Im not sure if this board is quite the right place for this type of question but anyways here it is. How do you guys decide when to take a break from the hobby? Ill try not to bore you with too many detials but heres a bit of backround info. Ever since i turned 18 i have frequented scs here in my local area but never really felt it was out of hand. But things changed when i took a trip to the east st louis clubs about 3 years ago. I started to make the 3 hour drive about once every three momths but then things changed once i started a new job with much higher pay. I started making the trip almost weekly and things got out of hand financial wise once i truly learned how fruitful this hobby can truly be. So i pulled back and i stopped going. At least for a while but then the best/worst thing ever happened when i decided to call an escort in my local area. With this new found talent in my own backyard things have spiralled out of control i feel. I have started seeing escorts almost twice a week now for the past year. Spending almost 40% of my income on the hobby. Ive tried to slow my self down but just cant seem to stay away. Im afraid if i dont cut back myself the law or an std will do it for me. At the age of 23 i fear im ruining my sex life with my long time gf as its just not the same as the rush of a new girl aswell as my financial future. Luckily i am not attached to one girl though i do have a rotation of 4-5 girls i see most. So i guess my real question is is how have you guys forced your self to cut back from going overboard or what strategies have you used to slow down. I keep thinking ill burn myself up but it hasnt seemed to happen yet. Thinks in advanced for the advice and the read.
TLDR- spending to much. Advice on how to slow down?
Well, sex addiction is a real thing (in my opinion), but a bunch of guys on a message board can't tell you if that's the problem. You should perhaps talk to someone who is more qualified to help you if that's the case.
Given that you're doing all of this while having a long-term girlfriend (who I assume knows nothing) and you're feeling guilty tells me that your problem goes a bit beyond the math of income and expenses.
As tedious as this sounds, I budget everything, including this stuff. I would do this if I were on a restricted budget or if I made Elmer-Fudd-I-own-a-mansion-and-a-yacht money. A lot of guys here don't do this because they're terrified to see how much they spend. I don't care. And, when I spend my allotment of "fun money", I stop spending. Easy peasy.
Part of the problem here is that you're 23 years old. When I was 23, I sneezed testosterone (sort of messy) and wanted to fuck everything. At my current age, I still want to fuck everything, but I have learned to moderate my impulses.
I think you may have a sexual addiction and may need to seek out some professional help.
At 23 I was engaged to my long term girlfriend and she satisfied me sexually to the point of me not needing to look other places for sex. It wasn't until I had been married for several years that I started to occasionally visit strip clubs and eventually wound up seeing an escort.
You may want to ask yourself what does an escort do to you sexually that gives you a rush that your girlfriend does not? If it's fucking in a hotel, or maybe the escort dresses in lingerie, etc. - there's something that the escorts do that turns you on that your girlfriend does not... maybe you can start having your girlfriend do those thing(s) for you. Girls get into role play and a little change up in the normal sex routine so it could possibly be as invigorating for you as it is for your girlfriend.
At 40% of your income I'd say it has moved from a hobby to an addiction. Personally I try to limit my entertainment budget (including strip clubs) to around 10% of my income.
My advice, if your girlfriend is not satisfying you it may be time to seek a new girlfriend that can satisfy you. In the meantime I would cut down on your lineup of p4p girls. Instead of trying to keep up your rotation of 4-5 girls just pick your favorite and only see her.
I do like Ish and keep track of all my expenses. Very detailed in everything. For example, I could pick a week at random and go into my logs to find how much I spent on food or which strippers I spent on and exactly how much to each of them.
I have a self-imposed monthly "budget." Once I reach that, I stop for the month. I had one month where I blew the budget in the first week. The next three were rough. I've learned to pace myself now.
As far as ruining your sex with gf, can't help you there. I got into this because I wanted variety, monogamy just doesn't appeal to me anymore.
I was driving when I commented before and couldn't resist.
Now that I have read your post....
If what you say is true, I agree with others who have recommended you seek professional help (in the mental illness field). It's nothing to be ashamed of.
I find that just trying to stop x behavior usually don’t work very well, but developing z behavior which has the effect of displacing x behavior usually works much better. For example, just trying to lose weight usually doesn’t work. On the other hand, if you focus on developing a healthy lifestyle, which incidentally causes you to lose weight, that approach tends to work much better. The key is how motivated you are to change.
