In the UK, policing of prostitution targets sex workers far more often than punters. He had paid her but is stopped before any sexual acts can occur. She is Her right eye socket is heavily bruised. The would-be punter is in his late thirties. He is tanned and wears a peach polo shirt, blue shorts, white Havaianas flip-flops and a wedding ring. Sitting on the bonnet of his smart estate car, he is close to tears. As Jessica explains, there is no one type of man.
Black, white, thin, fat, young, old — all types. If prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, then punting is the oldest consumer activity. Yet it remains broadly unexamined, perhaps because the questions it raises — about male desire and power, about society — are too uncomfortable.
Instead, organisations that monitor prostitution, from the police to NGOs and feminist lobby groups, usually focus on the sex workers, whose situation is more easily categorisable. One view is that prostitutes are victims who need help to get off the streets. Others argue that many sex workers are empowered individuals exercising their autonomy and that they simply need greater legal rights. There are, of course, male and transsexual prostitutes and also women who buy sex, but as they are in the minority and present a different range of problems, male punters are the focus of this article.
The motivations behind paying for sex are varied and various; the punting community is a wide one, as is that of the estimated , sex workers in the UK — most of whom work indoors rather than on the streets. Who are the men who pay for sex with women in Britain? Research is thin. Eaves, a charity that supports women at risk of violence, is one of the few organisations that has conducted a study of punters.
Men Who Buy Sex: Who They Buy and What They Know , published in , was based on interviews with men in London who had paid for sex with trafficked and non-trafficked prostitutes.
