Oh please, get real. Most men walking the earth have paid for sex in one way or another at some point in their lives. Just cause money didn't blatantly exchange hands doesn't make the statement untrue.

I think the attitude problem mainly comes from christian influenced midsets.

I have read of pre-christian religions accepting Heirorules 'Temple Prostitutes' as a part of the religious order and then;

'The Hebrew Bible uses two different words for prostitute, zonah (זנה)‎[8][9] and kedeshah (קדשה)‎.[10][11] The word zonah simply meant an ordinary prostitute or loose woman.[9] But the word kedeshah literally means "consecrated female", from the Semitic root q-d-sh (קדש)‎ meaning "holy" or "set apart".[10] Qedesha also became the Canaanite name for their goddess of sex (or perhaps a title for either the goddess Astarte or the goddess Asherah in this role), adapted into Egyptian as Qetesh or Qudshu.[12]

Whatever the cultic significance of a kedeshah to a follower of the Canaanite religion, the Hebrew Bible is quick to connect the term with a common prostitute. Thus Deuteronomy 23:17-18 warns followers:

None of the daughters of Israel shall be a kedeshah, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a kadesh.
You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute (zonah) or the wages of a dog (keleb) into the house of the Lord your God to pay a vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

The religious aspect of kedeshah is underlined by the ancient Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek, which renders the first verse as a double prohibition, both against prostitution, and against being an initiate of foreign cults:

None of the daughters of Israel shall be a prostitute (porne), neither shall any of the sons of Israel be porneuon;
none of the daughters of Israel shall be an initiate (telesphoros), neither shall of the sons of Israel be a teliskomenos.'
Wikipedia

And This;
'The practice devadasi, as it has come to be seen, and similar customary forms of hierodulic prostitution in Southern India (such as basavi),[34] involving dedicating adolescent girls from villages in a ritual marriage to a deity or a temple, who then work in the temple and act as members of a religious order. Human Rights Watch claims that devadasis are forced at least in some cases to practice prostitution for upper-caste members.[35] Various state governments in India have enacted laws to ban this practice. They include Bombay Devdasi Act, 1934, Devdasi (Prevention of dedication) Madras Act, 1947, Karnataka Devdasi (Prohibition of dedication) Act, 1982, and Andhra Pradesh Devdasi (Prohibition of dedication) Act, 1988.'

Note how the prohibition only really became an issue after India was flooded by christian missionaries...

There is nothing inherently pathetic about hiring a prostitute, unless it is your only means of socialization.

Personally, I have had great luck with both guys and girls. Still, I have to say it is time consuming to find an attractive partner that expresses interest in your particular fetishes. If you are looking for something quick, easy, and with no strings attached a prostitute is an easy fix.
Sometimes, it is best to pay the money upfront to fulfill a specific fantasy than to waste countless hours dealing with people only to see the situation go nowhere.

As a female, I’ve never spent money on a date. But I have spent money on an escort to fulfill a particular fantasy. I didn’t waste my time, and received instant gratification. Plus, the whole experience of “ordering” a girl with very specific physical features is something that cannot be replicated in any other situation.
Granted, its not for everyone. But my experience was gratifying.

Don't knock until you tried it.

I admit I haven't been to a strip club in more than a decade, so maybe quality standards took a sharp drop since my last visit...

But as with any other business, you have to shop around. There was a lot of difference from one place to another, some had really beautiful dancers while others I guess hired the ones rejected by the rest.

Some times my friends and I would amuse ourselves making fun of the ugly and unskilled strippers on some of the cheap joints.

Spoil Sport.

I can certainly think of some bad strip clubs I've been to. Here's one of my worst strip club experiences:

I was down in Florida visiting relatives, and my brother and I had an extra day to spend in Tampa. So we decided to check out a strip club. I don't know if this is state-wide, but an odd law they have there is that you can't have a strip club that both serves alcohol AND has the strippers get naked. It was either bikini and booze, or no bikini and no booze. Being a teetotaler at the time, the choice was a no-brainer for me. But my brother wanted to get a drink, so we went to a club in the former category.

