Mongering: A View Not Considered

We had been in the disco for an hour now and she had barely said a word to me; mostly it was inane giggling between her and her friend. My buddy at least was holding his girlfriend’s hand and pretending to enjoy himself. I was on a double-date
and my buddy has assured me his girlfriend’s friend wanted to go out with me. We had met earlier at a crowded party in a small Singapore apartment. I was interested as well as she seemed nice and was definitely a 10 on the cute scale. But
now, whether she was shy and not interested, the night was definitely dragging on. I looked at my watch: 1 AM. With a little luck I could just make it to Orchard Tower before the bars closed. I stood up, explained that I had a terrible headache,
and assured my party that we would meet again soon. I hoped they did not see the bounce in my step as I fled across the disco dance floor.

I arrived at Singapore's famous “four floors of whores” at 1:30 AM and immediately went to my favorite little bar. As expected, some of the prettiest Thai girls had just returned from their short-times and were looking
for a long-time to maximize their incomes. I quickly choose one of the cuties and negotiated a reduced rate. Thirty minutes later we were at my condo and thirty more minutes later, we emerged from the shower. I had chosen wisely as she turned
out to be an experienced, enthusiastic lover. The next morning she cooked a Thai version of an American breakfast; a hot dog for bacon, but it was still good. She asked if I wanted to go shopping with her at Golden Mile (a Thai shopping complex).
We cruised the shops there until she met her friend, at which point, we said our good-byes. Later that day, my buddy asked why I left early and later my date tried to engage me in a silly session of sex-text. Fuck it, I told myself, all this posturing
and game-playing was a waste of time. I had had a wonderful Saturday night without them. Or did I?

I was new to Singapore then, learning a new culture and having to make new friends. I had heard about Orchard Tower on earlier business trips but never partook as I was still married. Now that I was single again, I accepted my first invitation
to visit this respite from the real world and had a wonderful experience. Although I was young, trim, and certainly not ugly or shy, I was having a hard time finding a girlfriend. The nuances of dating in Singapore can be as complex as the Chinese
alphabet, so on particularly quiet weekends I wandered into the Tower. Some months later, still sans girlfriend, I considered how many times I had sought companionship at the Tower and it shocked me. Trying hard to understand how I had
reached this point, I slowly realized that I was substituting real relationships with the dream offered by the beautiful Thai ladies on Orchard Road. Every time I hit a snag with my latest love interest, I would blame it on the crazy, demanding
bitches of Singapore and retreat to the easy world of mongering. A few weeks later, after much socializing and personal restraint, I was rescued by a lovely woman from Indonesia working in Singapore. After that, finding girl friends was easy and
the rest, as they say, is history.

I now know I am one of the lucky ones. I am relatively good-looking, have a good personality, good job, don’t drink very much, and carry no emotional baggage about past relationships or women’s rights. Yet it was so very easy
for me to check out of reality and pursue the monger life. Why; because it was there. Even in the fancier bars of Singapore sitting with a pretty date, I would notice the enticing eyes of the high-class working girls trying to catch my attention.
It would have taken about 10 seconds of effort to slip her a napkin with my hand phone number on it for a later rendezvous. Even in the small shops near downtown, young girls behind counters would ask if I was single. Of course, it was all business.
Even when I was having a white-hot love relationship with a Thai office worker, I still thought about those carefree nights in the Tower with the lovely girls draped around my shoulders. Why would I torture myself like that when I was extremely
happy? Because it was not only there, but it was everywhere and 99% of the time, it was a pleasing experience.

We have discussed this before on this web site but most of the submissions I have read accuse mongers of being undesirable love partners who can’t get anyone but a working girl to sleep with them. Is that really the case? I once knew
an Aussie who had a high-paying ex-pat job, beautiful wife and two children, yet risked it all by constantly mongering. An American bloke openly told me his only reason for living in Singapore was to monger the Filipina maids that were all over
the city. Both of these guys were handsome with great jobs. Why would they do this? Is mongering a disease, like alcoholism or drug addiction? Does sex with random women create some unknown hormone that our bodies soon become addicted to? And
if these statements are only partly true, then who is the real victim in the P4P world? Is this world similar to the illegal drug trade in my country, where poor drug dealers dispense the much sought after fix to their more affluent clients? Who
came first, the drugs or the addict? Or did they evolve simultaneously to form this symbiotic relationship?

I know some of you are either bent over in laughter or pounding your table in disgust, but really, why would a man risk his livelihood and reputation for a few hours of sexual pleasure? The biggest loser in this regard is Tiger Woods, who
stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars as well as his family. Right now, he is supposedly in a sex clinic supposedly trying to wean himself from needy bimbos. Is this science or pseudo-science? I am certainly not the expert to consult
on this, but it seems to me it is like it alcohol, where most can dabble a little without becoming alcoholics who risk everything for that next drink. If true, then who is the real victim?