Other men seem to be having issues with their age. One mentioned that he's just turned 40, and that's really bugging him. Then he flaked out on me a couple times -- I don't think he was completely okay with his own decision to be seeing me. But anyway, often, another thing these men seem to get out of it is access to someone who has a bunch of youthful energy and optimism and just plain new ideas. A lot of them have mentioned feeling stuck, or bored, or cynical, or intellectually constrained. So in this sense sex is only one thing I'm offering them -- I'm also offering them optimism, hope, energy, and so on. Firstly, the sex is good in and of itself, as most of them aren't getting laid otherwise. But the sex is also a symbol of them getting access to my youthful energy or whatever. I think the archetypal image of a mistress involves a woman being "kept" so that she doesn't have to work, so that she can be available for sex basically whenever. But I don't think this is what the men I see want. I am more valuable to them because I have other work that I am seriously invested in, and am having sex with them anyway. Again, these men are interested in a woman who they see as more "equal" to them -- in this case, defined by earnings potential -- and they seem gratified by the idea that they could help me enter their income bracket someday. This is, of course, still kind of patronizing; like I said, they keep using words like "mentor." It's also presumptuous. But I think a lot of them being patronizing and presumptuous can probably be attributed to age and wealth, and only some of it to gender. I think I've learned more about class and money than I have about gender. It turns out there are people to whom $1,000 versus $3,000 doesn't matter that much, and I finally understand that on a visceral level. $1,000 doesn't mean the same thing to me as it does to most of them. I knew this, but now I really know it. Another thing I've been struck by is exactly how much romantic rela