Letter: Why this man uses prostitutes

I WELCOME Isabel Hilton's article on prostitution ('A vision in the mirror of sex', Sunday Review, 13 September). It is a well balanced account of these girls' lives, but I wish that some men had been interviewed as well.

I have used prostitutes all my life and I wish to explain why men do this. I am not ugly, shy or old. We have family and friends and lead normal lives. But men are expected to be powerful and successful and when our expectations are thwarted we have to cheat. Paying for sex is easy, there are no problems of rejection.

Relationships can be too complicated. An independent, intelligent man would prefer to remain free of all this and prostitutes provide the ideal service. The transaction is not always cold: while most girls hate what they do, some like their clients. One prostitute has invited me to her home, I know all about her family and she trusts me completely. I would never betray that trust.

This has taught me an important lesson, that true love is precious, rarer than gold, and if you are lucky enough to be in that kind of relationship then you should work hard to preserve it.

Society should not persecute these women, they deserve as much respect as anyone else.

Mario Laurenza

Enfield, Middlesex