Misadventures in The Sex Trade

Lisa, caring mature woman for all your needs – call outs only. Lifted from a local Sydney weekly suburban newspaper. Steven (36) picked Lisa’s advertisement out.

Over the phone he asked ‘Do you take credit cards?’ (Yes.). They asked for his name and Steven thought of using a non-de plume. He didn’t, not because he was brazen but because his name is forged into his credit card. The service then called back to check if Steven’s phone number was legit. The super-friendly attendant told him that Lisa would be there within forty minutes. Steven became somewhat unsure of his decision (I said it was okay if he wanted to call it off), he said he was fine. Steven was feeling guilty because he knew what his friends and family thought about men who went to prostitutes. Though, he hadn’t ‘been’ with a woman for three years and no one he knew could understand how hopeless it left him. The general consensus from Steven’s peers on men using prostitutes was summed up by a colleagues who remarked, ‘Men who pay for prostitutes make me sick. They’re abusive pigs taking advantage of women.’ Her feelings resonated in his mind and reinforced his guilt. Steven was afraid people would find out? (How?) What would they think? (Who cares?) He said they would think he was a sleazebag. Steven’s upbringing of neglect and distress stymied his maturity and hindered the potential of his emotional intelligence.

Steven saw ugliness when looking in the mirror. His body was pale, freckled with an overhanging belly. He was aware that his low self-esteem was one of the reasons he hadn’t managed to find a committed loving relationship. During therapy he learnt about the dangers of self-loathing and if ignored it can forever corrupt a person’s Weltanschauung. Paradoxically, Steven hinted that he deserved his lonely life for something he had done in the past. It was payback but he refused to discuss the matter further (?). Steven drank and smoked a great deal and his diet consisted mainly of fried food. His lifestyle was causing emotional distress and increasingly his physical health was showing signs of wear and tear. He quipped that he would probably die far earlier than his genetic profile promised. It was a family tradition, his alcoholic father committed suicide at thirty-three. What was Steven now, thirty-six?