My [24F] friend [35M] and I have a complicated friendship. We dated for a bit but due to some unrelated issues, we stopped but remained close friends.
I confided to him that due to financial difficulty, I’ve exchanged a sexual favor for money with a guy who approached me with an offer on a dating app (after my friend broke up w/ me). For the record, I made the stranger get tested prior. I’m not proud of what I did, but I don’t see it as much of a stretch from people hooking up for free.
My friend told me that if I ever do such a thing again, he will completely cut me off. He made the argument that this kind of lifestyle would screw me up psychologically (tbh that part is probably true) and he would feel like I’d take his support for my career for granted.
Now, what’s interesting is that he told me his ex was promiscuous which he didn’t like, but he never cut her off over it. How is prostitution any worse than other categories of promiscuous behavior?
I’m not really interested in doing it again anyway (simply because it’s dangerous), but do you think he’s being controlling, or is my moral logic missing something?
Tl;dr: friend said he’ll cut me off if I do prostitution again, I’m wondering if that’s overreacting/controlling.
26 comments
No one is obligated to be friends with you 🤷🏾♂️
Don’t tell this “friend”, or anybody else, anything personal about your life. It’s nobody’s business what you choose to do.
He is both overreacting and controlling. He’s using the threat of ending your friendship to control what you do with your body. He’s paternalistically claiming a right in decisions that have nothing to do with him.
Beat him to the punch, cut him off, because he’s gross.
Different 35 year old guy here. In my view there’s nothing wrong with what you’ve done. I don’t think it’s any more dangerous or immoral than hooking up.
You and another person made an exchange to mutually fulfill each other’s needs. Lots of people trade sex for sex, or food, or money, or emotional fulfillment. Sometimes it’s because they have no choice (more of a comment on our society), but for other people it’s because they’re curious or it works for their lifestyle.
What matters is how YOU feel about it and whether you feel safe. You confided something very personal to your friend and, instead of accepting you where you’re at, he judged you and gave you conditions for his friendship.
I’m thinking he has some residual feelings he needs to work through, or some inflexible moral attitudes he’s foisting on you (or both). I think it can be okay for someone in his position to voice concern, but in my opinion he’s not acting like a very good friend right now.
Sex work is work and your friend sounds like an asshole. You’ve done nothing wrong and shouldn’t feel bad.
Your friend is a creepy older guy trying to control you and you’re probably better off without his “friendship”
Is it illegal in your state? As long as you’re being safe and clean and it’s legal. Who cares. Being safe is important especially when dealing with strangers. Sex trafficking and STDs being a few of the dangers.
I’m going against the grain here and say that he isn’t controlling. He is setting boundaries – however, he phrased it poorly and as an ultimatum, which in itself is not exactly good communication.
Let me try to explain what I see here:
We know this guy is religious and doesn’t like a promiscuous lifestyle. Despite his ex living that lifestyle, he hasn’t cut her off, even if he disagrees with her actions.
However, he has also made it clear where he sees the difference between a promiscuous lifestyle (which translates to “sex for fun”) to prostitution (“sex as a transaction”): He said that he believes that prostitution will mess OP psychologically up – something he probably doesn’t feel about his ex’s lifestyle.
So, OP, to answer your question: Prostitution isn’t any worse (or better) than promiscuous behavior, but *this guy* thinks that prostitution will lead to psychological issues, while just sleeping around won’t.
And here he draws his boundary: Promiscuous behavior isn’t something he supports, but in the end, it doesn’t really concern him when his ex sleeps around. It’s not like he’s there. However, he fears that OP being a sex-worker *will* concern him, as he fears she will lean on him for psychological support, which is something he doesn’t want to provide for her, since this isn’t a lifestyle he supports.
And that, I think, is a healthy boundary. It’s like a friend stepping back from a friendship with someone who is in a bad relationship and keeps complaining and leaning on you for support, but never breaks up with their partner/keeps going back. You just want your friend to be better, but you must, for your own mental health, step back because it’s their obvious choice to remain in that relationship and just use others as their venting place to endure it.
Now, saying that he will “cut OP off completely” is pretty harsh. I wonder if this is because of his morals or because he has been used/abused as a “therapist” by someone (be it OP or another person) before and that’s why he is so ruthless with these things now.
But whatever the case – an ultimatum might not have been very productive, but if this is something he won’t support, he is allowed to step back from the friendship. I see poor communication, but no controlling behavior.
>he would feel like I’d take his support for my career for granted.
Uh huh. Sort of showing his hand a bit there. He can pretend it is about you but really this is about him. What, he have a saviour complex or something? Or does he want your success to be something he can take credit for?
Just be careful. He hit you with a lot of conflicting and equally questionable arguments simultaneously and in doing so demonstrated that he probably isn’t the kind of friend you would need or hope for.
You have the freedom to do what you want to do. He has the freedom zo decide what he wants to tolerate or not.
he’s allowed to stop being friends with you for whatever reason that he wants… regardless of how fucking stupid it is.
and you’re allowed to stop being friends with him for whatever reason you want… say for example… him being a shitty manipulative douchebag?
Please don’t confide in this man. He **is** attempting to be controlling over something that’s none of his business.
