ThirstyFish

"U.S. men spend an estimated $15 billion annually on strip clubs". I'm not sure what the source of that statistic is, but most estimates put the pornography industry revenue at $57 billion worldwide and $12 billion in the U.S. For U.S. strip clubs, a more realistic estimate is $3.1 billion. If Esquire magazine is to be believed, 68 percent of men do not like strip clubs and think they are "creepy", "degrading" and "expensive".

In the West, we are having less sex than ever, and yet, pornography and strip club revenues are increasing. More and more people have intimacy issues. We fear intimacy. We don't want to get hurt. We don't want to be rejected. Maybe some of that can be attributed to desensitization due to pornography. But most likely, it is due to how our culture has evolved. We now live in a culture where everything is commodified. It is more convenient to pay for it, than risk being rejected. Rather than be stuck with one partner for the rest of our lives, and constantly try to make things work, we can use our hard-earned cash and keep our "choices" open. We are conditioned to feel insecure and inadequate - the same advertising and conditioning which keeps us buying stuff that we don't need is destroying our self-confidence and impairing our innate need for intimacy. We find temporary comfort and release in pornography and non-intimate relationships. It's way less complicated that way. And technology makes it all too easy.