the search...

My quest to hire a prostitute to hold nakedly once a week for an unknown span of time, has begun.
Not on a street corner, but on the internet. Craigslist. The wellspring of 90% of my NYC jobs, 50% of my love life, plus free TVs, eyeglasses, and a kickass backless computer chair.
I make my way to the romance subsection "casual encounters". Not all ads in this section are part of the sex trade...but most, to be sure. After a few days, you get to know the usual suspects all too well. They occasionally change their post titles, sucking you back in (so to speak).
And just whom am i trying to find? Above all, someone i can trust and like. The major question, sociologically, is whether to choose someone i'm attracted to. But that's problematic. No matter what she looks like, the odds of not being attracted to any woman who passes my criteria are slim. For no matter how much we are visual creatures (and we are, googily moogily we are...), attraction is also very much between the ears. On top of that, the non-sociological part of my quest (my need for human touch) screams at me to pick someone that the reptilian part of my brain would WANT to hold. So let's not kid ourselves - in some way small or large (probably closer to large), i'm going to be attracted to this woman.
Whom am i screening out? Anyone not independent (fortunately, the internet has probably cut down on the number of sex workers forced to operate with a "pimp"). Drug-users. The obviously unintelligent. Anyone glam or trashy (the second term i don't mean in a pejorative way, the first one i do). Anyone who's, y'know, dead inside.
So...i'm looking for an independent prostitute with intelligence who's not big on makeup and doesn't need something to "take the edge off" to get through life.
Hm.
Yes, it occurs to me that this may be as tall an order as finding a Middle Eastern who thinks Americans are neat-o, or a woman who "gets" me.
As you dive into the search...well, not to bring race into it, but certain generalities do pop out. As much as i'd love an Asian woman, it's hard to find one who seems like her own person. It's hard to find a white woman who doesn't come off as dumb or trashy (but that may partly be a by-product of me finding white women a bit pasty the older i get...which may be a by-product of my longing for a world of racially indistinct babies). African-american women seem to be divided into two groups: the not-trashy and the uber-trashiest. Indian and hispanic seem generality-free.
You also very quickly feel empathy for all those women who complain about online would-be suitors sending penis shots. Now don't get me wrong, i'm a vagina fan. A super fan. A super-duper, loop-di-looper fan. But a smidgen of subtlety isn't necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, there are some photos attached to these ads for which the only sane response is "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"*, as you try to decide whether you should claw your eyes out. At that moment, if the woman of your dreams were to appear, asking you to make love, you would have to ask her whether she can come back in an hour. If she said she had to get on a train to leave forever...you'd agree, but only on the condition that you be allowed to keep your eyes closed.

*See earlier note on African-american women.