Something happened recently that I thought might clarify my thinking on this burning issue. Let's tease it out and see if we get anything.
I was in a session. After some hot-seeming foreplay, the prostitute shoved her vagina in my face and positioned herself for 69. Before she went down on me, though, she slapped on a condom. (To be fair, I knew in advance that she Didn't Do bareback oral.)
This is absurd, I thought to myself. I'm paying, but she's expecting that I'm going give her direct oral stimulation while I only get done through a condom. "This is absurd," I said aloud. She immediately changed to move into genital intercourse, but I deflated. It took a lot of work to finally get me off.
What I think is:
1. There's the anger issue. I know that a prostitute doesn't care about getting stimulated during a session, and that when she offers me the opportunity to commit oral sex on her it's as a service to me, for my satisfaction. She's probably thinking about her shopping list. Nevertheless, I'm not going to pay to engage in unreciprocated risky conduct. It's nuts.
2. There's the ego issue. This is the big one. To me, covered oral is one of the big signifiers that this is just a commercial transaction. I've never had covered noncommercial oral. Now I'm obviously a tremendous advocate of doing everything one can to remind oneself that these are merely commercial transactions when one is outside of sessions. But a session is worth nothing to me if I'm reminded of that during the session. Although I know it's irrational, emotionally I "read" covered oral as a personal rejection: like, "there's no way you're someone I'd give real oral sex to." It's the same reason I can't stand getting table dances from strippers who I know won't sleep with me: to me, they're just reminders of what the girls won't do.
Now none of this is particularly admirable. But there's nothing particularly admirable about being a consumer of commercial sex, either.