He may actually be happy to agree. She's spared him from performance anxiety. He gets the intrigue, the excitement, the mystique and her full attention, and avoids physical and psychological risk. Director Wayne Wang says his film was inspired by the strip clubs of the Silicon Valley. They bring together men who have too much money and no interest in relationships with women who have too little money and no interest in relationships.
Sex supplies the stakes.
It's the currency of the micro-economy created for a weekend by Richard and Flo. She manufactures sex, he consumes it, and cash flow is generated. When she goes a little further than her guidelines permit, that's like Alan Greenspan lowering interest rates. They're like negotiations. Flo is the better negotiator, but then of course she's the market-maker.