Johns, Explained

Dunno exactly why an article that’s over a year old would appear on the front page of today’s (web) edition of The Times (UK), but there it was. And here it is: “Who pays for sex? You'd be surprised… More and more young men are choosing to visit prostitutes. One writer asks them why.” Excerpts:

Volumes of research have been published on trends among sex workers across the globe — studies on drug use, on the spread of STDs, on the impact of prostitution on society. Yet as a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2005 pointed out, “far less is known about the men who pay for sex”. That study found that the proportion of British men who reported paying for heterosexual sex had increased from 5.6 per cent in 1990 to 9 per cent in 2000. Of these, the largest group were in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, living in London and either single or divorced.

I realised that, as a single woman in her late twenties living in London, I am surrounded by this demographic. And given that a small but significant proportion of the men identified in the study were apparently upstanding types who slept with prostitutes in secret, I decided to see if I could persuade a few of them to confess.

[…]

The cold truth is that many men today, regardless of how eligible, rich and dashing they may be, don’t go to prostitutes because they can’t get laid. They go because, frankly, it’s an easier way of getting laid.

So, would I mind if my future husband admitted that in his past he had spent weekends in Amsterdam and Prague seeing prostitutes before we met? Probably. But again, is it really any worse than picking up a girl in a bar and lying his way into her pants simply because he was horny? Having been that girl, now I’m not entirely sure.

I jumped quite a bit in my selection of excerpts from the article, from early on in the piece to the author’s final conclusion. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in between, believe me. One should keep in mind that the article is primarily about British men and I suppose there may be differences, however slight, in the sexual behavior of British and American males. The first thing that comes to my mind is the Brits are generally much better-traveled than we Americans are, and are likely to have more opportunities to encounter the pay-for-play phenomenon. There are many references, for instance, of “adventures” in Amsterdam, which is only about a 45-minute flight from London…or a six to eight hour train/ferry/train ride. And, as we all know…Amsterdam is, or just might be, the World Capital of Professional Sex. And there isn't another city in the world that compares...with the possible exception of Bangkok (which is literally world's away from London. And the USofA.).

We Americans have a somewhat “unique” view (read that as: “puritanical”) on sex in general and prostitution, specifically. Having seen the way other cultures handle sex I’m of the opinion we could learn something from them…especially the Dutch. Control, and by that I mean the licensing, registration, and mandatory health check-ups for prostitutes, goes a long way to eliminating or minimizing the ills we traditionally and correctly associate with prostitution. Things like STDs, violence towards sex workers, and various and sundry other associated crimes and bad stuff (for lack of a better term). But that will never happen in America…at least not in MY lifetime. Well, outside of Nevada, anyway, which is our own lil great big Amsterdam (in terms of area, not volume or variety), as it were.

There’s always an exception to every rule.