As a guy, you really can't help but pay for sex in one way or another. Girls rarely "give it away."
I mean, consider the word "slut." Basically, a "slut" is a girl who gives away sex TOO CHEAPLY. Which is why such women are also called "cheap." If a girl views being a "slut" as a negative, then she wants to make sure THE PRICE OF ADMISSION to her vagina is high enough so that people won't call her a slut. That price of admission can be money or it can be some less tangible hurdle she puts in the guy's way, such as feigned resistance she wants him to overcome or wear down, or a period of non-sexual fun she demands the guy show her before she'll lower herself to sexual fun, or whatever.
The point is, sluts do it free (or very cheaply), prostitutes charge something tangible, ordinary women charge something intangible. That's not an insult -- I recognize it is a product of evolution rather than a personality flaw.
And if you doubt me, how about considering for a moment why "slut" seems an odd, wrong-sounding word to apply to a man. It is because, genderally, we all understand that men inherently are willing to GIVE AWAY sex with no charge. So the question of whether a man gave away sex TOO CHEAPLY is simply inapplicable. Men give it away for free.
So, it is very ridiculous to try getting women and men together to discuss whether paying for sex is okay. Women and men inherently must come at this from completely different planets (mars and venus?) with respect to this issue. Since women are not confronted with an attraction to a gender that most always charges for sex in SOME way, that holds it out as some kind of carrot, some kind of compensation you get if you do the right tricks, if you play your cards right, if you show her a good time first, if you "show" you care in some tangible way... Since women live every day surrounded by an attraction to a gender that is ready to give her a freebie just for asking, no strings attached, women have a huge blind spot in their ability to comprehend where men are coming from when they pay for sex.
Also, to make it even more difficult, women and men look for different things from sex. For a man, it is the quenching of lust allowing him to focus his attention elsewhere. Horniness is a huge distraction that will not go away unless we do something about it. Orgasm quenches it completely, but temporarily. For a woman, orgasm does not necessarily quench horniness. If anything, she may feel MORE eager for physical closeness with a man after orgasm than before. Plus there's realistically a good chance she won't orgasm anyway from sex with a man, so she may just get some nice rubbing leaving her still horny. So the idea of sex with some one who will then disappear has some inherent flaws for what a women would want in a sex partner, while it fits very well for what a horny guy may be looking for.
And women are much more concerned than men with validation of their own attractiveness. A guy wants to look good for the goal of bagging a hot girl. A girl wants to look good because IT IS TIED CLOSELY TO THEIR SENSE OF SELF-ESTEEM -- much more than for a man. You can say it is a product of our culture, always showing images of perfect female beauty. I tend to thing those images are, themselves, a product of the evolution. Regardless, if you ask men and women whether they'd rather be attractive and have an ugly spouse, or vice versa, most women will choose the ugly spouse while most men would choose the attractive spouse. Women want to feel attractive much more than men. This affirmation of our own beauty is a minor part of what men get from sex. It's part of it, but a small part. For women, it is a much larger part. For women, they still have the other parts -- for example, part horniness or desire for the sheer physical pleasure of the act -- but it is clear to me that the affirmation of attractiveness is a much larger part of what women get from sex than men. For some women, it may even be the STRONGEST reason they go have sex (particularly if they have difficulty achieving orgasm).
Another part of the reason both men and women have sex is to progress the development of a relationship. To move towards something more serious ala marriage. Now we all know that this is much more often a big part of the female's reason for sex than the male's.
So we have men who primarily look for sex for a short-term physical thrill and to a much smaller degree look for sex as an affirmation of their beauty and as a method of progressing a longer relationship. And we have women who to some degree also look for sex as a short-term physical thrill, but who are driven much more by the second 2 reasons for sex than men are.
And then we have a prostitute. Obviously the prostitute cannot in any way shape or form assist in the latter 2 reasons. Sex with a prostitute cannot affirm your beauty. They are being paid to have sex. If anything, sex with a prostitute seems to do the opposite -- it would seem to confirm your unattractiveness (it really doesn't, but that is how women think). And obviously sex with a prostitute is not a means to progress to some higher level of emotional intimacy that can help progress a longer relationship.
So then you ask women and men if they would pay for sex and all the women say "No way, why would anyone do that? They must be sick, I pity them." And men say, "No," because they don't want to offend the majority of women who they want to sleep with who will think them unfit for copulation if they have been with a prostitute or if they even find the idea inoffensive.
I mean, we all can see that on some level people could associate paying for sex with being physicall unattractive. The reasoning would be, "If they were attractive and confident, they could find sex for free." Well, even if guys are not as hung up on their own looks as women, they still don't want to be seen as ugly or insecure or inept at the art of seduction, so they will generally deny going to prostitutes, even to other men.
