Boyfriend disclosed he visited a prostitute in India one year before we got together

Running_Horse

xXMessedUpXx wrote: »

Is your issue with the fact he paid for sex? Or that he paid so little for sex?

Personally if any partner of mine had paid for sex that would be a deal breaker for me. Its a level i wouldnt lower myself to if i was a guy.

Really? How do you know that?

Those women walking the streets, working in brothels, being paid escorts, posing for magazines, acting in porno films, selling used panties, stripping, talking dirty on premium phone lines, performing on webcams etc, can only do so because an enormous number of men are willing to give them a lot of money in exchange for a service.

I would guess the percentage of men willing to pay for titillation is very high, and probably includes many guys you consider to be normal and decent. It may be wrong that we can separate sex from love, but many men can.

patanne

Most of us one way or another "pay" for sex. I really don't think this is the issue. It appears to me that he is blaming her for having to use a prostitute and is he going to do that again. There are men who basically force their wives to have sex within hours of giving birth, is this the sort of thing he is going to want or he will use a prostitute. She just needs to decide on his mindset, to know what the long term outcome is likely to be. Then she can decide if that is something she is prepared to live with.

seven-day-weekend

DevilsAdvocate1 wrote: »

From another point of view, what if this prostitute did not attract any punters. What would happen to her then? Would she be liberated, or would she have no money? If she was being pimped and did not bring in any money, what would happen to her then? I don't think that would be a good situation for her either.

I was thinking that. It is that woman's livelihood. If no-one paid her, she would be destitute.

However,I would not be happy with a man who thought it was OK to go with a prostitute, regardless of how much he paid her, but it wouldn't matter at all to some people.

The OP needs to sort out in her mind what matters to her and then she can make a decision as to what to do about it.

Gloomendoom

Running_Horse wrote: »

It may be wrong that we can separate sex from love, but many men can.

Presumably, so can the millions of women working in the sex industry.
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marleyboy

itsanne wrote: »

Abstain?.....

ETA especially as he was trying to persuade the OP into a long term relationship.

How so? Particularly that he NEVER even knew the OP at the time?

Pollycat

marleyboy wrote: »

How so? Particularly that he NEVER even knew the OP at the time?

He did know her.
From the OP's first post:

Confused5 wrote: »

I find it disturbing that my boyfriend (while he was pursuing me for a LDR while he lived in India) visited a prostitute paying her less than £1 for her services. I questioned how he knew she was not trafficked into sex work and he said she was 28 and he 'knew it was of her free choice'. I don't understand how he knew.

Tigersilly

Something to think about:

Forced Prostitution
While sex trafficking often grabs the headlines and attention, there are many other ways in which women and girls are forced into lives of prostitution. No matter how a girl enters prostitution — whether she is responding to the pressures of her circumstances or is actually coerced — the experience leaves a lasting imprint on her future.

Economic necessity, a lack of employment options, drug addiction or coercion by family, pimps or traffickers are all factors that can force women into sexual slavery. Paradoxically, it’s the countries with the most straitlaced and sexually conservative societies, such as India, Pakistan and Iran, that have disproportionately large numbers of forced prostitutes. Since having sex with girlfriends may not be an option for most men in these cultures, prostitutes have become an acceptable solution.

Take India, for example. There are 2 million to 3 million prostitutes in India, a significant number of whom entered the sex industry unwillingly. One study found that of Indian and Nepali prostitutes who began as teenagers, about half said they had been coerced into the brothels. Meanwhile women who started in their 20s were more likely to have made the choices themselves, often to feed their children.

In some countries with strong class hierarchies, certain lower-class women are practically born into prostitution. In India and Nepal, for example, where the caste system is strong, girls from certain castes are pushed into prostitution from a young age, many times by their mothers. Some studies report that close to 90 percent of sex workers’ daughters in India join the profession.

Once a girl or women enters prostitution it can be hard to leave. It’s not uncommon for pimps to use a variety of methods to force women to continue serving as prostitutes. Often, they lure girls with alcohol or drugs, build up their dependency and use this addiction as a means of control. They may also threaten girls with the shame they might bring on their families if they leave or the punishments they might suffer if they go to the police.

But a study of nine countries showed that 89 percent of people in prostitution do want to escape. As a result, many girls or women who are enslaved in prostitution eventually come to accept their circumstances as fate, and resign themselves to selling sex because they perceive themselves to have no other options. A study of prostitutes in nine countries showed that 70 to 95 percent had been physically assaulted; 68 percent suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

Educating and empowering women and girls is key to helping them escape and stay out of prostitution. Various groups globally are using this strategy. One example is New Light, an organization in one of the oldest red light areas of Kolkata, India, which attracts sex workers from the city, Bangladesh and Nepal. The group provides shelter, education, health care and legal aid for high-risk children, girls and women in the community.

New Light is just one group doing this type of work. By supporting such organizations, be it through donating our time or money, we can work to help combat the vicious and complex cycle of forced prostitution.

http://www.halftheskymovement.org/issues/forced-prostitution

geri1965_2

I was talking to a Kurdish man in Iraq on Facebook today. He told me that sex before marriage is not allowed, so if a man wants sex he has to get married or go to Thailand, Cyprus or eastern Europe.

I just despair of the way the world is sometimes.

j.e.j.

geri1965 wrote: »

I was talking to a Kurdish man in Iraq on Facebook today. He told me that sex before marriage is not allowed, so if a man wants sex he has to get married or go to Thailand, Cyprus or eastern Europe.

I just despair of the way the world is sometimes.

So what happens if a woman wants sex before marriage??

itsanne

marleyboy wrote: »

How so? Particularly that he NEVER even knew the OP at the time?

Thanks to Pollycat who beat me to it, but you're not the only one in the thread to have missed "my boyfriend (while he was pursuing me for a LDR while he lived in India) visited a prostitute" in the opening post. (Perhaps it's because of the acronym.) To my mind it makes a difference.