A Comparison of the Male Customers of Female Street Prostitutes With National Samples of Men

Abstract

Previous research on customers of prostitutes has relied on small samples and qualitative interviews. Conceptions of customers have tended toward either the "every man" perspective, which implies customers are no different than other men, or the "peculiar man" perspective, which implies customers are characterized by stark differences or psychological inadequacies. This study compares a large sample of men (N = 1672) arrested for trying to hire street prostitutes with nationally representative samples of men. Customers were less likely to be married, less likely to be happily married if married, and more likely to report being unhappy in general than men in the national samples. Customers also expressed greater sexual liberalism and reported thinking about sex, masturbating, and participating in other aspects of the sex industry more frequently than men in general. Most differences were small, indicating customers as a category differ from other men in degree rather than quality.

Men procuring sexual services from women: everyman or peculiar man?

“…When the clusters were mapped onto characteristics, a lack of deviance was indicated. This was suggestive of support for the everyman perspective as opposed to peculiar man perspective 8 . Markers of good functioning included an almost total absence of criminal convictions, only a very small proportion reporting that criminalising procurement would increase their sexual arousal, and procurers most commonly presenting in a professional, white collar or skilled employment group, a finding consistent with previous research 14,13 .…”

“I Wanted to Feel Like a Man Again”: Hegemonic Masculinity in Relation to the Purchase of Street-Level Sex

“…Such studies are important for emphasizing the role of gender in shaping men's motivations and experiences (Monto and McRee, 2005;Joseph and Black, 2012). This shifts the emphasis away from psychological reasons for purchasing sex toward a broader understanding of how social context produces genderbased norms and inequalities.…”

Risky Pleasures

“…The early 20th-century view based on the natural male sexual drive and the psychopathological model proposed by Charles Winick (1962) who linked men's desire for sex workers as a sign of mental disorder has largely been abandoned by scholars in light of current empirical literature which suggest that men who purchase commercial sex are "normal" "everyday" men spread throughout all social groups with little distinguishing characteristics (Monto & Milrod, 2013;Monto & McRee, 2005;McKeganey & Barnard, 1996;Serughetti, 2013). Studies relying solely on street-level sex workers have been challenged not providing a complete picture of the experiences of sex workers (Weitzer, 2005), resulting in greater interest on the less visible sectors (indoor mid-tier and high-end) of the sex trade.…”