some over-thought variation of "You're not a cop, are you?") that only made her nervous, though she got over it. Foreplay felt like a stupid charade, but I went through the motions, for my own sake, not hers.

When we moved into the bedroom, I was suddenly embarrassed by the fact that I slept on a mattress on the floor--I was just a couple years out of college. I lost my erection while she tried to get a condom on, but she managed to get me back up with oral. The oral was the best part of the experience, even with a condom. She was very skillful.

The sex was really average. When she started to moan. I felt like telling her not to bother, but it seemed like it would be rude to do so. Orgasm was a little flicker, quickly dissipated to nothing. But the pressure in my head went away.

She asked me about what I thought afterwards. I didn't really know what to say. (I said something but I don't remember what.) She asked me if I was expecting her to be prettier, and I said she was very pretty. She said: Some guys expect us to look like models. If I looked like a model would I be doing this? Then she seemed sort of embarrassed, like she'd let the cat out of the bag that she didn't really want to have sex with me. No worries, sister. I knew that going in. She asked if she could have my belt. It was strange. It wasn't really a remarkable belt at all, just black leather with a steel buckle. It was probably worth twelve bucks. I told her it was a gift from my brother (true), otherwise it would have been no problem. I walked her out to her car, and she hugged me before she got in. I wondered about that. Maybe she was trying to leave a good impression for potential repeat business, or maybe she was grateful that I'd showered beforehand and didn't try to stick it up her ass. She said to call her any time.

I sat in the dark listening to records afterwards, smoking and thinking about how I had joined this dirty club, and I couldn't take it back. I was forever one of the Johns now. I felt like I had changed something about who I was--and not in a good way--more so than, say, when I lost my virginity. I worried about the money, too. I really couldn't afford it.

Then again, for months afterwards I would find myself thinking that I would do it again, only this time I wouldn't be such a nice guy. I would really take advantage of the situation. I went through a similar escalation with phone sex, like the first time I asked an operator to role-play anal, which at the time was very exciting. But I never made another call, and I've never slept with another prostitute. I regret it now, though I don't think or worry about it anymore. I don't judge sex workers or in general the people who employ them, but it isn't what I want sex to be in my life. I don't think the experience added anything of value to my existence. I have told very few people about it. My brother, and a couple of friends, and the woman who is now my wife, before we started dating, because I knew I wanted to date her, and I figured it was better off being out there. I got appreciably saner, and I stopped calling phone sex, though I do sometimes look at dirty pictures on the internet.

I'm a State Investigator

I'm almost 41, and I went to my first "provider" (I'm known as a "hobbyist") in 1991 and have not stopped since. Craigslist has made it very easy, as my windows are short and monitored. 1991 was the year I cheated and my girlfriend and I haven't had sex since. I always do Incall (I go to them) instead of Outcall because I've heard nothing but horror stories from Outcall experiences... pimps, drivers, etc. I've got tons of stories: some good, some bad. I had a bad childhood with a heavy maternal influence, mostly negative. My views aren't worth bragging about.

Before I make a selection, I google the number, see if the pics match the number, if anyone's used the number before... there is a filtering process between the legit and illegit. I have a college degree and have a decent job; good looking and slightly overweight. I never had a problem getting girls but my area is so self-obsessed that it's easier to go & pay rather than meet, exchange numbers, do the dance, blah, blah, blah. In & out and it's done. A message to ladies: just because the sex spigot is turned off doesn't mean your man stopped having sex.

I keep a coded diary, in case it's discovered. 1 dot is oral, 2 dots is vaginal sex, and 2 connected dots is anal sex. In the event that someone questions the dots, they are associated with good/bad days: no dots are normal days, 1 dot is a good day, 2 dots is a great day, and 2 connected dots is the best day for that week. Before Craigslist, it took time to figure out where SW (streetwalkers) applied their trade. There are telltale signs about law enforcement, and I just smile, say nothing further, and drive away. I always ask girls if they want a ride. Cops will not get into the car, as they cannot control that situation. Normal girls will get in, and we'll make small talk, never discussing solicitation. I'll tell them they look really nice and inform them that they're so cute that I'm hard/erect/engorged (words to that effect). If they touch, grab, and yank, then we talk. The glove box is always locked, no rings, no watches, no extra keys, no necklaces, nothing that can be taken/ripped off should they decide to steal and jump out the passenger door. I downplay my job (it always comes up), and I tell them I do data entry. I drive a modest car. My filtering process is excellent, as my only scary event was when this girl tweaked, got really mad, and threatened to kick out the windshield to my car (in 1997). I told her we were driving straight to the police station, and she calmed down and I let her out.

