"Okay - 'rent' them, Mr. Claxton? Whatever."
Dennis Claxton responded:
"I meant you buy sex, not people."
Me:
Well, Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, et. al., might have a problem with that distinction. (As in buying "labor," but not the person). One's labor power I would submit in agreement with these hoary old men, is essentially indistinguishable from one's life forces, person, time, etc. Or as some prefer to say, "I sell my time, not my body." In the end, it's the same difference. You are selling yourself, whether you're a pipe fitter or a, er, "courtesan."
I actually had no idea anyone still referred to folks as "courtesans," in fact. It sounds like something from a John Hawkes or Lawrence Durrell novel - or very much like Omar Khayyam/Orientalist Romanticism to me. But whatever floats your boat. A euphemism, even. Unless I'm mistaken, you're still buying a person - excuse me, their "labor time" - for sex. Call it what you want, "courtesan" or no. Call it "fried chicken." I don't care.
Again, not having experience in this dept., what I have read from clients of "courtesans" and/or prostitutes is that the money is paid not so much for the experience itself, but in being able to delineate a clear and distinct END to the imbroglio, a relief for man men, since with casual sex it's much more messy (implicit social contract implied in sexual relations for non-paying people) and less spelled out in the open.
But back to the original posts' point: The john/client, knowing he has spent X amount of $$$ for X amount of time, is less likely to be inhibited and more apt to put his all into it. I've read this several places, and it's why celebrities (like, for ex. Charlie Sheen) prefer call girls, when in actual fact they could have almost any gal they wanted. They're paying not for the sex, but for the clear and distinct END to the encounter.
-B.