Variety?

I ran across an interesting article about why men stray.  It (and the related comments) mostly explored the question of whether evolution explains infidelity.  Well, that’s an old question that is discussed often — most often by guys seeking to justify/rationalize their infidelity.  That wouldn’t make this article worth reading.  But the article did include a few items that I found more interesting.

First, a better-expressed-than-usual summary of why the male urge to stray may strengthen in middle-age or older:

Explanations are easy to come by, ranging from economics (He finally has enough money and status to be attractive to sexy young women at the peak of their reproductive power) to existential dread (he’s coming to terms with his own mortality by lashing out symbolically against his own impending old age and death) to the wife’s life cycle (she’s nearing menopause so he’s biologically driven toward the fertility of younger women). Each of these may have some measure of truth . . . .

Nothing surprising there, certainly, but at least a somewhat more nuanced view of the underlying psychology than one often encounters.  Of course, the first item is not as much of a barrier in P4P.  The $$$ works wonders in making one attractive to young ladies. :)

What I found particularly interesting, though, was a discussion (which linked to an abstract of a scientific study) about sexual boredom and how men and women seem to combat it differently:

When researchers decided to look at this issue to develop a Sexual Boredom Scale, they found that for men, sexual boredom was correlated with variety in partners (or lack thereof), while for women, it was more related to variety in activity. In other words, women were more likely to be satisfied by changes in the sexual what, while men (gay or straight) were more likely to respond to a changes in the sexual whom. It’s a simple, unavoidable truth almost everyone knows to be true, but few dare to discuss: variety and change are the necessary spice of the sex life of the male of our species.

There is even apparently a term for the propensity for continuously high sexual performance by males when new, receptive females are added to the environment: the Coolidge effect. I had heard the joke before, but didn’t realize the scientific validity.

Here’s the article from which I quoted, if you’d like to read it.

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Obviously, there are larger questions about why sexual boredom affects men and women differently.  At some point I may have to track down that cited study to see why explanations have been offerred.  But as an immediate question, I’m more intrigued about the application to P4P.

There’s a moderately wide range of attitudes among clients, at least from discussions I’ve seen.  Variety of partners is very important to some, to the point that they rarely see the same lady twice.  They get bored with the same person fairly quickly.  On the other hand, some stick to just one or a few favorites for a long period of time.  Even with the latter, though, there’s usually some variety of partners.  Either they see more than one lady or they reach a point (not necessarily because their favorite retires) where they switch to someone else.  Indeed, there is variety of partners inherent in P4P simply for the married clients who are seeing someone other than their wive.  Even if they only see one escort exclusively, it’s still along the same lines as the married man who has an affair with a co-worker.

But what about the ladies?

P4P gives them plenty of variety in partners, obviously.  The study cited above suggests that this would not be enough to avoid sexual boredom.  (I’m not entirely sure I understand the study properly, of course.  Perhaps it merely showed that, while variety in partners would alleviate sexual boredom for women, it wasn’t necessary as long as there was variety in activities.  Maybe either would work for women?)  Likely P4P also provides plenty of variety in activities as well; certainly different clients likely enjoy and request different activities.  On the other hand, boredom is not always something that occurs from an accumulation of time — sometimes it’s a result of accumulation of experiences.  You might get bored if you’ve done something once a year for ten years; on the other hand, you might be bored if you’ve done something twice a day for a month. 

So

• If P4P increases the frequency of sex for the escorts, does that itself contribute to sexual boredom?  Is it harder to stay enthusiastic for the 30th tryst in a month? 
• Do most clients engage in the same pattern of activities on multiple visits?  Does the lack of variety in activity contribute to sexual boredom?
• Does the variety in partners help alleviate the boredom?
• Do the ladies ever become bored, not with sex or P4P in general, but with individual clients?
• What else do the ladies do to try to avoid sexual boredom, or is it just not a factor given the variety of partners and possibly the variety of activities?

Something interesting to speculate about.  Of course, it might not be easy to get reliable answers to such questions, since honest answers (unless anonymous) potentially could hurt their business.  So speculation is likely all it would ever be.  Interesting, nevertheless.