1,411 words
I have made the point in previous essays that because the sexes are complementary, it is generally possible to find a counterpart in each for any phenomenon observed in the other. Women and men each have their characteristic faults of which the opposite sex is largely free. A closer look will generally reveal, however, that for any fault discoverable in women, men have some qualitatively different fault which represents its pendant or counterpart—and vice-versa.
Here I wish to apply this principle to the characterization of men as “sexual predators.” As discussed in my last essay, the late political commentator Irving Kristol once went so far as to assert that all men are in some sense sexual predators. Is there a corresponding accusation one might make of women?
I believe there is, and the accusation would be that all women are in some sense prostitutes.
It ought to go without saying that I am not seriously maintaining every woman in the world is a whore. I merely maintain that such a statement would be the natural counterpart of Irving Kristol’s statement about men. If you dislike hearing me saying this, either find some fallacy in the argument I present below or take up your complaint with Mr. Kristol. If fewer heads will nod in agreement at the reflection that all women are prostitutes than at Mr. Kristol’s observation about men, this is not because the one statement is more absurd than the other, but because the combined effects of female self-interest and the male protective instinct always result in a general bias in women’s favor. Men will always get a worse press than women.
It is perfectly true that normal young men seek out young women for the purpose of enticing them into a sexual relationship, something which one may, if one insists, describe as “predation.” But the traditional names for such predation or enticement are “courtship” and “wooing,” while the ensuing sexual predation is commonly referred to as “being married.” As long as the young man limits his predations to a single woman, his actions are not only not condemned but even praised—insofar as any man can expect praise for anything he does. And such predation does result in certain consequences generally regarded as positive, such as the appearance of charming, chubby-cheeked creatures that often grow into productive members of society. So, shocking though it may sound, I am all in favor of men engaging in such sexual predation upon women.
The question I want to raise in the present essay is whether an analogous defense of prostitution as practiced by women might be possible. I shall do my best.
Let us begin in Africa, the cradle of humanity according to modern paleontology. It is said that when Christian missionaries began introducing the faith to previously uncontacted parts of the continent they found themselves facing unexpected difficulties in getting across to the native women the moral objectionability of prostitution. In fact, they ran smack into a wall of incomprehension. This was not because African women took money for sexual favors. In many parts of the continent, they couldn’t have done so, for in plenty of African societies at that time there simply was no such thing as money. But men who sought women out for sexual relations always offered them something in exchange: a piece of meat, an article of clothing or adornment, or some service of which the woman had need. No suitor was naïve enough to show up empty-handed. So the missionaries’ new teaching baffled these women: they could not understand what other motive there might be for having sexual relations with a man. Such informal exchanges were how the black race perpetuated itself for thousands of years before the missionaries arrived, and many Africans were unable to conceive of anything different.
What is, really, the difference between such social mores and the Christian teaching regarding marriage? While far from identical, they are also not so different that there is nothing in common between them. Husbands may not give gifts to their wives before each individual act of marital intimacy, but they most certainly are expected to provide for their families. So they do “pay for sex”—as well as the children who are the natural product of that sex—in the most literal sense. Even the most honorable Christian gentleman the reader cares to imagine eventually comes to realize this. Not infrequently one can hear older men say, in a tone more of resignation than of cynicism, that “one way or another, you always end up paying for it.”
Indeed, the husband pays more for sex than the prostitute’s “John” for reasons I have explained elsewhere. Since the prostitute has many “husbands,” each one only has to pay a small part of her upkeep. In other words, there are two pricing systems for sex: the market rate offered by the prostitute and the monopoly rate enforced by wives (with the help of the church). As in other economic contexts, the market rate is cheaper. So when I read a conservative commentator mocking “pathetic losers who have to pay for sex,” I can only smile at his naïveté, knowing the man is paying through the nose compared to those he ridicules.
One of the inalterable facts of life and sex is that women in the later stages of pregnancy and while nursing infants are reduced to a state of virtual helplessness. They are not what feminists would call “strong and independent.” Strong, independent women cannot reproduce the human race; only weak, dependent ones can do so. And the more children they bear and nurse, the longer the period during which they can expect to be weak and dependent. This is why men are traditionally understood to have a duty to support and protect the mother of their children—for as long as they both shall live, ideally, but most especially during the critical phases of pregnancy and nursing.
