Or, as William Blake put it a couple of hundred years back,

What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

…

And, having gone to the book to make sure I had it right (amazingly, I could only find one source for that quatrain through Google), what else do I find on the very same page?

First,

Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there.

and then

In a wife I would desire
What in whores is always found–
The lineaments of Gratified desire.

Blake the Blogger. Who knew?

As siewjai points out, and the point is developed in the subsequent discussion, humans have an amazing ability for mixing fact with fanatsy. Willie,your premise is dodgy only inasmuch as it seems so concrete. We may or may not care about partners sharing sexual pleasure, but our own pleasure certainly rests on at least the illusion that we are giving pleasure. This is why ejaculation is so important to women.

We’re constantly told sex is about orgasms. In fact, I was taken to task by one of the readers of a draft of my book for equating the two. Whether that reflects my experience or our shared cultural conditioning is neither here nor there. The fact is that both partners in many sexual transactions feel they have to deliver on satisfaction. If your partner doesn’t have an orgasm, you’ve failed. In the complex back-and-forth psychology of sex, women often fake it so that men feel better — paradoxically this sometimes allows the men to perform better, so a girl’s later orgasms may not be faked. For men, we equate orgasm with ejaculation. If a girl can’t deliver up on that for a man, then she can count herself a rotten lay. And if she’s fretting that she’s a rotten lay, she probably becomes one.

Re young women buying sex: who said anything about young women? (oh, I see I used “girl”, as I tend to). Young women don’t buy because they don’t need to. That’s exactly why it is so difficult for older women to buy sex. It means accepting that your desire is greater than your pulling power. Blerch.

I do concede that my comments were based on the dodgy premise that most people are interested in their partner sharing their sexual pleasure. That would be even less likely in situations where the sex is being paid for.
Even here we must be wary of generalising. I refer you to the comment of Jimsky above who uses prostitutes and says he tries to make it as enjoyable for them as for himself.

My reading suggests that the single most common sexual act purchased by (American) men from sex workers (male or female) is fellation (by the sex worker, of the purchaser), and I find it easy to assume (always subject to empirical confirmation — but with plenty of anecdotal confirmatory evidence gathered from public, non-pornographic, sources) that, were there a large market in which (American) women were purchasing sexual activity from sex workers (male or female), a great many of the purchased sex acts would be cunnilingus (by the sex worker, on the purchaser). In such case, I would guess (still imagining, and still subject to empirical confirmation or refutation) that “evidence that their partner is also sexually aroused” could be provided histrionically (as one gathers it often is in the present market, and indeed outside the marketplace) without need of erection (in the case of a male sex worker), much less ejaculation.

Lee: I have always argued against the obsession (both straight and gay) with penetrative sex, though you weren’t to know that. It has always been the focus of disapproval of homosexuality although in reality many gay men don’t practice it because they don’t like it, or they practice it with some partners and not others. Even so, there are many gay men who take the view that anything else is not ‘real sex’ because gay men are just as subject to the ‘conventional wisdom’ on sexual matters in the prevailing culture as anyone else.

It’s true that a male does not need an erection if he is either the passive partner or simply the one doing the stimulating. However, I’d suggest that even where no penetrative sex is involved, most people want evidence that their partner is also sexually aroused and may see it as a failure on their part if he is not. If I’m right, then the mechanics of male sexual arousal does limit the number of partners a male can satisfy, regardless of the actual sex act involved.

The article by Marina Hyde, which I read at the time, made some very salient points about the influence of pornography on male expectations. As you might expect, my knowledge of straight pornography is limited, but it’s reported that young men today increasingly demand anal sex from girls because it features so much in pornography. They may also expect women to usually wear stilettos in bed! All of which suggests to me that educators need to accept that young people now have ready access to explicit pornography, to discuss frankly the issues it raises about sexual practices and expectations and make clear the distinction between fantasy and reality. The chances of that happening in Britain are, of course, remote.

One gathers from what one reads in both the popular and the scholarly press that many women find less sexual satisfaction, and have less sexual interest, in being penetrated (wherever) by a man’s penis than they have in any number of other forms of sexual activity (some — whether with or without a male participant — not involving penetration, with any body part or alternative, at all).

One also gathers — contrary (I have read: for instance, in an excellent commentary by Marina Hyde in the _Guardian_, “Porn is screwing up young men’s expectations of sex”, published on 22 December 2007) to the impression one might gather from much contemporary pornography — that many, if not most, women have very little interest indeed in male ejaculation _per se_ as part of a satisfactory sexual experience.

I welcome correction from those with more experience in the field.

They could choose customers and they often exercised the right.

This could lead to problems at times – captured in Mrcchakatika (the Clay Cart), a Sanskrit drama where a courtesan falls in love with an impoverished merchant in preference to a powerful politician. Thankfully, the politician didn’t have the power to proscribe the trade altogether. For synopsis see – http://www.enotes.com/little-clay-cart-salem/little-clay-cart and for a short exercpt of the movie adopted from the play – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tkrp59zYF4.

When would these people realise that in order to control human being’s interest in sex and its desire to get it, one must first stop the biological pleasures involved in the act of reproduction? I fear that this task will be a little more difficult than adopting safe practices and even inventing a vaccine for aids.