Sex in Cyberspace Men Who Pay For Sex

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 Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Glossary ix

1 Men, Sex Work and Society 1

2 Researching Sex in Cyberspace 17

3 Bodies for Hire 35

4 Intimacy, Emotion and Romance 51

5 Sexual Pleasure and Erotic Performance 67

6 Doing the Business 81

7 Health, Risk and Sex Work 97

Bibliography 115
Index 129
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 Acknowledgements

We would like to thank everybody who has encouraged us with this project or read
drafts of earlier chapters: in particular, Gayle Letherby, Carl May and Cathy Lloyd.
We would also like to thank our publisher and editors for their patience and for their
support.
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 Glossary

69 Simultaneous fellatio and cunnilingus

A/A-levels Anal sex
Anal Using the rectum for sexual intercourse
Around the world Kissing the entire body before sex
AW0 Anal without a condom
Bareback Sex without a condom
BBBJ Bareback blow job
BJ Blow job Fellatio
Blow job The act of oral intercourse
Bring off Ejaculation in the male
Brown To perform anal intercourse
CIM Come in mouth
Clit The clitoris
Completion Orgasm; OWO to completion means until you cum
Cowgirl Position for sexual intercourse – man on back, woman on
top
Covered With a condom
Cum Semen
Doggie style Position for sexual intercourse – woman on her knees,
man entering from behind
Eat To perform oral intercourse
Facial Ejaculate over person’s face
Fanny Vagina; pussy; cunny; quim
FR Field report, a written report of an experience with a sex
worker by a client
French French sex; fellatio
FS Sometimes means full sex/sexual intercourse but
sometimes means full service
Full service Generally means sexual intercourse with oral sex
Full sex Vaginal intercourse
FWO French without (a condom); OWO; BBBJ
GFE The sex worker providing a girlfriend type experience
Give head To perform oral intercourse
Go down on To perform oral intercourse
Hand job Masturbation
Hobby The ‘hobby’ is punting
Hobbyist Euphemism for a man who frequents sex workers
Horny Sexually aroused; passionate
HR Hand relief; same as HJ
Incall Where the client visits the sex worker. Opposite of outcall
Jack off/jerk off To masturbate
Lay To perform sexual intercourse
x Sex in Cyberspace
Load The fluid from an ejaculation
Massage parlour Usually a brothel
MFS Massage and full sex
Mish Missionary position
O/O-levels Oral sex
Old dirt road Using the anus for intercourse
Oral Oral sex; fellatio; cunnilingus
Outcall Where the sex worker visits client’s home or hotel.
Opposite of incall
OWO Oral without (a condom); FWO; BBBJ
Pearl necklace This is where you ejaculate over a woman’s breasts/
shoulders/neck
Pro A prostitute/sex worker
Provider A prostitute/sex worker
Punter A prostitute’s/sex worker’s client
Reverse Means the opposite way round to that which is most
common between a sex worker and her client. For
example, ‘reverse oral’ means cunnilingus and ‘reverse
massage’ means the client massaging the sex worker
Rim/rimming When one person licks and kisses their partner’s anus like
oral sex on a female, except to the anus instead of the
vagina
Rubber A condom
Russian A tit fuck
Sandwich Another term for DP
Sixty-nine Genital oral intercourse performed on each other
simultaneously by two partners
Spoons A position for sexual intercourse – both partners lying on
their side, with the man behind the woman
Straight sex Vaginal intercourse
Suck off To perform oral intercourse on the penis
Swallows Means that ejaculate is swallowed
SWO Sex without (a condom); BBF
Tongue (verb) To perform oral intercourse
Uncovered Without a condom
VFM Value for money
Walk-up Type of establishment common in Soho. A walk-up has
an open door leading into a flat (or two or three).
Advertised mainly by means of a note by the entrance
saying ‘model’ and usually giving some details
WG Working girl; prostitute; escort; sex worker
With Often means ‘with a condom’
Without Often means ‘without a condom’
Working girl Sex worker or prostitute