I’ve also found that, generally speaking, whenever you can’t get enough of something, it’s because you don’t really want it in the first place. What I mean is, your strip clubbing and escorting hobbies are meant to get you something, I don’t know what, but it’s clearly not working. Kind of like eating junk food, which can taste great, but doesn’t provide your body the nutrition it needs, so your hunger cravings never go away.
Everyone is different, so it’s hard to give advice. But drawing upon my own experience, the first question that comes to mind is, would you still be with your girlfriend if you weren’t going to strip clubs and seeing escorts? I guess I don’t understand what you mean by fruitful. I myself have never paid for sex per se. If the girl’s not into it, I’m not into it. That’s applies to girlfriends, and it also applies to dancers. I look for girls who seem to enjoy dancing for me, because if I feel like they’re just going through the motions then it’s a turn off. But although I enjoy getting teased by pretty girls in clubs, it can’t compare to the rush of asking out a beautiful woman and having her say “yes.”
For myself, I find that when I’m in a relationship, that generally tends to keep me out of strip clubs, or at least reduces my visits quite a bit. On the other hand, if I’m not happy in a relationship, then I tend to visit strip clubs more. Similarly, when I’m happy with one particular dancer, I’m generally loyal to her and get dances from only a few other girls on a regular basis. If I become unhappy with a dancer, then I start getting dances from many more girls until I find a new favorite.
So the tl;dr is: if I were in your shoes, I’d probably start taking a hard look at my relationship and asking myself if perhaps there’s something missing, and if so, what do I have to do to get it?
I often criticize the concept of sexual addiction because far too many men who are normal are wrongly given that label. However, a guy spending 40% of his income on sex workers over an extended period of time does have an addiction. Especially if the guy has a girlfriend who is willing to meet his sexual needs, and yet he can't stop or even slow down. I think you need professional help.
I agree with John Smith. The escalation and increased spending are symptoms of addiction. We generally use/partake more of the addicting thing to chase the initial surge of dopamine. it becomes a downward spiral almost always. You should talk to a professional about this . %40 of net means no good retirement.
At the beginning of each year I prepare a yearly budget for mort, utilities, savings, car, clothes entertainment etc. The budget is then divided by 48 weeks. The other 4 are fun money. What I choose to spend my entertainment budget on and how fast I spend it is the only choice, because until the following year that's all I have. If I piss it all away on strippers, then I don't golf or travel in the summer.
There's probably a big-difference b/w addiction and doing something b/c you like-it and you can.
There are probably a good # of SCers that do multiple visits per week - for those that like to SC it is similar to what comedian Chris Rock said that when it comes to sex "a man is only as faithful as his options" - similar thing can perhaps be said w.r.t. SCing; many of us SC aficionados would probably go more often if we could afford it (i.e. if we had the option) - finances/cost are probably the #1 reason most SC aficionados don't SC more often, it's not IMO b/c they are or are not "addicted".
If the OP was getting laid 2x/wk w/ a civvy non-P4P; I doubt he would be told "he has an addiction" - hell, at 23 it's not abnormal for a dude to want and be able to have sex everyday even multiple times/day.
For w/e reason his sexual needs are not being fulfilled - if he didn't have a GF then his behavior would make sense to me b/c I would assume he could be a young-guy w/ natural young-guy high-libido and perhaps no-outlet and thus sexually repressed.
It's not always easy to find the right girl that is both someone you like as a person and also completely sexually satisfies you and/or is s freak in bed (hence why a lot of married dudes do the P4P thing, they may love their wife and she may be a good partner and mother; but it's not enough).
The OP mentions "At the age of 23 i fear im ruining my sex life with my long time gf as its just not the same as the rush of a new girl" - could be the OP is just really wired for variety or perhaps he has not had enough sexual-partners in his life and thus why he craves variety/different-women.
To me the OP is a guy w/ a healthy libido that has found a way to get laid w/ whomever he wants whenever he wants; practically speaking - he has found a way to instantly gratify his sexual urges.
I don't think he's doing anything different than many do on this board except he's much younger than most on this board.
There are pros and cons to everything. I once hard a psychologist on the radio say it's not the "what" but the "why" that's important - i.e. not *what* we do but *why* we do it - there's a reason the OP does what he does; and not SCing will not deal w/ the root-cause; SCing is really probably more of the symptom than the problem.
Most of the time one knows/feels when enough is enough - that time is different for different people - kinda like people that put-off not eating healthy until finally one-day they get fed-up w/ feeling and looking-lousy and they are ready to make a change - perhaps at some-point the negatives will start outweighing the positives and you may feel that it no-longer does for you what it used to do and that you have to keep on keeping on trying to have/get that feeling you used to have - at that point is when you are probably ready to step back.
