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I guess I'm a medium decoupler, because I don't care about making a fool of myself (as my post history demonstrates) but I find your perspective upsetting. The most important thing about sex isn't the climax, although that's certainly the best thing ("You guys know what my favorite part of having sex is? That end part. That crazy feeling."), it's the connection you form with another person. Masturbation engenders apathy and narcissism, and while I (already a schizoid narcissist) strongly sympathise with the Norm Macdonald philosophy of finding the need for connection kind of pathetic, I see it like exercise or bathing, because I am just straight up a better person in everyone else's eyes when I work to achieve and maintain those connections. Besides, I feel like 'using a free prostitute' strips agency from your partner, who, like you, is getting something out of it. (And if they wait an hour or so they can get it again.)
Do you really want to form a long and deep connection with someone if you aren't sure you want to be with them long term? I don't want to form a long and deep connection with the barista who serves me my coffee every day, I would see it as a significant negative and probably even shift the shop where I get my morning brew if it looked like this was happening.
Why am I like this? Simply because by virtue of being a human there are only so many different people I can have a long and deep connection with at the same time, and having one with the barista uses up a portion of my social bonding brain capacity that I believe could be put to better use elsewhere, no different to how if I was forced to always keep the number 1731 in my short term memory it would be a net negative for me because I only have so many "short term memory" slots in my brain.
Plus having lots of deep connections with other people means you are more likely to be emotionally hurt yourself over time when something bad happens to one of these people, simply by virtue of "more connections" -> "more likely one of them has something bad happen to them which then ends up hurting you".
Hence if you're sure you're the kind of person who can avoid this sort of connection then go free and have wild "no strings attached" sex (and if you're feeling charitable to humanity, maybe make sure your partner is probably also this kind of person), you'll have fun and it'll be great, but if you're not this kind of person then it's probably for the best that you avoid the sex in the first place if you aren't yet sure that this person here is someone you are willing to dedicate one of your "deep bonds with" slots and accept all the consequences (good and bad) which come with that, including the consequences of the eventual breaking up of the relationship if you're intending to serially sleep with multiple different people.
Really? Prostitutes also get something out of having sex, namely money, however they are still looked down upon (unfairly in my opinion, a self aware prostitute is more respect worthy than the vast majority of normal western women). I also wouldn't say prostitutes have less agency than the average person, I'd say they probably have more than the average woman sinply because their job means they've chosen to go against a big societal taboo.
Having sex with someone definitely forms a deep connection with them, but it doesn't have to be permanent. I see sex, or one element of it, as the ultimate expression of rebellion against the fact that we will die alone. Inevitably futile, but that doesn't stop me in any other arena of life.
I'm with you on managing Dunbar's number, but these connections aren't supposed to be deep in a way that impacts that variable, they are deep but fleeting. Which still means you are more likely to suffer emotionally, yes, but that's the trap of modern society, of atomisation and antidepressants - you are limiting the suffering you may experience, but you are also limiting the joy you may experience. You can not avoid being hurt in this life, and trying to avoid it just lessens your capacity to deal with the really rough stuff.
It's definitely important to make sure your partner doesn't have different expectations though, that's for sure. But that's more a problem for people who go out and pick up at last call, or by getting blackout drunk and taking someone home. Forming a deep connection, even a fleeting one, requires getting to know the other person - including what they are getting out of it, and most people can change their perspective, sans some underlying issues.
In that arena the most common red flags are from the women who see these kinds of relationships as primarily vehicles for drama. They feel something missing from their lives but don't realise it's connection, and instead see its common side effect drama as the point.
And fair enough re prostitutes, I didn't realise you were coming at it from that'll angle.
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I suspect that the average prostitute is less ‘brave rebel defying societal taboos’ and more ‘impoverished women without any access to social support taking a well known but despised option out of extreme desperation, often not entirely voluntarily’.
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