Source: Adapted from www.punternet.com

 Chapter 1

Men, Sex Work and Society

Men who Pay for Sex

It is commonly said that ‘prostitution’ is one of the ‘oldest professions’ and if

this cliché is to be believed, then there must, also, be a long history of those who
have been willing to pay for sex. Whilst not suggesting that sex work is a single
trans-historical and trans-cultural activity (Scambler and Scambler, 1997) it seems
fair to argue that within contemporary western societies, paying for sex is both a
discreditable and a discrediting activity and those involved in selling sex, or indeed
those involved in any aspect of the sex industry, are on the whole considered deviant
(Sharp and Earle, 2003).
Whilst there is a considerable body of literature dealing with the experiences
of female and male sex workers (Walkowitz, 1980; Chapkis, 1997; McKeganey
and Barnard, 1997; Sanders, 2005), there exists comparatively little research on
men who pay for sex, particularly within the context of the United Kingdom (UK).
Indeed, Perkins (1991) has estimated that less than 1 per cent of all studies of sex
work focus on men who pay for sex. The reasons for this are obvious.
Firstly, it is the women who sell sex that have been traditionally perceived as
‘the problem’, rather than her pimps or punters. Historical analyses of sex work
show that it is women who have been, and still are, subject to surveillance and
regulation. As such, female sex workers have become the most visible within both
lay and professional discourses on sex work (Weitzer, 2000). Secondly, and with
notably few exceptions, paying for sex remains amongst the most discreditable and
potentially stigmatising of activities in which men can engage within the modern
western world, and elsewhere. Also, although sex workers are easily located – on
the streets, in parlours or walk ups, via calling-cards left in telephone booths and,
more recently, on the net – in contrast, men who pay for sex are less readily located
and it has been difficult for researchers to find men willing to participate in social
research. The research that has been carried out in the UK has tended to rely either
on self-selecting samples – such as men who answer newspaper advertisements – or
those recruited through departments of genito-urinary medicine (GUM). In other
countries different methods have been used and these are discussed more fully in
the next Chapter; for example, Monto’s (2000) study of men who pay for sex in the
United States relied on a rehabilitation programme for ‘Johns’. The limitations of
each of these approaches are readily apparent.
The research which forms the basis of this book takes a different approach.
Instead of relying on finding samples of men willing to speak of their encounters, it
2 Sex in Cyberspace
is based on a study of a British internet site – PunterNet.com – containing reviews
(or ‘Field Reports’) of men’s sexual encounters with female sex workers. We define
this as a type of covert cyber-ethnography and as Fox and Roberts suggest ‘just
as a traditional ethnographer would document a community or other cultural form
... so cyber-ethnographers will document a virtual social world’ (1999, p.650).
PunterNet invites reviews of commercial (predominantly hetero) sex between
adults or what Scambler (1997) describes as ‘voluntary adult sex work’. It does
not include accounts of sex work on the streets and it must be recognized that there
are likely to be considerable differences between so-called ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’
sex work (Plumridge, 2001). Previous research suggests that outdoor sex workers
are more likely to experience physical and sexual assault from punters, are more
likely to be under the surveillance and regulation of the police, and most likely
work for lower wages than the majority of indoor sex workers. There is also some
evidence to suggest that outdoor sex workers are more likely to practise unsafe sex
with clients, and more likely to use drugs. We also acknowledge that other forms
of sex work exist including that which is coerced and that involving children. For
example, Brown’s (2000) harrowing account of trafficking in Asia depicts stories of
sexual slavery in which girls and young women are bought, sold and kept prisoner
often until such time as they die of HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, alcoholism or other
diseases of poverty. Brown states:

All over the world women are sold, tricked, forced or lured into prostitution. They are
incarcerated in brothels and girls who are little more than children are compelled to
service innumerable clients. They are unable to refuse the customers and unable to escape
from brothels that are nothing but prisons (Brown, 2000, p.1).

