Why I Paid For A Good Time
A little adventure that got me thinking about society, gender, and professionals who know what works.
Who would pay for sex? Only men, right? Because men are so horny that if they can’t attract someone they want to have sex with, they’ll pay for it. Women don’t do anything like that. Except one time, I did. Want to hear about it?
Sitting on the tram, the city looked different than usual. Of course, it wasn’t. Same tall apartment blocks filled with people watching their phones on their toilets. Same roads and construction sites. Same cars trying to squeeze around the trams, as if they could swerve to let them through. But something inside me was different. I was filled with anticipation and excitement because of where I was going. To a massage. And not just any massage. A sexy massage.
I descended the tram steps in the middle of the city and walked down a laneway. I paused to take a picture of a some murals I’d never noticed before, feeling as if my senses were heightened and things were more shiny and bright.
I didn’t know what to expect. The massage was a Christmas gift from my partner. Something we’d spoken about but I didn’t expect him to actually buy. But I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I booked it in and here I was, ready to pay for sex.
There are lots of dodgy massage places in the streets around our house as well as a brothel or two. A man wouldn’t wait four weeks to go to the appointment. They probably pay less too. Maybe because their needs are slightly different. They’re hornier but less fussy. Men get on the internet and put their credit card numbers into camming sites to watch girls masturbate for them in real time. Men watch endless porn and don’t care who they put their dick inside, as long as it’s wet. Right?
The masseuse had sent me photographic directions of the location. I made my way to the address and waited in the lobby, nervously watching the lifts empty once, then again, eyeing every woman who walked by to see if she’d make eye contact. I hope it’s not her. But she’d be OK. Then kicking myself. It doesn’t matter, don’t judge. When she did emerge, I felt slightly guilty at my palpable relief. She had large hair in bleached, crispy curls. Her skin was dark copper and she spoke with a latino accent. She wore a blue and white striped shirt with three quarter sleeves and a knee-length pencil skirt. She could have been a nurse or worked in an office. She chatted about the problems of sharing so few elevators with so many people and apologised for taking so long to come collect me. She was extroverted. Larger than life. Welcoming. Sure of herself. I felt shy but confident. This was happening.
The rented apartment had the curtains drawn. No chance to enjoy the view from the 16th floor. Scented candles burned in the corners. She asked me to take a seat and offered me a drink. I accepted a glass of water but only took the tiniest sip, unwilling to fill my bladder. She wanted to know what brought me here, about my situation, and of course, what I’m into. Only after 20-30 minutes of this did she invite me into the bedroom. But there was no bed. Just a table and some dressers and drawers stacked with towels and tubes of cream.
After that long introduction, I understood why female appointments are 90 minutes while men only get 60. On the other hand, I know some guys who would like to talk and get to know a person before letting them touch their privates. According to a viral Substack post called Men Aren’t Assholes, They Just Need Sex1, “straight men’s sexuality is a huge source of contention, both for couples and for the public. Women seem to be overwhelmed by it and disgusted by it…” The author goes on to implore women to have sex with their men, because they need it and their biology ain’t going to change any time soon.
Of course, according to Vixen, a camgirl who wrote an article called The Married Punters Who Hate Their Wives, the reason married men hate their wives is that either 1) she’s lost interest in sex, 2) she’s not interested in the deviant shit he wants to do, or 3) he’s gay. She also says “After 5-10 years of marriage, every man I am talking to says that his wife doesn’t want to have sex more than once or twice per month, while he is masturbating and watching porn every day. That was very surprising to me, because growing up I was indoctrinated by women’s magazines and popular culture that women desire more sex after 40, that sex gets better as the woman ages, blah blah. But it seems that was yet another lie.”
But Gillian Anderson collected the fantasies of thousands of women and compiled them in a book called Want, and they were hugely varied and represented a wide array of demographics. It’s well known that women consume more erotic fiction than men, and according to Aella’s big kink survey, which has over 700,000 respondents, women are more into power dynamics than men are. In an article called On Getting Older, the author, who is in her 60s, describes herself as a “sensual, sexual being.” Go Google “Sex massages for women” and you’ll find options in your area, but you’ll have to wait to get an appointment. The two-line review of the massage I put on Google has more views than everything I’ve ever published on Substack put together.
