Since the dawn of time rejected into the shadows of hypocrisy – hide this breast that I cannot see! – sexuality remains nevertheless an excellent barometer of civilization: ultimately, it matters little whether society imposes concealment on it or offers a space of freedom to display itself, the quest for pleasure relentlessly innovates. And since bodies, despite the flexibility of joints and the elasticity of flesh, know the painful limits of their anatomy, it is in the realm of the psyche that inventiveness develops. This is evidenced by the sometimes highly sophisticated scripting of new sexual “activities” where the circumstances of economic or social reality, far from being excluded, become an imperative condition of their success.
A sign of the times, the phenomenon of “student prostitution” belongs to this category. Each year, more and more young university students, both male and female, engage in this practice to occasionally fund their studies. Gone are the small serving jobs in a dingy restaurant. No more exhausting oneself at night only to risk falling asleep during the droning lecture in the amphitheater the next day. Ennobled by the Anglo-Saxon term, “the escort” takes advantage of discreet meeting possibilities offered by the web, the Danaids’ tomb of solitude, to offer companionship and pleasure.
Is it prostitution? Asked during a report on Direct 8, some of those involved deny it: irregular in frequency, the approach is purely due to budgetary necessities, partners are chosen, and the social setting is generally festive and rewarding. The sexual service comes with a feeling of freedom in time management, coupled with self-esteem derived from the specifically priced display of the body. An object that collects, to better “evacuate” them, the moralizing demands of the tyrannical superego, cash – in both the literal and figurative sense – settles the emotional account.
For men, the physical maneuver relies on the typically masculine sentiment of a sexual act perceived as a sporting performance, an exceptional feat, as unique as the unfolding of male pleasure. Meanwhile, the woman deploys all her seductive energy, capable of drawing to her an object of power that, it seems, she lacks: she gradually overcomes the resistances of her counterpart. An inexorable and progressive rise in desire, as renewed as the successive waves of orgasm that characterize her intimate being.
All this warrants a few minor arrangements. Hence the emergence of new professions: home demonstrator of “sex toys” and “alibi provider.” Exclusively by appointment, the former invites herself into the living rooms of curious ladies who now ponder the alternative purposes and advantages supported by the unbreakable plastic of Tupperware. Certainly, the utensil never leaves the kitchen – that interior one of the weaker sex – but the served dish will undoubtedly be spicier. A specialist in theatricality, the latter provides one of the partners – most often the man – with the stratagem allowing him to “evade” the usual obligations of the couple. Mother hen always keeps an eye on things. In the matchmaking fetishism of the object, nothing is missing in the authentication of the staging: fake invitation to the soccer match or premiere, fictitious expense note carelessly left in the jacket pocket. Here again, the “technician,” who is no cleaner, verbally refutes any idea of perversion: she “helps organize a meeting,” she in no way becomes an accomplice to adultery. She merely arranges a break in the schedule. She creates this unexpected interlude in a modern world that bans the slightest random variable.
Contacted for the program’s needs, detectives specializing in marital infidelities readily admit: women remain formidable instigators, unparalleled plotters. They muddle the tracks, plant decoys, and double their creative fantasies to prevent the discovery procedure. Eternal combat between the sword and the shield.