Malarek’s (2003) text also describes the experiences of the nameless ‘Natashas’;
young women smuggled out of Eastern Europe under false promises of employment
as nannies, models or domestics in other countries, only to find, however, that
they have been trafficked into sex work and that they ‘owe’ money which they are
unlikely ever to be able to repay. Jeffreys (1997) also provides a useful historical
and political overview of the global trafficking of women. However, the remit of
this book does not extend to such forms of trafficking and sexual slavery, as far
as we are aware. The more specialist markets of bondage, domination, discipline
and correction are also not represented here although some of the men described
within this book do occasionally refer to engaging in role play and uniforms. We also
acknowledge that other scholars do not accept the distinction between the different
forms of sex work that we have identified here. For example, in a critical account of
the role of non-governmental organisations in condemning violence against women,
Raymond argues:

The philosophy that prostitution is a human right has been advanced in international
forums ... by drawing distinctions between forced and free, adult and child, third world
and first world prostitution, and between prostitution and trafficking. These distinctions
are then used to make some forms of prostitution acceptable and legitimate, revising the
 Men, Sex Work and Society 3
harm that is done to women in prostitution into a consenting act and excluding prostitution
from the category of violence against women. The sex industry thrives on this language
and these distinctions (Raymond, 1998, p.1).

Leaving these debates to one side for a moment, we argue that paying for sex is,
potentially, a deeply discrediting activity for men, not only in terms of risk to social
identity but in relation to the risk to self-identity. Within this context, ‘risk’ therefore
takes one of two forms. First is the obvious risk of being seen in a ‘red light zone’
or caught paying for sex. We know very little about the men who pay for sex – or
the punters – in the UK or, indeed, elsewhere. Confidential questionnaires used in
the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Johnson and Mercer, 2001)
reported that nearly 9 per cent of men in London had paid-for sex and that these were
aged between 16 and 44 years, with a nationwide figure of 4.3 per cent. Wellings
et al., (1994) have argued that men are more likely to visit a sex worker as they get
older and state that over 10 per cent of the male population aged 45-59 years old
admit to buying sex. It would also appear that many punters have wives, partners, or
girlfriends and would not wish their activities to become known to them (McKeganey
and Barnard, 1996). Hester and Westmarland (2004) have suggested that the typical
client is married. The second risk threatens a core feature of an assumed hegemonic
heterosexual masculinity – namely, that men are sexually attractive to women and
capable of attracting women as sexual partners. Rightly, or wrongly, an obvious
implication of paying for sex is precisely that a man is incapable of attracting women
in this way. Given these considerable risks, the way that men present themselves in
cyberspace offers an opportunity to examine the way in which men who pay for sex
manage their engagement in deviance and (potentially) deviant sexual identities.

Sex Work and the Regulation of the Female Body

Sex work is unique in that it has been seen both to constitute a social problem and
to be the solution to a social problem. Historically, and to date, sex work has been
associated with the transmission of illness and disease. It has also been seen as a
utilitarian outlet for men’s sexual ‘frustrations’, without which such frustrations
would otherwise lead to the rape of ‘innocent’ women and children. Within some
contexts it has also served the purpose of the sexual initiation of young men and
others with whom ‘nice’, ‘normal’ women would not wish to have sex (for example,
the ugly, the impaired or the very old). As Wilton argues, ‘prostitution’ has been
described in many ways:

a pathology, a disorder of sexual function ... a form of or consequence of intellectual

impairment .... a criminal activity ... or a form of immorality ... as ‘foul sewers’ ... ‘seminal
drains’ ... or bridgeheads of HIV infection (Wilton, 1999, p.189).

The regulation of women’s sexuality, particularly the regulation of the bodies of

