One in nine men hire prostitutes - Want to talk about it?
One in nine men hire prostitutes: Reporter
by Thane Burnett, Niagara Falls Review, April 13, 2009
Look down your street. And count. Now do the math.
If Victor Malarek's numbers are spot on, you may have to reevaluate your
neighbors. At least every ninth home.
And if the veteran investigative journalist's new book crosses your own
doorstep, you may have to do some soul searching, on how the personal
business of those people on your block -- or men around you -- may impact a
just world.
Malarek's new book, The Johns: Sex For Sale and the Men Who Buy It, released
Tuesday through Key Porter Books, is a follow-up to The Natashas, his last
angry and pointed expose on the world's most sordid trade. His new work
argues that too many average guys see sex-for-hire as "boys being boys."
But for the women involved, it's not often a career choice, but a
complicated form of economic or very real enslavement.
This time around, Malarek traces the steps of their clients, and a society
which dismisses it all as a victimless crime, and a trade as old as time.
But the dismal picture Malarek -- a senior reporter for CTV's current
affairs show W-Five-- draws is a strong argument for not letting the
commerce of basic instinct, and especially the men who fund it, off the hook
so easily.
"It's not simply the oldest profession," says Malarek, over the phone from
his home in Toronto. "It's ... oppression."
Malarek estimates over 10 million women and children - including here in
Canada -- are enslaved in the $20 billion international sex trade industry.
And that while the economy is on the skids, the ranks of sellers and buyers
of skin are increasing at an alarming rate.
How do those numbers make their way to your street? Malarek believes one in
nine Canadian males frequent prostitutes.
And while we may tell ourselves most of the women are making a choice,
research, says the author, has found upwards of 96 per cent of the
prostitutes would rather be doing something else with their bodies and
lives.
In The Johns, Malarek traces the lives of the men who pay for sex -- from
the lonely to the crippled to the angry. And he concludes: "Without man,
there would be no demand. There would be no supply. It would not be
profitable for pimps and criminals to stay in this business if never-ending
platoons of men weren't prowling the side streets in search of purchased
sex."
While we all seem more concerned with terrorism and criminals in financial
towers, Malarek found, on the black market, prostitutes are the third most
profitable commodity, after illegal weapons and drugs.
"There's a lot of people with their heads buried in the sand," he explains.
"We don't like to think of these women as real human beings."
It's the prostitutes who most often get the police and courts attention,
while the Johns, the author fumes: "They get to zip up their pants and just
stroll off."
Consider, he says, the age of prostitutes gets younger and younger around
the world, while the lines of Johns get longer and longer.
Even the downturn in the economy doesn't help them ease up. While overseas
sex tourism has reportedly been impacted, Johns have realized tough times
mean they can ask for cut rates on degradation.
"This, for me, is one of the biggest human rights disasters on the planet,"
Malarek's says.
And, judging by his harsh numbers, it likely starts on your street.
Heh. You've not been able to scold anyone for - what - hours?
Go to it. It's not as if you need anyone else.
martin, where did you intend to list this topic? I'm sure it wasn't introductions. Let me know, I'll move it.
One in nine men FREQUENT prostitutes? :D
Wow. I'm so sure! :D
It was to be in body and soul. Thanks for moving it.
One out of nine? Maybe I'm just travelling in the wrong circles...or naive...or maybe Malarek is pulling numbers out of his ass.
I'd really like to see how he came about this number.
A considerable proportion of men worldwide buy sex from female prostitutes, with most estimates of lifetime prevalence ranging from 7 to 39 percent, depending on the country and study. Many experts argue that it is a male appetite-and not the choices of prostitutes-that fundamentally drives the sex trade."
Overall, an estimated 16 percent of men pay for sex in the U.S., according to a 2005 report by social work professor Sven-Axel Månsson of Malmö University in Sweden. And a study published in 2000 of 998 street prostitutes and 83 call girls in Los Angeles led by sociologist Janet Lever of California State University, Los Angeles, suggests that 28 percent of men who patronize prostitutes and nearly half of those who employ call girls buy sex regularly, with the rest being occasional customers.
The proportion of patrons seems to vary considerably by country and by study. Månsson reported that 14 percent of Dutch men have bought sex as compared with nearly 40 percent of men in Spain. (Prostitution is legal in both countries.)
And according to HYDRA, a Berlin-based organization that provides legal advice and other aid to prostitutes, up to three quarters of men in Germany, which also has legalized prostitution, have paid for sexual services. Meanwhile other estimates for Germany put the proportion far lower, at about one fifth. In Thailand, where prostitution is illegal but socially accepted, one study suggested that a whopping 95 percent of men have slept with a prostitute.
