Commercial sex, clients, and Christian morals: Paying for sex in Ireland

Abstract

This article reports on the results of a study on men who pay for sex across Ireland. In presenting a detailed picture of the diverse group of sex workers’ clients, their motives and attitudes, we debunk the prevalent stereotypes about men who pay for sex, as continuously used in the public discourse about sex work on both sides of the Irish border: we show that the majority of clients do not fit the image of violent, careless misogynists. We argue that these debates about commercial sex as well as the experiences of those who pay for sex are shaped and nurtured by the specific local context, by conservative Christian morals and the dominant sex-negative culture across Ireland. Finally, we argue that the criminalization of paying for sex which came into effect in Northern Ireland in 2015 and is being discussed in the Republic of Ireland will likely not stop the majority of clients from paying for sex and thus fail to achieve its aim to reduce or abolish sex work.

The “Sociological Equation”: Intersections Between Street Sex Workers’ Agency and Their Theories about Their Customers

“…Findings that customers are disproportionately White and middle class are consistent across Anglo-American jurisdictions (Atchison, 2010;Birch, 2015;Groom & Nandwani, 2006;Huschke & Schubotz, 2016;Lowman & Atchison, 2006), suggesting that, when articulated with worker demographics, matters of race and class are salient in sex work transactions. Studies of customer motivation, beginning with Winick's (1962) early work, however, focused almost exclusively on the psychology of the customer, including their interest in particular sex acts (Atchison, 2010;Blevins & Holt, 2009;Faugier & Cranfield., 1995;Schrage, 1992).…”

Retóricas sobre el cliente del sexo de pago en el espacio público. Alianzas en torno a la trata de seres humanos.

“…Como advertí más arriba, los estudios de carácter científico o académico en torno a la figura específica del cliente son relativamente recientes, tanto a nivel internacional como en el ámbito español. Si bien, en el caso de aquéllos, encontramos valiosas aportaciones desde el punto de vista empírico (Bouamama, 2004;Farley et al, 2009;Farley et al, 2011;Huschke & Schubotz, 2016;Legardinier y Bouamama, 2006;Xantidis & McCabe, 2000), me centraré en los aportes específicos referidos al contexto sociocultural español, habida cuenta de la dificultad de trasladar resultados entre marcos socioculturales, normativos o políticos tan dispares. En general, las investigaciones que tratan sobre el cliente, bien de manera específica o como parte de trabajos más generales sobre prostitución, suelen incorporar un enfoque taxonómico, tratando de obtener perfiles de los diferentes tipos de clientes, con un marcado interés clasificador y mediante criterios dispares: los factores motivacionales para adquirir sexo comercial (López y Baringo, 2006;Meneses, 2010), actitudes observables respecto a la consideración que tienen de las trabajadoras (Solana, 2003), los paradigmas discursivo de los clientes en torno a diferentes cuestiones relacionadas con la prostitución (Goḿez y Peŕez, 2009; Goḿez y otros, 2015; Meneses, Uroz y Rua, 2018), etc.…”

Enhancing the study of sex work

“…The journal has showcased seldom aired research on BDSM (Lindemann, 2011) and professional dominatrix work (Pinsky and Levey, 2015), transgendered identities (Ocha and Earth, 2013) as well as men who have sex with men in a commercial context (Atkins and Laing, 2012; Hall, 2007; Smith, 2012). Encouraging the reader to think about the buyer of sex rather than the usual focus on the seller, Rivers-Moore (2012) takes us on a trip to the Costa Rican sex tourism industry, Huschke and Schubotz (2016) reflect on the influence of Christian morality on the legal changes that make it a crime to pay for sex in Ireland, whilst Liddiard (2014) reveals the stories of men with disabilities as they experience the realities of gendered intimacies and pleasure. Sexualities (italicise) has been pivotal in enabling these mirco studies to show diversity in experience and identities.…”