This is not ultimately a question of money, although in a modern economy a man’s support usually takes monetary form. But as noted above, human reproduction in pre-contact Africa often involved no exchange of money at all. If you really want to reduce the issue to its ultimate terms, consider it under the heading of energy—the most basic thing in the universe according to modern physics. What I am calling the “helplessness” of the pregnant or nursing mother, as well as of her infant, really means that they are both net consumers of energy. There is never an infinite supply of energy anywhere in the universe, and this emphatically includes the human home. That energy consumed by women and children has to be drawn from somewhere. Somebody enjoying an excess must supply a portion of his own energy to make up for the deficit. Gosh, who do you suppose this generous fellow might be?
That’s right, he is known as dad. He has to expend a good fraction of his own energy for the support of wife and child. This behavior is difficult to explain in self-interested economic terms. But most young men take well to the provider role, at least where economic circumstances permit. Men like to feel useful, and in a monogamous society with a functioning economy they are useful to both wife and child. Perhaps their family’s dependence on their support is the best proof they have that they are not really just “predators” after all, despite those wicked sexual urges of theirs.
In any case, despite all the jokes to the contrary, only a small minority of husbands skip town and leave their families in the lurch. If women really needed a man the way a fish needs a bicycle, there would be nothing wrong with men letting them pay for their own damn babies—and perhaps conceiving them through parthenogenesis.
The counterpart to male support is, of course, its receipt by the woman. In other words, wives accept money and services from their husbands in connection with the sexual relations they have with them—the filthy whores! And shocking as it may sound, I am all in favor of women trading sex for their husbands’ support in precisely this manner. I wish even more of them were engaged in such “prostitution” than is presently the case. Predators and prostitutes of the world, unite!
PS: If you found this article worthwhile, you may want to check out the following old satire from The Onion.
21 comments
You’re a funny guy Roger. I think the older you get women just become a risk/reward proposition. Too much risk too little reward.
Alas, the illusion of the sanctity and beauty of marriage is as natural as this frank dissection of the transactional nature of the relationship of the sexes. We’re trying to maintain a civilization here!
And those clever women, once married and in possession of a child or two, have learned they no longer have to provide anything to their husbands, while their husbands must work harder than ever. Hence the saying: “For the first year of marriage, put a penny in a jar every time you have sex with your wife. From the second year, take two pennies out every time you have sex. There’ll be money in the jar when you die.”
“And those clever women, once married and in possession of a child or two, have learned they no longer have to provide anything, while their husband must work as hard as ever.”
I don’t know why any mom would not want to do the best job possible to raise children to become adults who will handle life’s challenges including whom they should choose to befriend, and eventually marry.
Being married & having kids is about teaching children how married men & women work together in complementary ways, to nurture increased morale, to resolve issues peacefully when problems occur. A good wife demonstrates respect for her husband, and a good husband shows how he cares for his wife and children. There is a predictable orderly routine within the home, including eating dinner together as a family, with low-key daily practice of table manners and the art of conversation, appropriate displays of deference (i.e., I need to hang up now, it’s time to sit down for dinner.)
I did my best knowing that I only had 18 years with each of my kids. Now I watch in horror as our oldest soaks up old idiot-box tv programs that he was never exposed to as a child. Sigh, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I have zero guilt that I didn’t do my level best.
Ah, I neglected to mention sex, in the above paragraphs. (I’m shy.) It’s what keeps morale up within a marriage!
A question for everyone. Did The Zman really die??
Reputable sources have reported the sad news that he passed away on Wednesday night of “natural causes.”
He died in his sleep at 59 in Berkeley Springs, WV. At Amren, Paul Kersey & Gregory Hood reminisced about his impact: https://www.amren.com/podcasts/2025/07/remembering-z-man/
Basically, rapists and whores make the world go round, and moralizing just gets in the way.
On the subject of relational reciprocity, I’d like your take on narcissistic teases who lead on guys who are a bit too old-school in their courtship. The suitor will do favor after favor for the tease, thinking it’s getting him somewhere, but she has no intention of taking him seriously. She’d rather have a one night stand with someone she picked up at the methadone clinic, and then cry on her suitor’s shoulder about it the morning after, and maybe even solicit advice on how to get Jerkface to come back. She’s not dumb as a brick – she knows that the suitor wants a relationship – but she’ll get furiously indignant when he finally figures out he’s been played.