Whatever the numbers, the behavior is prevalent enough that psychologists cannot easily write it off as pathological. (...) ("Why Do Men Buy Sex?", Nikolas Westerhoff, Scientific American, December 2008)
Also: "Pimps and patrons : the "boys" in the business", in Roberta Perkins, Working girls : prostitutes, their life and social control, Australia Institute of Criminology, A quote:
"Just as the client views the prostitute as nothing more than a sexual object, so the sex worker feels no obligation to humanise her relations with her customer. Most prostitutes are contemptuous of their clients as men who are cheating on a woman, viz. their wives, fiances, girlfriends. This, coupled with the blatant objectification of prostitutes as women, the base unimaginative lust in most clients, and their folly in paying for sex, are the main reasons for a disdain felt by many prostitutes towards their customers, and is the source for the various terms for them in the prostitutes' argot. "Mug", for instance, among Australian prostitutes has roughly the same meaning as "sucker" in American slang. American prostitutes use the term "trick", alluding to clients' attempts at manipulating for free sex, and also "john" in reference to the clients attempts to conceal their true identity beneath a common pseudonym. English prostitutes call their clients "punters", with the same essential meaning as on the racetrack: that is, they gamble their money away. But these conceptual attempts at providing the prostitutes with a sense of superiority over their clients have an ironic ring. Society, with its male and morality dominated values, perceives the client's interaction with the prostitute as a sex object, his polygynous nature, and his open sexuality as "normal" behaviour, while the prostitutes' promiscuity, economic drive and control over sexual interactions is considered "abnormal". Thus, the client-prostitute relation is complex and contradictory."
If you start including the guys who pay for supper and a movie, hoping for nookie afterwards, I'll bet the numbers would skyrocket!
Good point Not just hoping, implicitly buying... and there is much unsaid violence when they are dissatisfied.
Their key issue seems to be control, avoiding any interaction where a woman's say would have to be taken into account. Two Montreal journalists - Catherine Texier and Marie-Odile Vézina - interviewed patrons in Profession: Prostituée: Rapport sur la prostitution au Québec, an early study of prostitution in Montreal. The men were adamant about their motivation: suppressing women's choice in the matter. Choosing impoverished women bought them guaranteed submission.
I don't have anything to add right now, but I'd like to get this post in here so there's no chance of me being the ninth guy to post to this thread.
Martin, have any studies been done regarding MSM sex workers, that is, men who have sex with men, both the clients and the sex workers, who many not identify as gay? Some of the issues may be the same from some of the workers' perspectives (poverty, youth, vulnerability), as well as men (clients) with certain levels of entitlement feeling that access to having sex with whomever they choose is their right. But other issues, such as sexism, misogyny, etc are not the same.
There is a film that is simmering on the back burner at NFB called "Hommes à louer", where Rodrigue Jean has interviewed at length male prostitutes in Montreal. The men interviewed say they despise their clients, speaking essentially of doing it to feed drug addictions. In that, they are similar to what most female workers are saying to researchers. I don't know enough documentation or research about what men who buy sex with men or sell it think and say to offer a summary other than cites such as those above. Feminists often tell me they would like to see allied men challenge men who buy women into dialogue about their values.
One in nine men hire prostitutes - Want to talk about it?
No. Next question?
I heard John Moore interviewing Victor Malarek on CFRB radio in Toronto. Malarek describes the men as coming from all walks of life. Many of the men are not those who one would think as lonely depressed individuals who can't get a date. Quite a few are "happily" married. He mentioned men who have wives whom they treat with respect (not including the cheatin'). Essentially, these men would not ask their wives to perform certain sex acts; they would ask/demand prostitutes to perform those same sex acts. There are men who prefer getting prostitutes because those men had bad relationships with women. Malarek described these men as being dangerous to the women.
Malarek's focus was on the men who look for sex. It will be interesting reading his book. I'm guessing that he will have a show on the same topic.
Well, maybe you don't, but someone here obviously needs to get something off his chest.
C'mon Marty, dish. We won't judge you.
I agree more attention should be focused on those who use prostitutes. Education campaigns are over due, and it's high time men themselves start to shift male attitudes concerning prostitution. However, criminalizing Johns is problematic for several reasons. Primarily, because this approach doesn't seem to work in any other facet of what we call "vice". And, it brings police in closer contact with the world of vice, which is good for no one.