As I age, I scale back, but stress is a trigger... looking at my diaries, intense stress pulls the trigger on finding providers. If I can get a handle on managing my stress - but then again, I view ejaculating as eating or breathing. Eventually the parts will not work the way I want them to work, so for the time being, I'll use what I have.

In my day job, I'm a state investigator, so it's ironic that I enforce laws. I'm against morality laws, as anyone who doesn't harm another should do what they want, whether it's finding a provider or smoke ganja. Cops should investigate nothing but real crimes like identity theft, bank robberies, rape, murder, etc. I view daily the corruption of state government ("The Wire" is the best comparison), as good people are castrated and morons/assholes are placed in positions where public service falls behind self-service. I keep thinking back to that line that Anthony Hopkins used in "Legends of the Fall." Oh yeah, organized religion is for those who have no internal morality compass & need outside assistance.

My mom was nuts, and aside from the mental illness, loved her wine and valium... Sundays was a real carnival, and me being the eldest bore the brunt of her wrath.

I'm Not a John

I’m not a john. Never wanted to be one.

Not for any great moralistic reasons, not because it is bad or sinful or exploitative or anything like that, although I later developed some opinions on that. But because I never felt any attraction at all towards the idea.

For me, sex is basically a friendly act. You don’t have to be in love or anything, but for sex to be interesting for me, it has to be accepting and participatory; basically, if a woman isn’t actually interested in having sex with me, I’m not interested in having sex with her. So if I am paying someone to pretend to like me or be turned on, well, it feels about as sexy as cold mashed potatoes.

And all this would be fine, but because of my social work type job, over the years I have found myself on various prostitution groups; some working to help sex-workers, some to abate street-level prostitution, some to help underage sex-workers, and so on. And when you are doing that kind of work, well there is always the nagging suspicion that you are actually a john, rather like the pedophile/cub-scout leader. There seems to almost be an assumption that all men are potential johns, only being held back by money, or a spouse, or social conditioning, or religious/ethical beliefs. It is rather like the fundies that are so scared of gay sex: they almost seem to think that every man has a fag lurking within, struggling to get out and enjoy addictive gay sex.

Well it just ain’t so. And I really don’t like people thinking this way about me. But when you are actually working with sex-workers and ex-sex-workers, they seem to almost have an article of faith that all men have either hired a hooker, or want to. And that because of their work, they think that they are some kind of sex expert, and have a good understanding of male psychology. (Porn stars seem to get into the same way of thinking--one thing about sex work I think, is that it can warp your thinking.) Which isn’t true, they just have a good understanding of the psychology of johns, who are, I believe, a minority. (I also don’t believe the figures given for the porn industry--I suspect that the numbers are a lot smaller, and that there are a small percentage of porn consumers that consume the majority of the porn sold. But that’s just my guess.)

It is true, as Mark Twain said, that 90% of men masturbate, and the other 10% lie about it, and it is also true that there isn’t a man alive that hasn’t enjoyed looking at some kind of porn or other a few times if he has had the opportunity, but it is not true that every man is a potential john. Indeed, not every man is even a stripper spectator. I went to a few shows, and it was interesting at first in an almost anthropological sort of way, but once you’ve seen a couple of shows, you’ve seen them all, it gets dull as ditchwater listening to bad music, drinking over-priced drinks, and being surrounded by losers. I just don’t get the guys that are into that either.

I know from experience that street-level prostitution is a very nasty business. It is very dangerous work, where assault and rape is a matter of When, not If. It pays terribly, and workers are ruthlessly and violently exploited by pimps and gangs and dealers. And most of them are doing it out of desperation, usually driven by addiction.

There is a very old cultural myth, the hopeful belief in the carefree happy hooker, the prostitute with the heart of gold, the satisfied professional. And I am sure there are some, working as escorts and such, I have no direct knowledge, but in my experience, there are damn few working on the street. Most of the women working on the street that I have encountered are desperately unhappy; not unhappy because they are hooking, but more that they are hooking because they are unhappy, or perhaps that the same things that are making them unhappy are also driving them to sell their bodies.