It may be different for different people - for myself w.r.t. breaking a habit it's hardest to make the decision to stop - I have found the more I do it the more I wanna do it - but once I manage to stop for me personally it gets easier the more time goes by that I haven't done it - when I SC regularly it seems if more than a week goes by w/o SCing it feels like a long time - if I get thru the first month or 6 weeks; I personally don't have as strong a desire to go b/c I haven't been feeding myself the habit.
It may also help if you fill the void w/ other things like getting in the best shape possible and working out or focusing on your finances and possible investments - if you are constantly thinking about SCs and escorts then you don't have a chance and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sex is a natural thing and every young guy wants it bad (and some more than others); it just seems you are not being satisfied in a conventional manner but then again a lot of people aren't - if it's affecting your job-performance and your are piling on debt b/c of it; then yeah you need to slow-down sooner than later; if not then it's something you are gonna have to work your way thru as you mature and gain more life experience but you are just trying to satisfy your sexual desires which is what many of us try to do.
We're (pls) are going to do what we want to do, whether unhealthy or not. If it's too bad on the OP, then he will sooner or later quit on his own. Young people make mistakes because they can. Just hope you don't make too big of mistakes that you can't recover from permanent damage.
So here’s how I’m reading things. You’re from an area that is pretty conservative/restrictive with regards to men’s clubs, so you started going to clubs east of St. Louis and found not just nudity but extras. That motivated you to get a better job, which you then used to finance more frequent trips until you crashed and burned financially. So out of necessity you pulled back, until you discovered that you could just call local escorts for extras instead of making a three hour drive. So now you’re spending, I don’t know, $2,500 - $4,000 per month on escorts, despite having a girlfriend.
I get where guys are coming from, if you’re spending beyond your means you have a problem in and of itself, because that’s not sustainable. On the other hand, I don’t want to put myself in the position of saying just because you can afford an expensive “hobby” doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem, irrespective of the hobby. People like to be judgmental about sexual issues, but it’s beyond my wisdom to say who has the greater problem, the guy who’s spending 4K a month on escorts when he already has a girlfriend, or the guy who spends $50K buying two race cars when he already owns more luxury cars than I can count. The point I’m getting at, is that even if you found a way to cut back so that you were only spending 20% of your income on escorts, I think you’d still have a problem.
The things that jump out at me are the statements “the rush of a new girl” and “just can’t seem to stay away.” I guess I’m just not wired like the average guy, because the idea of spending large sums of money on 30 or 60 minutes sessions with escorts is not my idea of a “rush.” Yeah, I can sort of understand if you’re an older married guy who is doing it out of necessity (i.e., sexually frustrated but not wanting to end a marriage), but you’re young, have a girlfriend and money to burn, and are growing up at a time when Americans have never been freer sexually. The world is seemingly your oyster, so why are you spending 40% of your income on an addiction to escorts? I don’t do P4P, but my understanding is that the women you meet through escorting are usually a step below what you find in men’s clubs, so do you have a girlfriend who doesn’t satisfy you and can’t hook up with better girls either in or out of men’s clubs? Because that’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise, in terms of spending less, I’d look into the other, obvious alternatives.
Maybe you need to talk to your girlfriend about your sex life, either with or without a counselor. Maybe you need to talk to your girlfriend about having an open relationship. Maybe you should try visiting swinger’s clubs with your girlfriend. Maybe you just need another girlfriend. I’m not suggesting that you just dump your girlfriend though. You attracted her into your life for some reason and you seem to be committed to her on some level. But you do seem to be stuck in a self-destructive rut. So whether you think of it in terms of doing the right thing by your girlfriend, or doing the right thing for you, I think you need to stop grabbing for the low hanging fruit and taking the time to find out what you really want or what is really bothering you. As I said before, whenever you can’t get enough of something, it’s usually because you didn’t really want it to begin with. Some people numb themselves with alcohol, some people do it with sex. I honestly have no idea what is going on but one thing I do know is that a counselor is a lot less expensive than an escort.
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I'd lay off the escorts and try to get girls in the civilian world. Hit up the strip club once in a while if you have the urge.
The funny thing is I don't follow my own advice.
Given that you're doing all of this while having a long-term girlfriend (who I assume knows nothing) and you're feeling guilty tells me that your problem goes a bit beyond the math of income and expenses.
