Is a kept woman a whore?

I feel a variety of things about "Keeping Up with Being Kept" in the NYTimes today.  At the very least, I think the author did a good job of writing a descriptive article that isn't overly judgmental of either party.  I'm not sure I would be capable of doing the same.  

On the one hand, everyone involved is an adult, who certainly has a right to do and live as they wish.  Let's call a spade a spade though.  If you're exchanging sex for money, that is prostitution.  And I'm willing to take that to the extent that if you set up that same sort of relationship as advertised on the site without the site, it's still prostitution.  If you're a 20 year old girl who meets a 50 year old man on a regular basis to have sex and receive presents or money, you're a hooker.  You might tell yourself that's classier than being a streetwalker, but it's still the same basic thing.  

If you're 20 and you fall in love with a 50 year old who happens to be wealthy, and you go on to have a real, full-fledged relationship in which of course you reap the benefits of having a wealthy partner, that's different.  If you fall in love with a rich 20 year old, by the way, it's the same thing, but it happens that it's a lot harder to find rich young men (unless you're talking about trust fund babies).  The trust fund babies usually don't have to pay for sex though.

I'm not passing judgment on practitioners of the oldest profession.  It certainly provides more money in some instances than working minimum wage.  But these girls on the web site are delusional if they think this isn't whoring themselves out.  Just admit what you're doing.  This web site is putting a slightly nicer face for it is all.  

The practice is negative for the same reasons prostitution is generally said to be negative.  I feel sad for these men, who feel they must buy the semblance of love and affection they aren't getting at home.  The time they spend with lithe young girls could be spent fixing their marriages, which are now rather broken.  I'll also pull out the other argument that if society provided other options, women would not have to resort to prostituting themselves.  I do like that one guy does a cost analysis of a wife, a girlfriend, a mistress, and a whore.  That's entertaining.