I’m friends with sex workers who give comfort just like this. Some of them don’t even have sex on their menus, just physical touch, companionship, and listening. They say it’s exhausting, perhaps even moreso than sex, but the pay is good. There’s boundary issues to watch out for.
I used to know a gal who did SW at night, though at the time I wasn’t aware of her occupation. She’d regularly hang out with my buddy and I. One day he was complaining about his back and she offered him a massage, then offered me one as well as I’d been known to have a bad shoulder While it wasn’t the absolute best massage I’d had, it was up there above most places covered by my medical.
I could 100% see people paying for company and a non-sexual contact from somebody like that. She was good with people and had a sense for now to relax people physically and emotionally.
That sounds like therapy with touching and without the responsibility. Probably not a bad job.
Yeah but without the years of training on how to manage and help people’s emotional problems.
and the years of training on compartmentalizing work and personal life.
True. Not a job for me anyway, people are just… ugh.
*to work with
With therapy you are a professional who is understood and respected as a professional. With sex work you are understood as a societal problem and being outed as having done sex work can harm other future career prospects.
Yes, everyone here understood that already
Yea this is known thing. Sex can be part of it but it’s not really all that important for this kind of thing. Those men (and sometimes women) are so desperate for intimacy they will literally pay for it.
It’s the macho way of going to therapy.
Are they still called sex workers, then? I mean, your comment is kind of telling, as it is a bit confusing.
Yes. “Sex workers” is the terminology in English. Some people who offer no sex and get registered by the state are professional cuddlers though.
A huge amount of sex workers’ actual jobs is giving just that level of intimacy and comfort.
Which sounds nice but it’s really a false intimacy unless you actually go on to develop a long term relationship with that sex worker.
I think one of the biggest contributors to our growing societal sense of alienation is all the surrogates we use for genuine adaptive functions. Everything from fast food to hardcore drugs has been optimized to mimic what are supposed to be honest signals in our brains that guide us toward making good choices in the long run. Intimacy (and feel-good hormones) are supposed to help us survive in the long term by building relationships and strengthening bonds that protect us against all the random risks of life. Building a sense of intimacy with a stranger that you never see again is ultimately going to lead to greater pain and a sense of loss down the road.
Nah false intimacy is coming home to your girlfriend sleeping with your neighbor/best friend then she asks you for tree-fiddy so you look and you realize your girlfriend is about 500 feet tall and from the paleolithic era.
I AIN’T GIVING YOU NO TREE FIDDY YOU GODDAMN LOCH NESS MONSTER
hawt
Why can’t Conservatism be this instead of lynching brown people and absolving child rapists QQ
Because societies with that level of intimacy have been eradicted years ago. The US in particular has been built by people who had uprooted themselves from the last remains of any such society.
Why bother connecting with a stranger, it’ll only end in sadness and pain
babe, go outside, call your parents or whatever. Life is built on these tiny meaningless interactions.
ps, you will not developda relationship with a sexworker, don’t approach things this way, would you build a fantasy life with a waiter or bar tender?
If you are paying, she ain’t staying, and that ain’t intimacy— it’s delusion.
i pay for a burrito, then it was gone. it was an delusion.
miss my burrito.
Well… hunger isn’t intimacy either?
Just because something is ephemeral or even transactional does not mean it is not enjoyable.
I mourn for your burrito.
Funeral will be held tomorrow, final flush scheduled for 2pm,
Soo I’ve been friends with some sex workers, and professionally known some (I worked in sexual health).
They all tell the same story: about 50% of their clients don’t even want sex, or it doesn’t get there, because they just wanted someone to talk to for a few hours, someone to listen to them, treat them like a friend even if it’s transactional. They said a lot of guys end up crying, talking about their broken relationships and problems.
And then the other 50% want to get freaky as hell, so it’s a dichotomy.
a friend of mine actually tried to pull that trick with commercial hugs. she brought him her gym buddies - some extra big guys and developed a price list with several options. she made around 1k on pure shits and giggles vibes out of that. it was right before the pandemic. those were the days…
What? “Extra big guys” can make serious money in the right business…
probably
Patient zero…was unexpected
Not funny in any way and sad in so many.
Commentary about how isolated men are?
Or commentary that men have become so ineffectual that they cannot create a single meaningful relationship that evolves to the hug level?
Some things can be blamed on the economy — not this. This is a matter of making first things first and not blaming others for our own short comings.
Some things can be blamed on the economy — not this. This is a matter of making first things first and not blaming others for our own short comings.
This is connected to economy and politics. Neoliberalism, to be exact. Rugged individualism, individual responsibility, every man for himself… The same myths used for concentrating wealth into teeny tiny minority and making masses poorer, are also making us lonely and isolated.
We are pack animals, we have survived for hundreds of thousands of years (millions if you count non-sapient ancestors) by building communes and taking care of eachother.
We have ALWAYS had to have game.
The weak chimp could not get any quim.
The toughest chimp/gorilla became boss and literally had a harem.
I’m not sure what you are arguing for here.
I just want to inspire people to employ their “if at first you don’t succeed…” muscle. That’s all. Paying for intimacy is giving up.
And also… intimacy cannot be had in any kind of economic transaction.
Satisfaction? Yes.
Intimacy? No.
You realize that humans and gorillas have very different social dynamics? Can we drop the stupid pseudoscience?
It’s more that before, women couldn’t get fucking bank accounts or hold most jobs, which meant that marriage for them was a matter of survival. Now, women are able to support themselves and get to choose whether they want to be in relationships are not.
My audience is not women. It’s men.
I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny.
It’s a common form of humor to acknowledge difficult things in a light hearted way. You can laugh whilst simultaneously feeling sympathy. Laughter doesn’t always have to be at somebody’s expense, it can also come from a place of solidarity.
Yeah, all of this is true.
Damn, sad, especially around the holidays.
Intimacy and commercial transaction are mutually exclusive.
A hugker
Is this a commentary on the current psychological state of men or the economy?
both? both.