As tedious as this sounds, I budget everything, including this stuff. I would do this if I were on a restricted budget or if I made Elmer-Fudd-I-own-a-mansion-and-a-yacht money. A lot of guys here don't do this because they're terrified to see how much they spend. I don't care. And, when I spend my allotment of "fun money", I stop spending. Easy peasy.
Part of the problem here is that you're 23 years old. When I was 23, I sneezed testosterone (sort of messy) and wanted to fuck everything. At my current age, I still want to fuck everything, but I have learned to moderate my impulses.
Good luck.
At 23 I was engaged to my long term girlfriend and she satisfied me sexually to the point of me not needing to look other places for sex. It wasn't until I had been married for several years that I started to occasionally visit strip clubs and eventually wound up seeing an escort.
You may want to ask yourself what does an escort do to you sexually that gives you a rush that your girlfriend does not? If it's fucking in a hotel, or maybe the escort dresses in lingerie, etc. - there's something that the escorts do that turns you on that your girlfriend does not... maybe you can start having your girlfriend do those thing(s) for you. Girls get into role play and a little change up in the normal sex routine so it could possibly be as invigorating for you as it is for your girlfriend.
Nice try.
My advice, if your girlfriend is not satisfying you it may be time to seek a new girlfriend that can satisfy you. In the meantime I would cut down on your lineup of p4p girls. Instead of trying to keep up your rotation of 4-5 girls just pick your favorite and only see her.
I have a self-imposed monthly "budget." Once I reach that, I stop for the month. I had one month where I blew the budget in the first week. The next three were rough. I've learned to pace myself now.
As far as ruining your sex with gf, can't help you there. I got into this because I wanted variety, monogamy just doesn't appeal to me anymore.
Now that I have read your post....
If what you say is true, I agree with others who have recommended you seek professional help (in the mental illness field). It's nothing to be ashamed of.
I’ve also found that, generally speaking, whenever you can’t get enough of something, it’s because you don’t really want it in the first place. What I mean is, your strip clubbing and escorting hobbies are meant to get you something, I don’t know what, but it’s clearly not working. Kind of like eating junk food, which can taste great, but doesn’t provide your body the nutrition it needs, so your hunger cravings never go away.
Everyone is different, so it’s hard to give advice. But drawing upon my own experience, the first question that comes to mind is, would you still be with your girlfriend if you weren’t going to strip clubs and seeing escorts? I guess I don’t understand what you mean by fruitful. I myself have never paid for sex per se. If the girl’s not into it, I’m not into it. That’s applies to girlfriends, and it also applies to dancers. I look for girls who seem to enjoy dancing for me, because if I feel like they’re just going through the motions then it’s a turn off. But although I enjoy getting teased by pretty girls in clubs, it can’t compare to the rush of asking out a beautiful woman and having her say “yes.”
For myself, I find that when I’m in a relationship, that generally tends to keep me out of strip clubs, or at least reduces my visits quite a bit. On the other hand, if I’m not happy in a relationship, then I tend to visit strip clubs more. Similarly, when I’m happy with one particular dancer, I’m generally loyal to her and get dances from only a few other girls on a regular basis. If I become unhappy with a dancer, then I start getting dances from many more girls until I find a new favorite.
So the tl;dr is: if I were in your shoes, I’d probably start taking a hard look at my relationship and asking myself if perhaps there’s something missing, and if so, what do I have to do to get it?
There are probably a good # of SCers that do multiple visits per week - for those that like to SC it is similar to what comedian Chris Rock said that when it comes to sex "a man is only as faithful as his options" - similar thing can perhaps be said w.r.t. SCing; many of us SC aficionados would probably go more often if we could afford it (i.e. if we had the option) - finances/cost are probably the #1 reason most SC aficionados don't SC more often, it's not IMO b/c they are or are not "addicted".
If the OP was getting laid 2x/wk w/ a civvy non-P4P; I doubt he would be told "he has an addiction" - hell, at 23 it's not abnormal for a dude to want and be able to have sex everyday even multiple times/day.
For w/e reason his sexual needs are not being fulfilled - if he didn't have a GF then his behavior would make sense to me b/c I would assume he could be a young-guy w/ natural young-guy high-libido and perhaps no-outlet and thus sexually repressed.
It's not always easy to find the right girl that is both someone you like as a person and also completely sexually satisfies you and/or is s freak in bed (hence why a lot of married dudes do the P4P thing, they may love their wife and she may be a good partner and mother; but it's not enough).