female sex workers is long-standing (O’Neill, 2001). There are many examples of
4 Sex in Cyberspace
this in recorded history, some of them in the distant past, such as the regulation
of medieval brothels (Mazo-Karras, 1989), others more recent, for example, the
regulation of women in tolerance zones in the Netherlands (see, for example,
Drobler, 1991).
In an account of women’s sexuality in Somerset, England in the early Seventeenth
Century, Quaife (1979) outlines the regulation of women’s sexuality outside of
marriage. All but monogamous married women could be defined as ‘unruly women’;
these included the ‘wayward widows’, the ‘consenting spinsters’, the ‘adulterous
wife’, and the ‘prostitute’. According to Quaife the promiscuous activity of these
women was widespread and could fall into any one of four categories. Firstly, there
was the ‘vagrant whore’ – a woman of little means who wandered from parish to
parish soliciting wherever she could. Secondly, Quaife refers to the ‘public whore’,
who operated from a particular inn or bawdy house. The third category was the
‘private whore’ who gave her services to one or two men over a specific period of
time, before moving on. The fourth type was the ‘village whore’, ‘who ranged from
the slut to the almost respectable protector of the chastity and fidelity of other village
women’ (p.146). We can see here some parallels with different forms of contemporary
sex work: street work, escort work, and work in parlours, walk-ups and saunas. We
can also see parallels with the contemporary double standard of sexual behaviour
for men and women. As Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe and Thomson state ‘... the
same sexual attitudes, desires and behaviour by men and by women have different
meanings, resulting in different sexual reputations’ (1998, p.173). For example, in
their study of young people, heterosexuality and power, one young woman is quoted
as saying ‘If you sleep around you’re a slag, if a bloke sleeps around he’s lucky’.
And, as they rightly note, whilst this double standard distinguishes between what
is appropriate both for men and women, it is really the behaviour of women that is
harshly judged.
Studies of sex work in the Eighteenth Century also show parallels between
women working as ‘prostitutes’ and other women. Henderson’s (1999) account of
prostitution in London, for example, suggests that women moved fairly seamlessly
between prostitution and other forms of low status work. He details the relentless
policing and regulation of female prostitutes, both on the streets and in brothels.
For example, around 1735, local watch committees were established with the
purpose of regulating street prostitutes. Henderson’s work shows, however, two very
distinct images of prostitution in the Eighteenth Century. The first image depicts
the prostitute as an agent of destruction who, through her actions, was able to foul
society, ‘spreading physical ruin and moral disintegration’ (pp.166-7). In the second
image, which is the direct reverse of this, the prostitute is seen as victim and her entry
into prostitution and her decision to remain there are presented as involuntary.
In Acton’s (1972) work on prostitution in the late Nineteenth Century, first
published in 1870, distinction is also made between two different types of prostitute.
The first class of women he describes as the ‘kept mistresses’ – ‘a more reserved
class of prostitutes’ (p.1). The second class he describes as ‘common street-walkers’.
 Men, Sex Work and Society 5
According to Acton, prostitution was ineradicable and he believed that English
society should embrace the prevention and regulation of prostitution.
As part of this prevention and regulation, the Contagious Diseases Act, operating
in Garrison towns, allowed a justice of the peace to detain a ‘common prostitute’
(the definition of which was much debated) and subject her to periodical medical
examination for the purpose of ascertaining whether she was infected with contagious
disease. Beds were secured at the Victorian Lock Hospitals with the objective of
treatment, as well as moral and religious instruction. In a visit to one such hospital,
Acton concludes that: ‘Their disease appears to be entirely local, both in origin
and character. It arises, as I believe, in the great majority of cases, simply from the
continual irritation and excitement of the generative organs consequent upon their
mode of life, although it may be caused, no doubt, occasionally by direct contagion
from urethral discharges in the male’ (p.86). Here we have an example of the way in
which the female prostitute was firmly believed to be the source of contagion, and
the regulation of female sexuality, rather than male desire, was the norm.
In an account of prostitution during the First World War, a similar picture is
depicted. Writing about the increasing dangers of prostitution during this time and
the inevitability of male sexual desire and promiscuity, Fischer and Dubois suggest:

Indeed, the only effective way of obviating the danger inherent in casual sexual contacts
would have been, as someone has ironically observed, to castrate every soldier before
putting him into uniform. But to examine this more or less jocular argument – and this
does not mean that we ourselves are treating the subject in that spirit – this solution would
have been disastrous, for eunuchs are not exactly ideal warriors. Warriors and male are
two inseparable concepts, and the term male necessarily implies sexual activity (Fischer
and Dubois, 1937, p.323).