Now the typical routine at strip clubs is that you sit and watch, and if you want some more attention you get near the stage and throw a dollar on it. At this club, the women would come up to you first, and then expect the money. So some of these women with enormous bruises or birthmarks (I couldn't tell which) on the insides of their thighs are trying to put their legs on either side of my head as I'm sitting. What can I say, it wasn't a turn-on.

I only had a few ones on me, which I gave out at first, but then after having no ones I kept telling these girls "No, I don't have any money. Go away." And again, none of these women were wearing any less than a bikini. As we were about to leave, I saw one lady lying on her back, while she was trying to do sexy things in the air with legs. And that's when I noticed a band-aid on her knee. That's not the bad part though. Half of the adhesive was off, so this used band-aid was flapping around from her knee...while again, she's trying to act sexy. I wanted to scream "Take it off! Take if off! No, the band-aid!"

Oh, and my brother's over-priced drink ended up being different than what he ordered.

So by extension, you're calling me pathetic. I am not pathetic for being a customer at a legal brothel.

It is rather quite simple: I have specific things I like, I had the money for it, and this was a service who could provide it for me. More importantly, they could provide it for me professionally and legally, without any emotional demands, sexual ineptitude, nor the various bullshit games that come with the singles scene. It's not something I "had" to "resort" to, if that's what you're implying.

Strip clubs and prostitution! What else can I say? I've met more Satanic women within the world of erotica than outside of the world of erotica. I've never payed for sex but I've tossed bills to strippers, both of us with smiles. A lot of the women love sex and love their bodies, and, unlike most women, know how to use their bodies and how to cater to a man's needs. These aren't acts of desperation that I 'resort' to. (As I suppose the majority of the womens clientel is.) As Bill M. states in his last post in this thread, I concur.

That's right playboy! It ain't trickin' if you got it.

Although I never visited any legal brothels, or let alone paid for sex, I have took women out shopping but it wasn't really part of any agreement. It's just what I do. I buy bitches things if they're bad enough.

But giving them money? That's crossing my boundaries. (Unless it's at a strip club. There's nothing like seeing a dancer crawling on the stage on all fours picking up all those $20 bills I threw at her ass.)

Exactly, and it is just serving a purpose until the pleasure model, (like the blonde from Blade Runner) becomes available on the market.

Thanks for the links. I was not familiar with the term "hunter-gatherer".

In one of the links you posted they give the example of the Aborigines in Australia, as being a group of "hunter-gatherers".

I would imagine that the Aborigines in Australia aren't exclusive tribes structured on gender equality.

I would imagine that that is probably common among other tribes of Natives as well, such as in America and to this day in Africa, for instance.

I was not disputing this, however.

I was disputing that prior to civilization, women probably had no say in many matters. Prior to civilization of any kind, talking back to the Neanderthal days, as tribes of Aborigines or Natives, are already civilized to a degree.

The argument is about whether prostitution or agriculture is the oldest profession.

History records would indicate that agriculture is. There are no records of prostitution starting among the groups of "hunter-gatherers", over 10.000 years ago.

If women in these groups of "hunter-gatherers" would exchange sex for whatever goods the men in the tribe would bring, it would not have been done as a profession, on a daily basis, for survival, I'm pretty sure it would have been rather one-offs, otherwise surely there would have been records of it suggesting prostitution started that way.

Yes, you are correct. Since I am married, I pay for it everyday.

I have never read any studies about prostitution, so I cannot comment on that.

My post was directly related to your question about women, what their role in society was 10,000 years ago, and your seeming skepticism that women had any role at all.

Nothing more.

So there should have been some drinks gratis for you (strip club with exceptional rules), when reading how delighted you were at it.

Didn't my link to Butters' explanation solve this already?