Good morning
@Jason55 ,
As mentioned in post #19 above, I did a literature review in an attempt to answer your question :"are the majority of people who see sex workers married?" For the researcher, the main challenge in locating relevant studies is the inconsistent terminology that is used across disciplines that study sex workers and their clients, and this terminology tends to vary across specializations and ideological bent. Although reasonable efforts were made to find all relevant articles to the search criteria, I do not claim that this search is comprehensive.
Methods
The JSTOR database of scholarly articles was interrogated with the following search terms: "men who purchase sex", "men who buy sex", "clients of prostitutes", "clients of sex workers", "john school". The publication period was restricted to 2010-2026. Relevant articles among the search results were identified manually, and those containing a demographic survey of clients including marital status were retained. Location of the study population was restricted to North America, Europe and Australia.
Results
Four (4) studies that met the search criteria were found. Across those studies, the percentage of married or partnered clients was in the range 43-66%. A summary of those studies is provided below:
- Jones, Z; Hannem, S. Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts and Constructions of Intimacy in Commodified Sexual Relationships. Symbolic Interaction 2018, 41, 488
- Sample size: 14
- Country: Canada
- Percentage married: 43%
- Method of recruitment: ad on a local escort review board
- Method of data gathering: interview
- van Hoof, J.; Hammond, N. This Is Me, This Is What I Am, I Am a Man”: The Masculinities of Men Who Pay for Sex with Women. The Journal of Sex Research, 2020, 57, 650
- Sample size: 35
- Country: UK
- Percentage married: 54%
- Method of recruitment: posting a message on an online commercial sex message board, supplemented by an article in the local paper
- Method of data gathering: interview
- Farley, M; Macleod, J,; Anderson, L.; Golding, J. M. Attitudes and Social Characteristics of Men Who Buy Sex in Scotland. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 2011, 3, 369.
- Sample size: 110
- Country: UK (Scotland)
- Percentage married: 47%
- We recruited interviewees by running an advertisement in a Glasgow newspaper that read: “Ever been a client of a prostitute? International research team would like to hear your views. Hono
rarium will be paid. Confidentiality guaranteed.”
- Method of data gathering: interview
- Milrod, C; Monto, M. A.; The Hobbyist and the Girlfriend Experience: Behaviors and Preferences of Male Customers of Internet Sexual Service Providers.Deviant Behavior, 2012, 33, 792.
- Sample size: 584
- Country: US
- Percentage married: 66%
- Method of recruitment: The review board TER. Participants were solicited during a 30-day period through an invitational posting placed by the first author every seven days on the 43 discussion boards of the review site. Requests for participation contained relevant information as to the purpose of the study and a request for those interested to send a private message (PM) through the site’s Private Mail system. Respondents were motivated to participate largely by curiosity and by courtesy toward the first author who had obtained written consent from the review site administrators, and who provided psychosexual advice anonymously pro bono for three years under the username ‘‘The Love Goddess’’ on one of the website’s discussion boards.
- Method of data gathering: survey
Discussion
"The barriers to sex work research are now well versed and include issues such as the stigma attached to its subject matter, participant desire for anonymity, the perceived dangerousness of participants, problems with ethical approval, access, recruitment, stereotypes and researcher safety" (van Hoof, J.; Hammond, N, cited above) "The majority of sex work research focuses on sex workers or service providers (SPs) rather than clients. [...] In the past two decades, researchers from a variety of disciplines including sexual
ity, gender, and masculinity studies , criminal justice sociology and psychology have attempted to address the dearth of literature on sex work clients. [...] Although there is a strong, if relatively small, body of literature on clients from which to draw, much of the research investigates clients through online observation or
survey research" (Jones, Hannem, cited above).
Conclusion
The available recent (2010-2026) literature indicates that 43-66% of clients of sex workers are married or partnered. The data should be interpreted with caution due to small sample size and recruitment difficulties. In addition the period surveyed precedes the pandemic and may fail to capture the recent popularity of dating apps, which have significantly altered relationships and socialization and mating patterns. Additional research is needed to determine if these social shifts have modified the demographic characteristics of clients.
Voluntary disclosure by the author: no artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used in the literature review or in the writing of this post.