Whilst we have but offered a flavour of the history of sex work here, we can see
how sex work has been understood as both a ‘necessary evil’ and a social, legal and
medical problem. Public concerns have centred on the regulation of women and
women’s sexuality, rather than on male desire and demand. Thus, the men who pay
for sex have remained largely invisible within the literature and within the history
of sex work.

Prostitution, or ‘Sex “Work”’?

Considerable attention has been given in recent years to the status and definition of
sex work. There is extensive literature dealing with this issue, which we believe is
best understood and described as the continuum of sex/work/abuse. Three questions
are central to this continuum: Is sex work ‘just sex’? Is sex work ‘ordinary’ work?
Or, is sex work an abuse of women? Whilst there is no consensus on the nature of
sex work, we briefly outline some of the debates below.
6 Sex in Cyberspace
Is Sex Work ‘Just Sex’?

It is widely accepted within sex research today that sex is not a ‘natural’ act (Tiefer,
1995) but one that must be understood within a sociocultural context. This context
determines what counts as sex and the meanings we attribute to where, when, why,
how and with whom one has sex. We could argue that sex work is ‘just sex’, except
that women are getting paid for it. This argument has two main advantages. Firstly, it
serves to deconstruct the false dichotomy between ‘normal’, as opposed to ‘abnormal’
sexual behaviour and, for this, read consensual non-commercial heterosex in contrast
to commercial sex. Consequently, this serves to destigmatize sex workers and the
men who pay for sex. Prior research on the dominant discourses around consensual
non-commercial heterosex suggests that three discourses are especially apparent:
male sexual drive discourse, a permissive discourse, and a discourse of reciprocity
(Gavey, McPhillips and Braun, 1999; Braun, Gavey and McPhillips, 2003). These
discourses are echoed within men’s accounts of paying for sex.
Secondly, if we argue that sex work is just sex then we recognize the power
relations inherent in all sexual contracts. The research by Holland, Ramazanoglu,
Sharpe and Thomson (1998), for example, clearly shows the playing out of power
and control in the sexual relationships of young women and men. Indeed, it has
been argued that sex work is one of the few social contexts in which women, rather
than men, are able to negotiate the terms of their sexual encounters (Warr and Pyett,
1999). However, research on sex workers and first person accounts of sex work
are mixed. Whilst for some women sex work is just like any other kind of sex, for
others sex work is very different to the private sex of their non-commercial intimate
relationships.

Is Sex Work Ordinary ‘Work’?

In the 1970s, pro-prostitution prostitutes’ rights organisations began to promote the

idea that prostitution was work, and should be seen as such. Organisations, such as
the American COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), argued that being paid for
an hour of sexual services was no different to being paid for an hour’s typing. The
idea of sex work as ordinary work has developed considerable currency since then.
Chapkis (1997, p.76), for example, argues: ‘Once sex and emotion have been stripped
of their unique relationship to nature and the self, it no longer automatically follows
that their alienation or commodification is simply and necessarily destructive’. For
Pheterson (1996) the promotion of sex work as work serves to counter the ‘whore
stigma’ which has shaped and defined women who sell sex as dirty and bad. More
recently, Brewis and Linstead have argued:

Many responses to prostitution have tended to focus on the sex aspect rather than the
work aspect, which constructs prostitution as a personal quality, part of the identity of the
individual ... we view prostitution as a work activity, as a job that people do, alongside
many other more ‘normal’ activities which are not held to be definitive of their identity ...
 Men, Sex Work and Society 7
Sex work is work and needs to be seen as such. It is economically and socially important
to all of the societies in which it occurs (Brewis and Linstead, 2002, p.309).

It follows then, that within this context, sex work is just a job like any other and sex
workers are like any other employees. Thus, sex workers should be entitled to the
same rights and legal protection afforded to workers within other industries. Pyle
(2001) notes that increasing numbers of women have migrated domestically and
internationally in order to earn money within a largely restructured global economy.
In her analysis of gendered global production networks she compares the numbers
of women who have become sex workers, maids or domestics and argues that the
growth of women in such networks is characterized by considerable risk and lack of
security. Moreover, she argues that the development and maintenance of gendered
global production networks is in the interests of many governments.
Many writers, activists and researchers would agree that sex work is work.
Most importantly, women working in the sex industry use the language of trade and
commerce to describe what they do when they exchange sex for money; they refer
to sex work as the ‘business’ and to men who pay for sex as ‘clients’ or ‘punters’.
Indeed, Mistress L, a London sex worker states:

Sex work is one of the few industries where women can earn far in excess of their male
cohorts and this fact alone can make it very empowering for women. It offers them
flexible hours, excellent money in a safe and female-friendly environment (Mistress L,
2001, p.148).

