I think that it can.
First, I think that self-awareness is one of the goals of a life that is well-lived. People with true self-awareness are not a mystery to themselves. They are "comfortable in their own skin", and enjoy life more. They have an accurate understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and they accept themselves. Therapists often refer to people with good self-awareness as having "insight".
The examples below only apply to some providers and clients, far less than the majority, so chances are they do not apply to you personally.
When a man pays a woman for sex, he can ask himself why he is doing it, and can try to answer himself honestly. Sometimes I hear people in the P4P world talk about men "thinking with the little head" instead of "thinking with the big head". But a man is never really thinking with his cock - he is thinking with his big head, but in a different way. He might be thinking impulsively, wanting to have a short term gain, but at the cost of a longer term expense. If he regrets those impulsive decisions, he might try to understand his impulsiveness, and work on ways to be less subject to it - for example, by understanding what triggers his impulsive decisions, and finding other ways of dealing with the triggers.
If his decisions are not something he comes to regret, then I say go for it!
If a man pays women for sex because he seeks acceptance from them, he might think about ways to increase his own self-acceptance. A lot of times when I talk with people about learning to be more realistic about themselves, they seem to assume that I mean they should have a more negative view of themselves and their future, but it is almost always the opposite! A more realistic view of themselves would be a more positive view of themselves. FUT can make people have unrealistically negative views of themselves, but recognizing FUT for what it is when it happens can stop this way of thinking before it gets started. I recommend learning about all the different forms of FUT.
When a woman has sex with men for money, she can ask herself why she is doing it, and try to answer herself honestly. Perhaps the reason is because it provides a good living with a flexible schedule and a great deal of independence. And so that is that, end of story.
But, in one individual case, I think a woman showed a high degree of self-awareness and insight when she said to me "when a person is sexualized at an early age, it puts their sexuality front and center for them". For this individual, the next step in gaining self-awareness and a more realistic view of herself might be to understand that the experience of being sexualized at an early age is an unusual experience, and that her beliefs about herself that resulted from that experience might not be realistic views.
For example, this one individual might place an unhelpfully high emphasis on her sexual worth, and an unrealistically low emphasis on other aspects of her worth as a person She might benefit from challenging some of her beliefs about herself.
Like I said, the examples above only apply to some providers and clients, far less than the majority, so chances are they do not apply to you. But you might have your own examples of what you have learned about yourself, and what you have done with that knowledge.
Anyhow, I think that the world of P4P gives us a lot of opportunities to gain self-awareness and to learn to get what you want out of life. Here's to living life to the fullest!
