Platonic Prostitution/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A character consorts with a sex worker for non-sex related purposes.

  • Straight: Bob hires Alice, a prostitute, but much to her surprise he just wants to talk to her rather than have sex with her.
  • Exaggerated: Bob hires prostitutes on a regular basis just to chat with them.
  • Justified: Bob hires prostitutes to try and persuade them to quit being prostitutes.
    • Bob is a lonely man who is discomforted by sex but still yearns to make a connection with someone.
    • Alice is the key to unlocking a mystery that Bob is pursuing, but the only way he can make contact with her to find out what she knows is to hire her services.
  • Inverted: Bob hires Alice to have sex with her, but all Alice wants to do is talk.
    • Bob hires a therapist to have sex with him.
    • Bob is in a sexual relationship with Alice, who works as a prostitute; their relationship, however, is not business related.
  • Subverted: Bob claims that he just wants to talk to Alice, but he just says that to make himself feel better; he ends up paying for sex with her after all.
  • Doubly Subverted: Bob only has sex with Alice because, after paying to converse with her, they have ended up falling in love with each other.
  • Parodied: Bob hires prostitutes to do ridiculously trivial things, like mowing his lawn, because he's too lazy to do them himself.
    • Alternatively Bob hires prostitutes to tell sermons but enjoys it WAY too much, really creeping out the prostitute.
  • Deconstructed: Bob paying prostitutes to sermonize about their lives to them is merely indicative of his self-righteous hypocrisy; he's not really interested in improving these women's lives or the hardships they go through, but just gets off on the thrill of superiority he feels about trying to 'rescue them from sin'.
    • Bob's actions are indicative of his insecurity and hangups about sex.
    • Bob's unusual behavior ends up attracting the attention of Alice's "manager", which starts to suspect he might an undercover cop, a head hunter or even a serial killer. Eventually, he gets too paranoid and decides to get rid of Bob for trying to mess up with his business.
  • Reconstructed: When she learns that Bob 'just wants to talk', Alice wearily expects Bob to start giving her a lecture about how 'unclean', 'sinful' and 'impure' she is, but it turns out Bob actually wants to talk about something completely different.
    • Because Bob doesn't demand or expect her to do anything she feels uncomfortable with besides talking, Alice regards him as her favourite customer or even as a friend.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob hires prostitutes for the usual reason, but ends up suffering from a Groin Attack. He still hires them to talk. Then he recovers and returns to his usual ways. Near the end of the series he becomes less of an Anti-Hero and ends up taking up just talking.
  • Averted: Bob hires prostitutes to have sex with them, and Alice is no exception.
    • Alternatively, Bob does not hire any prostitutes, for any reason whatsoever.
  • Enforced: "We can't have our hero have sex with a prostitute; the Moral Guardians would eat us for dinner! Since the scene calls for him to be in a brothel, he'll have to have a completely above-board reason to be there."
  • Lampshaded: "You just wanna talk, huh? That means you've got the 'I'm going to hell unless I stop doing what I do' speech prepared, right?"
  • Exploited: Alice charges Bob extra just for conversation.
  • Invoked: Bob makes it known among the red light district that he's not interested in sex, but he's looking for conversation.
  • Defied: Alice makes it clear from the start of the interaction that she's not interested in 'time-wasters'.
  • Discussed: Alice and one of her co-workers discuss how it seems that all their johns want to do these days is just talk to them.
  • Conversed: "Seriously? He's laying down all that cash just to chat?"
  • Played For Laughs: Bob and Alice, both of whom are aware of how awkward this is, have a teeth-grindingly uncomfortable conversation together.
    • After a moment's awkwardness, Bob and Alice end up having a really pleasant conversation They even start playing video games together, have lots of fun, and it turns out that they actually have a surprising amount in common, ending up becoming really good friends.
  • Played For Drama: Bob is a Serial Killer who targets prostitutes and his 'just wanting conversation' act is part of the mind games he plays with his prey before he kills them.

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