The OP mentions "At the age of 23 i fear im ruining my sex life with my long time gf as its just not the same as the rush of a new girl" - could be the OP is just really wired for variety or perhaps he has not had enough sexual-partners in his life and thus why he craves variety/different-women.
To me the OP is a guy w/ a healthy libido that has found a way to get laid w/ whomever he wants whenever he wants; practically speaking - he has found a way to instantly gratify his sexual urges.
I don't think he's doing anything different than many do on this board except he's much younger than most on this board.
There are pros and cons to everything. I once hard a psychologist on the radio say it's not the "what" but the "why" that's important - i.e. not *what* we do but *why* we do it - there's a reason the OP does what he does; and not SCing will not deal w/ the root-cause; SCing is really probably more of the symptom than the problem.
Most of the time one knows/feels when enough is enough - that time is different for different people - kinda like people that put-off not eating healthy until finally one-day they get fed-up w/ feeling and looking-lousy and they are ready to make a change - perhaps at some-point the negatives will start outweighing the positives and you may feel that it no-longer does for you what it used to do and that you have to keep on keeping on trying to have/get that feeling you used to have - at that point is when you are probably ready to step back.
It may be different for different people - for myself w.r.t. breaking a habit it's hardest to make the decision to stop - I have found the more I do it the more I wanna do it - but once I manage to stop for me personally it gets easier the more time goes by that I haven't done it - when I SC regularly it seems if more than a week goes by w/o SCing it feels like a long time - if I get thru the first month or 6 weeks; I personally don't have as strong a desire to go b/c I haven't been feeding myself the habit.
It may also help if you fill the void w/ other things like getting in the best shape possible and working out or focusing on your finances and possible investments - if you are constantly thinking about SCs and escorts then you don't have a chance and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sex is a natural thing and every young guy wants it bad (and some more than others); it just seems you are not being satisfied in a conventional manner but then again a lot of people aren't - if it's affecting your job-performance and your are piling on debt b/c of it; then yeah you need to slow-down sooner than later; if not then it's something you are gonna have to work your way thru as you mature and gain more life experience but you are just trying to satisfy your sexual desires which is what many of us try to do.
The mere act of asking your question implies that you already know the answer to your own question.
I get where guys are coming from, if you’re spending beyond your means you have a problem in and of itself, because that’s not sustainable. On the other hand, I don’t want to put myself in the position of saying just because you can afford an expensive “hobby” doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem, irrespective of the hobby. People like to be judgmental about sexual issues, but it’s beyond my wisdom to say who has the greater problem, the guy who’s spending 4K a month on escorts when he already has a girlfriend, or the guy who spends $50K buying two race cars when he already owns more luxury cars than I can count. The point I’m getting at, is that even if you found a way to cut back so that you were only spending 20% of your income on escorts, I think you’d still have a problem.
The things that jump out at me are the statements “the rush of a new girl” and “just can’t seem to stay away.” I guess I’m just not wired like the average guy, because the idea of spending large sums of money on 30 or 60 minutes sessions with escorts is not my idea of a “rush.” Yeah, I can sort of understand if you’re an older married guy who is doing it out of necessity (i.e., sexually frustrated but not wanting to end a marriage), but you’re young, have a girlfriend and money to burn, and are growing up at a time when Americans have never been freer sexually. The world is seemingly your oyster, so why are you spending 40% of your income on an addiction to escorts? I don’t do P4P, but my understanding is that the women you meet through escorting are usually a step below what you find in men’s clubs, so do you have a girlfriend who doesn’t satisfy you and can’t hook up with better girls either in or out of men’s clubs? Because that’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise, in terms of spending less, I’d look into the other, obvious alternatives.
Maybe you need to talk to your girlfriend about your sex life, either with or without a counselor. Maybe you need to talk to your girlfriend about having an open relationship. Maybe you should try visiting swinger’s clubs with your girlfriend. Maybe you just need another girlfriend. I’m not suggesting that you just dump your girlfriend though. You attracted her into your life for some reason and you seem to be committed to her on some level. But you do seem to be stuck in a self-destructive rut. So whether you think of it in terms of doing the right thing by your girlfriend, or doing the right thing for you, I think you need to stop grabbing for the low hanging fruit and taking the time to find out what you really want or what is really bothering you. As I said before, whenever you can’t get enough of something, it’s usually because you didn’t really want it to begin with. Some people numb themselves with alcohol, some people do it with sex. I honestly have no idea what is going on but one thing I do know is that a counselor is a lot less expensive than an escort.