Women are by nature narcissistic teases, but this gets disguised somewhat under a system of socially enforced monogamy. But the behavior you describe occurs constantly under a system of Darwinian mating such as ours: the most attractive men remain permanently available to women for mating, while other men get nothing but financial and emotional exploitation. Some guys never do figure this out–and, of course, older traditionalists are clueless as always about this reality.
Pay for play is a reality but the greater problem is the innate desire of women, the helpless ones, to upgrade to stronger protection and more free resources. This leads to playing the sob sister role, complaining about being wronged, and complaining about husbands, or at a pinch even prospective husbands. This female appetite for complaint is basically a habit of inviting some stronger, wealthier man to come into the situation, beat up the current husband, and replace him as an upgrade.
Move many women out of the home into the workforce, where they can talk together, and they will complain together, louder and louder, in an increasingly extreme chorus. They will complain because it is the nature of women to complain. This isn’t reasonable, it isn’t good for any children they have, and it isn’t good for them in the long run, but they will do it.
Introduce the strong state as an eager substitute husband who will beat up the real husbands with laws, female-sympathetic policing, and family court, and disaster impends. Let the female-sympathetic strong state take over as a substitute provider that can humiliate men in front of their wives and be the bread-winner, and disaster is fully present.
“Some guys never do figure this out–and, of course, older traditionalists are clueless as always about this reality.”
This reality is a companion to the vain and harmful stupidity of older, politically privileged men who assume that because women are complaining (as is their nature) something must be done, and they are the strong, wise, manly men to do it.
Where does the idea you don’t pay them for sex–you pay them to leave fit into your framework? Because for a lot of men, “payments” for prostitution are about cheap and easy sex without having to deal with her later and not only about the quick sex.
The “payments” involved here do entail very different motivations and kinds of sex: with the wife, it’s with a woman who chooses passion by her own choice and chooses to have your kids by her own choice; with the prostitute, the payment is for activity that is at best one step above masturbation, if that, something cold, empty and mechanical with a woman who is mentally checked out and almost certainly a damaged human being.
It should be noted also that some men who use or approve of prostitution actually are sadistic and predatory. Gore Vidal said something to the effect of why should anyone care about a little whore in reference to the 14 yearold girl Roman Polanski raped.
At any rate, while it’s definitely true in a very real, non-satirical sense that men are going to “pay for it” one way or the other, the important question for young men actually is, if you’re going to pay for it anyway, what’s the better investment of those two presented options: wife versus long term use of prostitutes?
This is where the trad view on sex, marraige and prostitution starts to pick up some credibility, whatever the problems with their perspective on sex in general.
What a grim view of things.
Yes it is grim. It’s the perspective of the losers, not of socially successful men. Mr. Devlin has never told us if he’s a happily married man or a 60 something incel.
“What a grim view of things.” -Philippe Régniez
Agreed. I am not faulting the scholarship, expertise, or conclusions of Roger F. Devlin (whose intellect I hold in high esteem), nor am I blaming the messenger for the message; however, I have found this entire series on sexual realism to be darkly cynical and utterly depressing. It would seem that not only is Romance dead, it never really existed at all.
My girlhood notion was to join a nunnery. It seemed to me, that a life of service was the only noble path for a female of the species. Unfortunately, I never had a religious calling. Now, at the end of it all, I find my instincts towards spinsterhood have proven — just for me personally — not misguided.
The conception and raising of children negates all the grim cynicism that seems to characterize much of the relations between the sexes.
Very good point.
St Thomas Aquinas has written at length on the subject of the passions of the soul in his Summa Theologiae (IaIIae). Perhaps it would be beneficial to have a look at it to change the perspective on the subject.
Thank you for that recommendation to Counter-Currents readers. I am exploring what is available, starting with Archive.org.
You are most welcome. The Summa Theologiae is a bit difficult in the original; it is best to get acquainted with the text through some vulgarisation written by a good Thomist theologian – there must be one in English (look for a traditionalist one). The second part of the text is devoted to morals and is very helpful, with patience, for sorting out one’s attitude to everyday life difficulties.
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