It’s his right to decide that he doesn’t want to be friends with a pseudo sex worker, just a preference for who his friends are.
You are better without his friendship.
He has no authority to Shame you . If it’s legal in your state/country then it’s fine. And you had a reason behind choosing it. Even if you were promiscuous, still it’s 100% okay to be a sex worker.
People should understand that they are human beings too .. having sex with multiple people doesn’t make someone “immoral ” , but ” cheating” does.
Why does society shame the sex workers but not the man who takes sexual favours from them ?
It’s not controlling when the change in behavior is his. People have a right make decisions about what they do that isn’t a direct manipulation of another person.
He’s setting his boundaries for the relationship.
You make your choice, he makes his choice.
As far as sex work goes, unless it’s part of a legal, well regulated environment, it’s likely too dangerous.
The odds of STD/I’s, drugs, assault and sex trafficking go up, and get worse the longer you do it.
You’re an adult and can make your own decisions, tell him to piss off
Something I have learnt is that our friendships serve different purposes in life. You’ll have some for good times, some for support in hard times etc.. and it’s ok that not every friendship can tick all the boxes.
He isn’t a friend you can share certain things with, because he is choosing to judge you on something that **doesn’t affect him in any way**. This *isn’t* setting a boundary. It’s control. Control says “I want you to behave this way and be this person” whilst a boundary is something you set to keep yourself safe. This would be fitting, were you still dating. But you aren’t.
You don’t owe him (or anyone) all of the parts of yourself. So let him know that personal discussion of this nature is now off limits to him.
Also, don’t let it mess with your mental health. There is **nothing** wrong with sex work, period. You having an exclusive relationship with someone who is also helping to support you financially isn’t that different to the average relationship, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t worth listening to.
It’s your life. Your choice. Your consequences, but also.. Your happiness.
INFO: how does this friend react to other relationships you have? E.g. if you were to start dating another guy. I think this would give us a big insight as to whether it’s more controlling or whether he thinks he is helping you.
Prostitution and promiscuity are very different things.
I think it’s weird that he’s making it about him.
I think he just really cares about you as a good friend should. Keeping a friend after having a relationship with is special. It sounds like he wants to keep you safe. I don’t think he’s trying to control you at all. The ultimatum was he would friendship over if you continued thinking about how much he values your friendship. It sounds like you got a special guy there. Hold on to him.
He’s setting up healthy boundaries, some people don’t like alcoholics, some don’t like meat eaters, some don’t like drug addicts and some don’t like sex workers. I think it’s within his rights to decide what kind of person he wants to involve himself with, just don’t talk to him anymore it’s best for you both.
It will likely psychologically mess you up a bit, but so will having unsupportive people like that in your life looking down on you. The choice is yours. IF you wanted to keep doing it. I personally don’t see anything wrong with the transactional nature of your one time decision. It was between two consenting adults and was more honest about the terms than a lot of people hooking up are.
I was an exotic dancer for many years and a lot of “friends” dropped me immediately upon starting, only to try to re-enter my life later when they saw that their stigmatized predictions didn’t happen and that I was thriving. I would never in a hundred years take those people back into my life or trust them again.
That’s his boundary and you get no say in it. No, it’s not being controlling, nor is it your concern as to why he doesn’t see it in the same category as his ex’s behaviour.
I don’t think he’s overreacting or controlling.
Prostitution (where it’s illegal) can get you involved with very unsavory types of people (criminals), and you being a friend of him, can get him involved with that, too (f.e. if you get into a bad situation and call him for help, or will need him to bail you out of jail). So, in his opinion at least, he is distancing himself from these things.
And I think that I would have done the same in his place. Not necessarily for moral reason, but for safety reasons. Same reason that if I catch my friend doing hard drugs, or dealing drugs, or involved in any other criminal activity, I would cut them off immediately. I don’t want it to “spill off” on me.
Also, moral reasons. Like you said, your friend is religious, so it makes a lot of sense to him, that, for him, prostitutes are scum of the earth, and should be avoided. Imagine your friend robs someone bc they need money. How would you feel about that?
TL;DR if my friend gets into criminal activity, I would cut them off, too.
>but I don’t see it as much of a stretch from people hooking up for free.
This is a pretty huge gap in values for most people. It’s not “controlling” to want to distance yourself from people who fundamentally don’t share your morals.
>How is prostitution any worse than other categories of promiscuous behavior?
OP it’s sad to me that you really can’t see the distinction. It tells me that you’ve never had a healthy and happy relationship with sex. Being promiscuous because you *want* to be, engaging in behavior that is fundamentally consensual, is totally different from doing sex work because you feel forced into it for money.
I’m not going to judge you for doing what you thought you had to do. My only advice is that you should seek out therapy or counseling wherever you can get it. Talk to a women’s shelter or even a church if you have to. You sound depressed, and like you’ve got some major self esteem issues.
Hm, so that’s his boundary and he can set and keep whatever boundaries he likes. I don’t particularly agree with his boundary, but I have boundaries of my own (ex. I will not keep infidelity secrets), so I can respect that he has them even if I don’t agree with them.
So it depends on what you want to do. If you find his boundary invasive then by all means cut him off. You’re allowed to have boundaries too.