TV Series: This Is Life With Lisa Ling

A Netflix series of investigative reports on various topics. The first four episodes in season one have been on: women who have moved to North Dakota to work in the oil fields, prescription drug abuse in the Mormon church, strippers who travel a circuit following various all-male get-togethers (like an ATV show, gun shows, Republican conventions, etc.), and tonight's show, "Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies." Very disturbing.

Apparently there are websites where rich older men can rent attractive young women as arm candy for the night, to go to parties or sporting events where they want to be seen with a 20-something supermodel. These arrangements can include sex but not necessarily. Often it's just companionship -- and often the men are married to someone their own age.

For the women, it's a way to use their looks to make six figure incomes doing nothing but pretending to be some rich guy's girlfriend. They see nothing wrong with it. They also see nothing wrong with the occasional blowjob or quickie fuck.

For the guys, it's about status and feeling sexy and young again. I guess they quite often develop relationships with these high class hookers and end up putting them through college, helping them start businesses, or setting them up with cars and apartments. Some of these relationships last years.

It's weird, and slimy, and traditional, and weird, and unsettling, and wrong, and weird all at the same time.

A pretty girl can make a fortune just selling access time to herself. Weird.

I'm kind of surprised you're surprised. That's what escort agencies are ll about. Sleazy, but nothing new.

I always thought escort services was a euphemism for protitution.  I never thought escort services actually provided escorts.

And I guess why it bothers/surprises me is this: women and men are not equal. Women have a built-in advantage, a moneymaker they can always leverage. An attractive woman can become rich using nothing but her looks. An average-looking woman can live comfortably by leveraging herself. Even an ugly woman would never starve, if she was willing to sell herself.

Men don't have any of those advantages in life.

You often see images of, say, a party on a yacht where there are a couple of rich guys and a dozen gorgeous babes in bikinis. Whether they're paid to be there or not, they are prostitutes.

There's an unequal distribution of earning potential in the prostitute business. Maybe some of that makes up for the unequal earning potential in the office workspace.

This idea is repugnant and disturbing and I'm ashamed to even think this way. But there it is.

Well, I guess I understand. But still...

Police are always suspicious that an escort service is just a prostitution ring. But then, they are the pigs. They always think the worst of everybody. You shouldn't let Law & Order: SVU drive your picture of the world.

Having said that, even if there was no sex involved, ever, the escort business is still kind of sleazy. The punter isn't paying for sex, but he is paying for, kind of, the image of sex? It is legit and ugly all at the same time.

And yet, I can see the appeal. Suppose you are a fat old man who happens to have a lot of money. You get invited to numerous events (openings, whatever), and you certainly want to attend at least some of them.At the same time, you have no particular interest in cultivating some piece of eye candy who is 99.99% a gold digger anyway. So you make a phone call and you get the arm-ornamentation without the commitment. Problem solved.

Is this sort of situation going to arise with the sexes reversed? Maybe, but not so often. Do I feel bad about that? Somehow, I can't really get worked up over it. I guess that's my bad.

richard09 wrote:

Police are always suspicious that an escort service is just a prostitution ring.

Why is having sex the dividing line? Blowjobs, hand jobs, talking dirty, flirting, simultaneous masturbation, sexting, Skypesex, where is the line?

Personally, I think a woman who accepts cash for a "date" -- where she pretends to be a companion, even if it's strictly platonic -- is just as much a prostitute as a woman who turns $20 tricks. In both cases, she's selling herself. Why should penetration and/or ejaculation make a difference?

Some people are determined to control the sex lives of others. The "pro-life" movement isn't about abortion, it's about controlling who has sex. Much of the anti-prostitution rage isn't about women being victimized, it's about people being able to get sex.

NoCoPilot wrote:

women and men are not equal.  Women have a built-in advantage, a moneymaker they can always leverage. ... Men don't have any of those advantages in life.

Always remember one person's freedom is another's enslavement. It's all subjective. What may be a way to make money to a grown British woman is a reason for being sexually abused for poor Arab girls. Men as a group play the game on the easiest level. Looking at women as though this quoted statement is reality can cause a lot of misunderstandings and issues.