Thoughts by Richard Bleil
Yesterday, as of the writing of this, I was approached by a prostitute. Kind of.
On my social media site, a very popular one that we all know and, well, love isn’t quite the right word, but many of us have accounts there. This company is trying to basically take over the entire online experience, offering as much as it can in many different arenas, including shopping and, yes, even dating.
The dating side of it is fairly new, I guess, and not terribly effective, but it’s there, and yes, I’m desperate enough to have created a profile. Believe it or not, I even landed a couple of dates on it. Recently though, I’ve noticed a lot of the women responding positively ask me to go to another chat engine, other than the social media site which, in the dating part, does allow for chatting.
I’m always distrustful when somebody insists on going elsewhere to chat. The first time this happened, she invited me to “friend” her on an app I don’t use or have. Yesterday, though, I do have the app she wanted to use, but it is not one I use often. Despite being distrustful, I decided, what the heck, let’s give it a try. The app she suggested has text capabilities but is really more about video. None the less, she sent me a picture and a message suggesting that for a hundred and fifty dollars, she would give me a massage and sex.
I’ve posted before that I believe prostitution should be legal, at least for the seller, but I’ve never paid for sex. Don’t worry, I still haven’t, but I do find it difficult to be critical of women like this who are simply using the assets they have to make money while they have them. However, it is illegal, and frankly, if a prostitute can find people using this app, then frankly so can the police. I’m not about jail or fines. My reply to her was that I was hoping for something deeper. Yes, you can chuckle at that if you like. It actually is what I said, but not in the way that you just took it.
Sex for sex’ sake is a hollow and unfulfilling experience, at least in my opinion. I can buy a realistic doll and use it for sex, but nothing else. At the price she was charging, it wouldn’t take long to break even if I weren’t arrested and fined. But neither the doll nor the prostitute will spend time watching movies with me, going out hiking or to restaurants. They won’t share my joys and my heartbreaks. Admittedly, the dolls won’t give me a massage, which I have paid for in the past, but other than that I find it difficult to see the difference.
Women who make money selling their body are still people. They’ve been hit by the pandemic and economy just like anybody else, and if they can extract money from men who are willing to pay, well, then those men deserve to lose their money. But this is a new twist to preying on the loneliness of single people like me. In dating apps specific to finding dates, I used to get “hits” periodically. The profiles were almost always insanely attractive women who are entirely too young, and they fall in love with me usually within the first five sentences. These women were probably not women at all, but rather con artists (and I’m guessing mostly men) who quickly diverge from being in love with me to explaining how they can fly out to marry me if I only send them money to get treatment for their mother. Okay, sure, I’ll believe that, just as soon as my money comes in from the Nigerian Prince who now has my banking information.
To actually solicit sex is at least an improvement. These women are real (I assume since she never video chatted with me), and they are selling a real service. They’re not claiming to fall in love with me, just selling what they assume I want. And, what the heck, I paid for a service to mow my lawn, so it’s just a service, right?
Unfortunately, though, they are also preying on the fact that I’m on a dating site and probably lonely. The ethics of that aspect is still a gray zone, although at least they’re being up front and honest about what they are offering (unless it’s a cop pretending to be a woman). But, no, thank you. I’d rather have a relationship than a boink.
Bleil's Banter 