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I don't know, in the 4-5k example the circumstance that it would presumably be a financial strain for you does a lot of work here. It's one thing if you can eat rice and beans for two months to afford a quickie, and another when this is "easy solution if/when the urge arises" pocket change. (Compare owning a Ferrari to spending a similar amount for a 1h test drive for your birthday.) Similarly, we don't have particular reason to assume that any of Genghis Khan's baby mommas entered the arrangement particularly enthusiastically (as opposed to being bought, either directly or in units of the liquid asset that were the lives of his hordes), but when people speak of the fraction of modern-day people who descend from him, it still rings with some sort of grudging admiration.
On the flip side, the male advantage in acquiring resources has also eroded (especially anywhere near the median, rather than around various outliers; the overwhelming maleness of Bill Gates's economic bracket is irrelevant to the life of most women), and yet the ancestral patterns persist.
I guess I'm just saying, I could pay money to a hooker and then say "I banged an absolute 10/10 last night!" and be completely honest, pull out a photo showing her on my arm, and this might gain me some status points with the boys until it comes out that she is in fact a high-class hooker. Then all that bravado dissipates.
Buttttt, if I pull that same hooker with my own wiles and charm I can say "hey guys lol I banged a 10/10 escort last night without paying" then that might get me even more status because I just demonstrated value above and beyond being wealthy that can overcome even a working girl's cynicism.
Or so I'd expect. Thus its not the sex-having itself that is the flex, its the "girls find me attractive/interesting enough to give it up for free" part. Absolute social proof.
(for me, I'm genuinely at the point where sex doesn't mean much at all unless its with someone I have a true intimacy with, and so guys flexing their conquests leaves me mildly envious but not particularly threatened).
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