Personally, I wouldn't have employed the term 'mistake'...

[oursin]

I have now discovered that he recently slept with a sex worker.... He says it was a mistake and is devastated that he's hurt me.

'Mistake' suggests to me a certain degree of inadvertency, like getting on the wrong bus, or the non-stop train to Inverness instead of the stopping local one, rather than something which does, after all, require some intentionality.

(Outside of the kind of porn movie scenario in which somebody just happens to be stark naked when opening the door to the pizza-delivery person.)

Even if one wonders if the reason he used protection at all was because the sex worker in question insisted.

I am, though, also intrigued by the terminology of 'I have now recently discovered' - how? If he had told her, I'd have expected 'he admitted/confessed/revealed', but perhaps I'm overthinking this.

Comments

[shiv]

Very much in the manner of naked men Hooveringand finding their penis sucked into the inlet with disastrous results.

The number of people keen to blame her for his straying was boggling

[redbird]

The only way I can parse this as other than "he made the mistake of thinking I wouldn't find out" is "he slept with another woman who he met at a party, and found out afterwards that she's really a sex worker, not a receptionist," and that frankly doesn't sound likely. Not that sex workers don't also have private lives, but the combination of events there seems unlikely, especially as it only works if she would mind less if he had slept with a nurse or accountant or other higher-status worker.

"I have recently discovered"="a friend of mine saw his face in online porn"? "I found revealing email messages making the appointment"?

[rydra_wong]

'Mistake' suggests to me a certain degree of inadvertency, like getting on the wrong bus, or the non-stop train to Inverness instead of the stopping local one, rather than something which does, after all, require some intentionality.

I have heard fine sarcastic use of the phrase "tripped and landed on his penis" (or, in this case, it would presumably be "in her vagina").

I know, right?

[bibliofile]

Reminds me of what Dan Savage and his interns apparently refer to as HTH -- How'd That Happen?! "I was minding my own business and suddenly I found myself in [compromising position that normally requires some cooperation from all parties]." Silly and ridiculous, especially when said in public like that.

[cloudsinvenice]

I wonder if sex workers take Paypal? Otherwise I'd go with the "went through his texts". That, or he confessed to a friend while in his cups, and the friend's wife is friends with the cheated-on girl and informed her in alarm.

[wordweaverlynn]

Depends on the sex worker. Escort services may take credit cards. And phone sex is almost entirely credit card or Paypal.

[cloudsinvenice]

Makes sense - I'd naively forgotten about phone sex...

[kindkit]

I don't think what the boyfriend did in this case could be phone sex, though, since the letter writer describes it as "slept with" and mentions that he used a condom.

[mme_hardy]

There are keyboard condoms, so I'm sure there must be phone condoms.

[legionseagle]

A friend of a friend (well, someone who was at school with a former co-worker) put up the defence to a charge of bestiality that he was having a slash in a cowshed and the animal backed onto him.

And, come to think of it, Angus Deayton's defence to the events in the nightclub in Manchester was that he didn't know she was a prostitute.

[mme_hardy]

That's [edit: DSK's] DSM's response to the orgies he is alleged to have attended in France. As I recall, his lawyer argued that it's very difficult to tell if a naked woman is a prostitute or not.

[wordweaverlynn]

Maybe the boyfriend is an American. "Mistakes were made" covers a lot of ground.

[adrian_turtle]

Sometimes I say my marriage was a mistake. It wasn't the kind of mistake that happens between intention and action, but that's not the only kind of mistake a person can make. That mistake was an error of judgement that went on for 5 years (if we count the advance planning, and I think we should.)

I can even understand her use of "I have now recently discovered," though it's kind of pathetic. Whatever excuse he made to explain the time he was taking to visit the prostitute recently collapsed. Like if she told one of his friends, "Starting up those poker nights at your house was a great idea. John's been so much more cheerful now that he's hanging out with his buddies every week, even though he never wins anything." And the old friend said, "Huh? What poker night?"

[kathmandu]

Yes, exactly. I would parse "mistake" in this context as 'mistake of judgement', as in 'it seemed like a good idea at the time, but turned out not'.

My other guess would be that a man who was having dangerous sex he didn't tell her about at the beginning of the relationship, and has now been discovered to be having secret and illicit sex nowadays, has very probably been cheating on her during all the intervening time, too.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and to me, it would run something like, "Prostitute, schmostitute, the problem is you LIED to me!"

[mme_hardy]

I now wish to read porn that uses "non-stop train to Inverness" as a euphemism. "I only meant to touch his hand, but suddenly I found myself on the non-stop train to Inverness, and enjoying it very much, too!"

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I thought it was
A mere caress
I found the train to Inverness
Was just that moment leaving.
Its non-stop heaving
Its panting breathing
It carried me afar
That wayward railroad car.

(I'd only stopped to move a tress
Of slightly out-of-order hair
So fair -- so very fair...)

[mme_hardy]

::applause::

[castiron]

Beautiful!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

*shy smile* Thank you!

This DEMANDS my favourite (well, one of my favourites...) West Wing quote

[shezan]

Sam Seaborn: About a week ago I accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Toby Ziegler: [pause] Really?
Sam Seaborn: Yes.
Toby Ziegler: You accidentally slept with a prostitute?
Sam Seaborn: A call girl.
Toby Ziegler: Accidentally?
Sam Seaborn: Yes.
Toby Ziegler: I don't understand. Did you trip over something?