Why men use prostitutes
Posted by Shy Lily | Filed under Weblog,
The reasons why many men pay for sex are revealed in the interviews that make up a major new piece of research: The Guardian
An upcoming new law will make it illegal for men to pay for sex with a trafficked or pimped woman – and a punter’s ignorance of a woman’s circumstances will be no defence. Critics have suggested that this is unfair, that a man can’t possibly know whether a woman is being exploited. Our interviews challenged this notion. The men knew, to some extent, about abuse and coercion in prostitution – they weren’t operating under the convenient illusion that women enter the trade because they love sex. More than half admitted that they either knew or believed that a majority of women in prostitution were lured, tricked or trafficked.
Although some of the men said they thought the women they bought enjoyed the sex, many others admitted that they thought the women would be feeling “disgusted”, “miserable”, “dirty” and “scared”. Ahmed said he thought the woman might feel “relief that I’m not going to kill her”.
Only 6% of the men we spoke to had been arrested for soliciting prostitutes. “Deterrents would only work if enforced,” said one. “Any negative would make you reconsider. The law’s not enforced now, but if any negative thing happened as a consequence it would deter me.” Perhaps the new law will make Albert think twice about paying for sex. He told me, “If I’d get in trouble for doing it, I wouldn’t do it. In this country, the police are fine with men visiting prostitutes.”