But the truth is, there really are not that many reasonably attractive women out looking for no-strings sex on any particular evening. I've heard women deny this, try to convince me the bars are full of such women. Invariably they resort to an anecdote about themselves or girlfriends who, on this or that occassion or in this or that period of their life, occassionally went out looking for a one night stand. But do the math. If the average woman is only SOMETIMES out looking for no-strings sex, and if most men are ALWAYS out looking for it, then you are going to have a much smaller supply than demand. If a woman says that 10% of the time she is at a club she is looking for no-strings sex, then you can roughly estimate that 10% of the women in a club are looking for no-strings sex. And if 100% of the men are, and if you already have more men than women at the club, you can see you have a ton of men trying for a handful of women. Now weed out the less attractive ones, and what's left? And from those left, you probably STILL have closet prostitutes...girls who THINK they are looking for sex, but really they are holding out for the guy who looks rich or who might be able to offer them a line of coke...you know, those tight, tan, materialistc party girls who think they are sluts when they are really closet prostitutes.
And speaking of not knowing what you are, sometimes a girl may totally think she's into no-strings sex with a guy she meets...they go have sex and she gets emotional. She can't help it, I'm not blaming her. But the point is then she might think, "Maybe I do want to see him again, maybe I do want him to call me." Now you have that drama to deal with, hurting her feelings.
More often, though, because it really is difficult to be the guy who ends up taking home the hot, slutty girl looking for no-strings sex who is not a closet prostitute, guys generally only have 2 other choices for sexual relief -- date and start a relationship so you can satisfy your lust or go see a prostitute. And sometimes it may just seem cheaper and easier (not to mention quicker) to find a prostitute.
I mean, for guys, the main deterrent on soliciting sex is not (or should not be) the stigma, what it says about their attractiveness or their skill at seduction, but rather the (1) girl's attractiveness, (2) cost, (3) health risks, and (4) other risks.
Just because a girl is attractive, does not mean she is hot. Through my last job (law-related) I gained some knowledge of this and there is a lot of bait & switch (particularly here in Vegas). You have escort magazines with models' pictures and guys call thinking that girl is who they will get, but it is some old, saggy crack addict who shows up at the door. I mean, I'd estimate that for a truly beautiful woman, like a model or something, you'd pay over $300... That's about the same price as a weekend cruise from LA to Ensenada. Which brings up cost. For me, and for a lot of guys, the cruise seems more attractive. Or custom wheels. Or some new electronic crap. And of course we know of health risks. I mean, how much more risky can you get than sex with a prostitute? That's a serious deterrent these days -- the one that pops first into my mind. Even with a condom, you've got to feel kind of nervous about hitting that. And then there are the vague, other risks. I mean, you are associating with a known criminal engaging in criminal activity...will she pull out a knife or gun and rob you? Will her pimp show up and beat you up and rob you, or even kill you? Will cops burst in and arrest you? Will she try to blackmail you? You can think up lots of scary scenarios when you go down that path. Even on a lesser note, will you notice after she left your place that you have various small valuable stuff missing?
So, yeah, I don't go to prostitutes because right now I have some one in my life so that pent-up horniness is not an issue. But if I didn't have her, I probably would still not go to prostitutes for the above 4 reasons (mostly the last 2). But my avoidance would certainly NOT be based on the idea that going to a prostitute signifies a guy is an ugly loser who cannot score with women. Sorry, but even attractive, witty and successful guys have trouble scoring with women outside the boundaries of some kind of dating relationship because of simple statistics of supply and demand.
Anyway, to answer the original question, if the 4 problem issues I identified were dealt with, and I was single and horny and not looking for a relationship and not looking for sex as a form of affirmation of my own attractiveness, I would pay for sex.
But mainly I think there is a fundamental flaw in men and women acting like they have a common perception of this issue, like their is some objectively "right" perspective on the issue. Really, the best you can do is try to see both perspectives (or all perspectives, if there are more than 2).
Lastly, I would point out that women generally may resent the idea of a prostitute because men who pay for sex are generally not worried about pleasing the hooker. So they can be totally selfish. And, basically, the man winds up having another sex partner without gaining any knowledge on how to please a woman. There is already tension when men and women get together as far as how different their "number" of prior lovers is. Women usually have less and may be touchy if a guy has had too many more than them. But they may accept the larger number -- even appreciate it -- to the extent it means their man is that much better at pleasing women. More lovers make a better love-maker, right? Well...not if the lover was a prostitute. So, in a way, women may get some advantage from a society where men are forced to make love only to women they do not pay, so that the men will have to come into the experience with concern for pleasing the woman. That way, a man's prior sexual affairs are all a form of training for him. The bottom line is that the availability of prostitutes to men is counterproductive to generally improving a man's skill at love-making as a function of the number of sex partners he's had. This is a rather complicated idea, but I think it may have some validity at the subconscious level. At the very least, it shows how women have a vested interest in stopping men from going to prostitutes, how it is selfishly tied to their own interests (note I'm not saying women are more selfish than men).
~psychoblast~