Is Sex Work an Abuse of Women?

Whilst the debate on sex work has changed over the years, and continues to evolve,
for some writers their standpoint on the sex/work/abuse continuum, in favour of an
approach which defines all sex work as abuse, is definitive and immovable. Many
of the more recent texts have developed such a standpoint on the basis of research
focusing on the trafficking of women and children across international borders.
Jeffreys, for example, makes her position clear when she argues that ‘prostitution’
is, universally, ‘a form of brutal cruelty on the part of men that constitutes a violation
of women’s human rights, wherever and however it takes place’ (1997, p.348).
However, whilst Jeffreys’ work is convincing in places it is, like the work of some
other writers, based on political conviction rather than empirical evidence; we are
not convinced that such a universal position on sex work can be defended as there
are many women working in different parts of the sex industry and for different
reasons and, thus, the empirical evidence is mixed. Even first person accounts of sex
work, such as that of Martina Keogh (2003) – which portrays a harrowing account
of neglect, abuse and ‘prostitution’ in Dublin – do not depict sex work in the uni-
dimensional way that writers such as Jeffreys, and others, would have us believe.
Others writers present a less monolithic perspective on sex work. Wood (2000),
for example, whilst still maintaining a standpoint which defines sex work as abuse,
8 Sex in Cyberspace
argues that power needs to be understood as a contested and negotiated resource
which is enacted through interaction.
It is also worth considering the perspective put forward by Malarek who suggests
that women who have been trafficked cannot always be easily distinguished from
those who have not: ‘To the casual observer, they blend in seamlessly with the
women who have chosen to exchange money for sex’ (2003, pp.3-4). Here, at least,
Malarek acknowledges the possibility of difference between women who have been
trafficked, and other women who might choose to earn a living selling sex. Whilst we
suspect that the majority of women depicted in men’s cyber accounts have chosen to
work in this industry, we cannot categorically rule out the possibility that some of
these women have not.
What is essentially at stake is the question of women’s agency. As Simmons
(1998) suggests whether one believes that sex work is an occupational choice, or,
a non-consensual one is based on the level of analysis adopted. At one level, if sex
work is defined and understood as ordinary work then sex workers are perceived
as choosing to work in this industry: arguably, such proponents are concerned with
the choices of individual women. However, if one believes that sex work is an
abuse, then all women who work in this industry are compelled to do so by social
circumstance. At this level, such proponents are concerned with the institution of
‘prostitution’, rather than the act itself.

Men, Masculinity and Self-Identity

A Reflexive Project of the Self

The literature on self-identity is vast and varied. We do not attempt a comprehensive

discussion of this here but only review that which is most relevant for our immediate
purposes. We begin with a review of the subject provided by Jenkins (1996) who
makes a valid point when he suggests that the concept of self-identity is constituted
of two distinct features: process and reflexivity. His discussion of these leads him to
propose the following definition of self-identity as:

an individual’s reflexive sense of her or his own particular identity, constituted vis à vis
others ... without which we would not know who we are and hence would not be able to
act (Jenkins, 1996, pp.29-30).

If we accept his definition then we accept that self-identity develops through

interaction between self and others. In doing so we should therefore consider two
fundamental premises: (1) the extent to which self-identity is a continuously revised
phenomenon, and (2) the extent to which the individual is actively engaged in its
construction. According to the first premise, the construction of self-identity has no
‘end’; that is, self-identity is continuously revised (Marshall, 1996). Subsequently,
one must also assume that self-identity is constructed rather than pre-given, or fixed.
Giddens’ (1991) concept of ontological security also contributes to an understanding