My experiences have turned me from being bored by the whole notion of hiring a hooker, to being repulsed by the idea. When you have seen, when you know, why a hooker is doing what she is doing, what her life is like, only a monster or sociopath could want to engage in it. I’ve seen too many needle tracks, too many apprehended children, too many disappearances, too many bruises and cuts and fits of terror and panic.

In the cities I have worked in, and when I talk to my colleagues in other cities, the levels of street prostitution seem to be falling. There are probably a lot of factors behind this, but one of them seems to be smarter policing: most of the time the cops aren’t targeting street-walkers, they are targeting the johns. And johns tend to be a fairly frightened bunch, and easy to scare off with publicized busts and car confiscations and mandatory attendance at john-schools. But we really don’t understand the psychology at work; I really don’t think it is as simple as being horny and finding an outlet.

A group I was working with started recording the license plates of guys cruising the stroll, and we compiled a fairly large database before the government cracked down and stopped releasing information on the plates to us. But while we were running it, we discovered a few interesting things. First of all, the johns were coming from every part of the city, except the neighborhood of the stroll itself. Proportionally, they were coming from every neighborhood of the city: there was no distinction between high-income, middle-class, and poor neighborhoods. Which surprised us, we had figured the rich guys would patronize escorts, and poor guys wouldn’t have the cash. But it turns out that a desire to slum with a street-hooker crosses class and income lines. Which is I suppose bad news.

(And what probably helped in shutting us down was that a few of plates turned out to belong to fairly prominent/well-connected people in the community, hmm.)

The second thing that the data showed was that there weren’t all that many johns. What there was were high-repeat johns; the majority of the traffic were the same guys coming back again and again. Which I would take as good news; maybe I am right and most men are not in fact actual, and hopefully not potential, johns.

What we were starting to discover, when they shut us down, was that over half of the johns appeared to be married (and a significant number of the cars had baby or child seats in the back, ick). Hiring a hooker, it seemed, was not so much about seeking a source of sexual outlet, but a hobby or vocation or pastime of its own. Some men seem to like being johns, like hiring street workers for its own sake. Which seems rather strange to me. But perhaps some of the radfems are right about at least some men: they seem to like exploitative, power-imbalanced sex.

But please, they ain’t most of us.

I Was a Naif at Sex

I was 19-23 and in Europe/Asia on Uncle Sam's dime. I was also a naif at sex (one prior experience). I landed in Europe first, specifically Frankfurt, Germany, for a month before heading to my permanent duty station. Outside of the main train station in Frankfurt was the city's sex district, probably 2 or 3 city blocks square. I utilized it weekly, picking out a huge brothel that was only known as Crazy Sexy. You walked in via a parking garage into a huge, nearly barren room: to the right of the entrance was a bar, to the left was a series of arcade machine. Throughout the room were the main supporting concrete pillars for the building. The floor itself was concrete. The air was always thick with hash smoke, the walls lined mostly with young G.I.s. On the main floor were all the girls - Crazy Sexy advertised 300 women. I got it in my head that I would come once a week until I had been with all 300. Impossible and stupid, but that's what I tried.

The typical experience for me was enter, have a drink, catch a contact buzz and decide who appeared fetching to me that night. Once the woman agreed (had to be her choice; prostitution in Germany was legal and if the lady in question said no at any point you would meet the polizie) we went upstairs (3 stories) to her room. We undressed and the woman would wash me and inspect for and STIs - then the prophylactic went on - always.

I would guess it was never no longer than 15-20 minutes before you would start to hear the click click click of the German shepherds the bouncers walked up and down the hallways, your cue to finish up.

I went at least weekly, sometimes twice or three times a week, when I was not in the field. This held true for the 2 years I was in Europe.

Asia was the same only more relaxed. I think that's right. In Asia it was normal to go into a barber shop, on base, and receive an $8 haircut, with $2 more for a manicure, and an additional $5 for oral sex - all at the same time. There were at least 5 chairs filled at any time. Sex on the economy was similar to the Europe experience, except the 'foreplay' was different - there were more subtle patterns to the initial greetings and information exchange before the actual sex...

Individual experiences were always different, some slightly, some markedly, but the common denominator throughout was the absolute zero tolerance of violence toward any of the women - it was worth your life in some places. Conversely, I heard about places - especially while in Asia - that not only countenanced violence, but offered it a la carte.