Another problem where this focus could go very wrong is if it becomes seen as a panacea. There are many factors that lead to prostitution, some more significant than others. But all need attention.
The age gap between my eldest and youngest is 16 years. In those 16 years, I've seen the "Barbie Doll" transformed into "Bratz Dolls". While there used to be controversy around the emphasis on sexuality the now pedestrian "Barbie" portrayed, we now have a no holds barred doll that attempts to idealize modes of appearance that we'd usually associate with prostitutes.
And, if we take away the dolls, our kids can catch "Toddlers and Tiaras" on the missnomed "Learning Channel". When they aren't watching music videos of fetishly attired preformers whose musical talents are, in some cases, non existant. How many "Pussy Cat Dolls" actually sing? One, maybe? But it doesn't matter, as long as you can sell yourself sexually, you are a success!
This is what we are teaching our young women, and our young men about women.
When one takes a walk through the as yet politically unorganized neighborhoods to where the police have rousted prostitution, take your eyes off the ladies and the johns, and look around you. Check out the pay day loan places, the pawn shops, the tow trucks waiting for a call... for a tow?... in nieghborhoods where if one has a car, one fixes it yourself? One cannot have an industry without a supporting cast.
And we arrive at the part that substance abuse has in all this. And, it's nice to blame our Latin American friends for cocaine, or the nefarious biker gangs for crystal meth. But increasingly, you can thank big, untouchable pharma for niceties like Oxycontin, and our good friends at Health Canada that doesn't see that as a problem.
Yes, lets take a look at the whole neighbourhood.
I did catch an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras. I was horrified - it was like a train wreck, I couldn't turn away, and yet, it was so disgusting. Talk about a pedophile's dream, those contests. It's horrifying because those contests say explicitly to little girls what society tells them anyhow.
Is it that I am just getting old? I'm not sure. It seems to me the media has switched from conditioning women for a life in the home with the best detergents and vacuums, and conditioning men to expect that, to conditioning women for a life selling their bodies, and conditioning men to expect that.
No, it's not the premier cause of prostitution. In the scheme of things, it's maybe the least of our worries. But it disturbs me more than porn ever could. You still have to go out of your way a bit to see porn, and it has a taboo. This stuff is being main lined as "normal" straight to our kid's brains.
I don't know anything about the Pussy Cat Dolls, but the guy who writes The Superficial, which is something of an anti-celebrity celebrity site, calls them "strippers."
That goes the other way, too. Sometimes the guy pays for just dinner and and a couple of glasses of wine before being led by the hand. I find sometimes it's the woman who knows exactly what the new guy will be doing in about half an hour.
Frankly I do not see any difference. Because women knew full well after a day of cleaning and looking after the kids what her obligations were. Now they have just removed the tacit understanding and exposed it.
I am currently taking a law course and last night my studies involved contract law. It stated that prostitution is legal in Canada, but Cdn courts will not enforce contracts involving prostitution - because it falls under the definition of an "immoral act".
I was completely blown away by this. Who are the courts to define an immoral act if it is legal? On top of all the oppression mentioned in this thread, a prostitute cannot enforce a contract if a client refuses to pay.
I personally lean libertarian and believe that each person should be free to have complete ownership over their body (including prostitution and drugs), however I continue to be extremely disturbed about the mainstream messaging directed towards girls and women - which men also pick up on. Michelle, I saw that show on one evening and could not bear more than 1 minute of it. I was ready to cry and was wracking my brain about child protection legislation that could be applied to those parents.
martin, I think the study you are speaking of is very interesting and I would like to read more about it. We have to keep in mind that there is a wide variety of forms of prostutition - some which women choose and find empowering.
Wouldn't the corollary be the reason for the law -- so that Johns also cannot enforce a contract if a prostitute changes her/his mind after an agreement was reached?
If you are going to get into legalese, the problematization of "consent" in sexual assault cases becomes relevant here. Does money really change everything?
Is this a window into addressing why men want to buy sex?
sorry!
What's there to talk about? I don't see it as a problem.
That's kind of what I was getting at. To allow a sexual transaction to be enforced, on the grounds that it's a contract, would necessarily mean both parties to that contract would have the opportunity to enforce it. Based on that, I'm not sure that excluding prostitution from contract law disadvantages prostitutes as much as including it could.
Hardly. In the case of the john refusing to pay, he's received the service AND has refused to pay for it. In the case of the prostitute changing her mind, obviously, the john would not pay if she changed her mind about it.