In this post I will argue that it is more shameful to engage in psychotherapy than it is to engage in prostitution, both from the perspective of client and supplier.
First off, let's basically define our terms and so on. A prostitute sells sex, while the psychotherapist sells conversation and informed advice (not necessarily expert advice though). It seems to me that a psychotherapist is really someone who (purportedly) is really good at life, and can advise those who aren't good at it how they should go about improving their own. Somebody who feels the need to pay somebody reasonably intelligent to talk to them and advise them how to live is, in my eyes, quite pathetic. They must be some combination of stupid and lonely, since conversation and advice are both things that can be found freely. The cost of conversation is generally the same cost associated with making friendships and being social to some extent. Psychotherapists typically don't give advice that can't be extracted from anybody who is reasonably successful at life.
What the prostitute offers is also available freely. However I think it's clearly the case that free sex is harder work than free friendship (at least for men). Somebody who finds it more worthwhile to buy sex than to work at it is less pathetic in my opinion than somebody who finds it worthwhile to buy friendship than to work at it.
Then from that conclusion we can derive that psychotherapists ought to be more ashamed of their job than prostitutes because they are making a living from the more pathetic and desperate members of the community than the prostitute is.
But before I just leave it at that, I think it is worth noting that sex is something that men desire more than friendship and find harder to get, and friendship is something that women desire more than sex and find harder to get. I don't think these facts are entirely symmetrical though. At a guess (I am pretty uninformed about this), I would say that 95% of people who pay for sex are male, whereas only about 60% of people who pay for friendship are female. Also I suspect that the majority of men who pay psychotherapists are probably paying for advice about how to get free sex (particularly those who believe it is deeply immoral to pay for sex, or are just only interested in sex with somebody who has a symmetrical desire).
Perhaps prostitution for men is similar to psychotherapy for women. Suppose there is a couple (long-term or married, possible children), with elements Ann and Bob. Typically if it became common knowledge that Bob had paid prostitutes to satisfy his sexual urges that would tend to result in the end of the relationship, or would seriously damage the relationship. Ann would probably be convinced that Bob no longer loved her, and in reality most couples that follow this story that have remained together have done so for reasons other than love I suspect. But if it becomes common knowledge that Ann has paid for friendship then this is seen as completely standard. As far as I can see it is an equal event in terms of indicating a person's desire to remain in a relationship for a woman to seek psychotherapy and a man to seek a prostitute.