All this would indicate that women are very much into sex, can be just as deviant as men, and this doesn’t fade as they get older.
And I certainly like it more than I have at many other times in my life. Kind of differently now, too. In my twenties, it wasn’t so much the pleasure I sought, as much as the pursuit and catching of men. Of picking up in bars, attracting them, knowing they wanted me. That makes sense because my biology was driving me towards procreation with a powerful force. These days, I still like to feel hot, but I want the visceral enjoyment of being taken and getting lost in the moment. Or, as Aella puts it, in one of her best quotes, “I'm no longer Aella's brain, doing thinky things, I am Aella's body, doing orgasmy things. I've lost the plot, I don't remember what the plot was, I'm just sexcreature emitting a constant stream of noises.”
Maybe that’s harder to get with the same partner after a while. For men and women both. We seem to crave variety, no matter how much we love our partners. Maybe that’s what my partner was thinking when he gifted me the massage.
That’s not what I told the masseuse though, I hadn’t really thought about it that deeply. I just told her my kinks, which seem to align with those of many women like me, if you believe the survey data. When she brought me over to the table and started massaging my back, I was able to relax. The buttoned shirt came off and she wore a tight burgundy top with thin straps. She talked as she pressed my muscles. Told me stories of her other clients, about her relationship and her job, which she seemed to very much enjoy. She said she most loved treating the larger, wobblier men and women who didn’t feel themselves to be attractive. She enjoyed making them feel special.
Then, she started bringing up things that I’d spoken about earlier. Using my partner’s name. Imagining what he might do to me. Talking about the things she would do if she had some of her other toys and tools. I realised that she was using my confessions to turn me on. Part of her skillset was drilling into the mental component and using that to get me off. I wondered if that was also part of the female package that wouldn’t be needed by men.
Having read both Aella and Vixen, I have trouble deciding if people’s kinks are a result of evolution or of trauma. A friend of mine dated a guy who liked to pretend he was a baby and wore a nappy to bed and wanted to suck her boobs and call her mummy. She wasn’t prepared to work through that so they broke up.
I used to think that my weirder desires might have been a result of some trauma and that something was “wrong” with me, but now I’m not so sure. I’m also not sure that that’s the case for everyone. Some of the things that Vixen describes are truly disturbing, but maybe the author of Men Aren’t Assholes is right that society is failing us when it comes to sexuality. After all, people think and talk about sex a lot, in many different shapes and forms. It’s an integral part of who we are.
Who hasn’t heard the stories of housewives who used to visit the doctor for “hysteria”, which was treated by giving her an orgasm. Before the agricultural revolution, apparently we used to live in polygamous groups, which had many evolutionary benefits: A lack of paternal certainty meant men were less likely to kill the offspring of their rivals, and shared parenting meant that children benefited from communal care.
Society today (at least the one I live in) is set up for nuclear families, and maybe over time, we’ll forcibly make this the natural state of our species. That’s how evolution works, right? Things shift as we change our environment and adapt to that. The longer we push to work in groups of two that raise our children with love and care, the easier it will become for new generations to fit that mold. I’ve seen plenty of examples of couples that stay together for twenty, thirty, fifty years or more, still interested in each other and happy for the company. Maybe that’s the way to happiness. Stop railing against the way things are, wishing they were different or could go back to some imaginary ideal.
And when my partner lets me go and have the occasional sexual adventure just because I seem a bit restless, well, I’m probably doing OK.
If you’re wondering, yes, the masseuse got me off. I’ll put the details behind paywall, so as not to offend the more sensitive readers. Unfortunately, that means that comments will be closed to everyone else, which is a huge problem with Substack that I wish they’d fix. To get around it, you can comment on the shared post on Notes, share the post with a comment, or hit reply and write to me directly. I’d love to know your thoughts on this prickly subject.
See you next week!