I disagree with the assertions, that the young age of hobbying beginners must be because of female responses. Although that's certainly possible in the current statistical sample (no proof otherwise), I do belive that a large number of men begin in the hobby as early as 25 or younger. The anecdotal responses to this thread bear out that belief, for example. Most are explaining that they first saw a provider at a very young age.
My take on this fact is, that although many young males go to college and experience "ready and willing" partnerships, many others simply get SURROUNDED by women who seem ready and willing, but then don't ACTUALLY find ready and willing women. This was the case for me. In many ways, at least as far as my sexual experiences would have gone, I would have preferred to have never attended college, because what I found there was a social system that made getting laid a near impossibility for me. I would rather have been in a world where my own "failure" to get laid was not so deliberately presented to me so regularly, to the extent that I took it as a judgment on my own desirability when, in fact, it would have been much more accurate to have taken it as a judgment on the selfish manipulativeness of college women.
Two factors contributed to this woeful development. First was the politically correct air of the time (mid-80s). To WANT sex at all, for a male, was considered criminal. I actually tried to LEARN not to want sex, because professors and other people I respected were consistently telling me that this desire was somehow un-evolved, anti-intellectual, "shallow." The second factor contributing to this, was my own stunted social development (no doubt contributed to by the very people mentioned above). I didn't know that the way to sex, and/or a relationship, was to MAKE A MOVE on the chick and find women who would comply with that move. I thought I had to ASK and EXPLAIN and BE RESPECTFUL, and only recently (in my mid-30s) have I learned that these supposedly "politically correct" tactics were PRECISELY the things that MOST turned women off of me. So, I came across as a mealy-mushy wimp rather than the collegiate stud-muffin I could have been, precisely BECAUSE I listened to the women and tried to provide the sensitive-new-age-guy that they SAID they wanted. The two factors, obviously, are closely allied.
It wasn't until years later, that I figured out that the game was rigged against me (do what they say they want, and you lose; but ignore their statements, and they think of you as someone who is sensitive to what they want, and they want you!). Around the same time, I also found out that many of the less-cerebral young men at my college had actually been getting laid quite often, a frequency I had previously unhappily concluded would have been impossible for anyone. I realize now, that this whole "game" is founded upon a female need to KNOW she can land a male, but not a need to ACTUALLY land the male. If you give her the servitude of sensitive-new-age guy-ness, you have reassured her that she is desirable ... but you've also given away the store. She doesn't have to DO anything to get that servitude; so, your attention to her has in itself suggested to her that she ought not reciprocate. If you get, you need not give. Stunning, the selfishness and manipulation inherent in that world view. I'm consistently amazed at it.
Anyway, I left college a virgin. Couple that with the fact that I spent time in my young adulthood surrounded by women who are at their physically most alluring, because they too are young adults -- not uncommon for young adults to be near young adults!
-- and you've got a recipe for frustration. In a world where "nobody's supposed to" get laid, I wouldn't have felt compelled to go to providers in order to get sex. And in a world where the women around me weren't desirable and I wasn't getting the message that desirable females "ought to" desire men (and me in particular), I wouldn't have, again, wanted to fulfill the putative void. But as it stood, the two factors -- not getting laid; and being around people who reminded me that I wanted to (and OUGHT to want to) get laid -- combined to make an irremdeiable situation. (I still feel that "social forces drove me to the brink" and that I didn't actually attend providers because I WANTED to, as much as because I HAD to, and that the choice was more the "least of all possible evils" than simply a "good." So to speak. Whether or not the choice IS good or not; as well as, whether or not I actually WAS driven, are of course entirely different issues. But independent of those issues, I still FELT "compelled" rather than "free" to make my choices, because of social bullshit that prevented me from getting laid.)
And don't get me wrong. I wasn't a "loser" who "had to" find providers as my only sexual outlet because of some kind of undesirability. I had CREATED a desirable self, according to the "rules" of the time ... it was the rules themselves that were the problem, not my failure to live up to them. I had cleanliness, a wardrobe, fitness, a good intellect, a sense of humor, success in school and work, a great education, decent if not excellent facial features, a "great butt" (according to all my female acquaintances), and so forth. And I ALSO had the major mistake, of LISTENING when women told me what they thought they wanted. Yes, I'm bitter as hell, that the way to happiness for me AND FOR THOSE WOMEN would have been for me to have UTTERLY IGNORED THEIR RECOMMENDATIONS and done EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. Harrumph. 
I still think it's sad, that the "start age" in the hobby for men is right smack in the middle of a period of life when they are probably MOST likely to be able to get young women to respond positively to them. They're in their sexually fittest years, they're similar in age to the women, it's viewed as "OK" for the two to be dating and fucking (no January-May stigmas), the guys are still probably youthfully attractive (clear unscarred skin, no middle-aged middle-spread, etc.), and any of the guys' "failings" in terms of real estate and earning power can easily be disregarded by the women not as life-failures but as POTENTIAL that hasn't been mined just yet. So, the fact that (presuming the survey DOES represent male responses) men start so young, is just MORE grist for my anti-politically-correct mill. The chicks (not the providers; the civilian women) who WON'T date those "desirable" men, or who won't fuck them unless they get a contractual obligation for a lifetime of economic support (that would be, ahem, "marriage"), are the problem.
Why are men starting the hobby so early? Because of the women they can't get to fuck them. Why are men consistently unable to read the women around them, and get those women to want to fuck them? Because the women lie to the men, in order to gratify the women's egos. Why is our society warped, hysterical, and closed about sexuality? Don't blame the men ...
-- Modified on 8/24/2002 3:24:19 PM