1. Dr Teela Sanders University of Leeds t.l.m.sanders@leeds.ac.uk
The Complexities of Supply & Demand: Intimacy, Sexual Labour & Commerce
Dr Teela Sanders
University of Leeds 1

2. Drawing on sociological studies
Ten month study
Observations and interviews in brothels, street, escorts in UK
300 people across industry
What are risks?
How are they managed?
Sex as ‘work’ – what this means ? 2

3. Other side of the coin… Interviews with 50 men Self selecting sample
Observations of Internet message boards
Motivations, Experiences, Meanings, Understandings of Buying sex 3

4. Is the oldest profession the most adaptable?
“Why is it that a practice so thoroughly disapproved, so widely outlawed in Western civilization, can yet flourish so universally?’
(Davis, 1938:744)
American Sociological Review 4

5. Outline of presentation
The law, informal economies and criminalisation
UK policy – victimhood narrative and criminalisation of sex workers / ‘Tackling Demand’ Review
Push & Pull factors that engage men
Is there such a thing as intimacy in commercial sex?
Supply chains – why women enter into sex industry
Respectability, class, embourgeoisiement
Consumerism and late capitalism
Male / transgender / women sell sex – but here predominantly talk about female sex workers selling to male clients as main aspect of sex industry 5

6. Recent Policy Developments
Being Outside: constructing a response to street prostitution (Scottish Executive,2004)
Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland)Act 2007
Paying the Price (Home Office, 2004)
Co-ordinated Prostitution Strategy (Home Office, 2006)
New ‘Tackling Demand’ Review (July 2008)
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (2008):
Section 71: Removal of “common prostitute”
Section 72: Orders to promote rehabilitation
Compulsory Rehabilitation Orders

7. Coordinated Prostitution Strategy 2006
Rejected managed zones – condoning
Rejected licensed brothel system
Eradication of street prostitution through…
‘Exiting’ and/or criminalisation of sex workers - ASBOs
‘Tackling Demand’
Trafficking and sexual exploitation
Move from victim to offender
Move from fines to ASBOs / imprisonment
Increase in sex workers sent to prison

9. ‘Tipplezones’ in Holland

10. Redefining who is the ‘problem’
1980’s + men who buy sex problematised
Increase in laws against ‘the kerbcrawler’
1985 Sexual Offences Act - shift in who was the problem
2001 Criminal Justice & Police Act - kerbcrawling an arrestable offence
2003 Criminal Justice Act - conditional cautioning
Peak between : 993 men arrested (2002)

11. Coordinated Prostitution Strategy: Tackling Demand
Enforcement of existing laws for kerbcrawling
Addressing concerns from communities
Informal warning / court diversion / prosecution
Crackdowns, zero tolerance decoys, supporting naming and shaming, media coverage, driving licenses revoked, fines, rehabilitation programmes
High profile naming and shaming – Aberdeen / Leeds: impact on families??
2008 – another review of ‘tackling demand’ with view to criminalising men who buy

12. Yet still flourishes:
Website where men post reports about their commercial sexual encounters in the UK – 80,000 reports written since 1999 worth £10 million pounds ($20)
Lap dancing annual turnover of £300 million
Private parlours - £534 million – same as on cinema expenditure 12

13. Beer mats………….

14. Yet the UK market blossoms
Street beats still exist
Website where men post reports about their commercial sexual encounters in the UK
80,000 reports written since 1999
£10 million expenditure
Lap dancing annual turnover of £300 million
Private parlours - £5 million – same as cinema expenditure
Male migrant
Sex markets
In london
Similar to the USA – outlawed but blossoms………… 14

15. Whether legal, illegal, or somewhere in the middle
Sex industries are thriving, expanding, adapting in late capitalism across the globe. WHY?

16. Who buys sex and why ? Push Factors
Stages of life – ritual & circumstance
Older men and sexuality
Unsatisfactory sexual relationships
Unease with conventional dating etiquette
Emotional needs beyond sex
‘Time out’ & quality of life in ‘overwork’ culture – acceptability of buying sex in some occupational cultures
Origins and reasons / motivations and why sex industry is the answer for many men???? 16

17. Performing the ‘male client’ role
5 key features of the traditional male sexual script that are also prominent in commercial sexual relationships between regulars and sex workers.
(Sanders, 2008)
role of communication
courtship rituals
sexual familiarity
mutual ‘satisfaction’
development of ‘friendship’ and emotional connections 17

18. Social factors: opportunity and change
Pull factors: 1
Social environment presents opportunity
Internet
Travel / tourism
Accessibility and availability
Pleasure saturated culture (Illouz,1997)
Shifting acceptability to buy sex.
Reduced stigma
Pull factors: 2
‘Sex as leisure’ (Hawkes, 1996)
Sexualization of the night time economy
Fantasy as corporate strategy
McDonaldization of sex industry (Hausbeck & Brents, 2002) …… ‘ 18

19. Who works in the sex industry?
Supply
Low wages for long hours OR
Higher wages for less hours
Mainstream economy for migrant workers
Rational decision making process
Many reasons for entering
Single parents
Students
Fast money / debt
Sex as ‘work’
Sexual labour
Emotional labour (Hochschild,1979)
Bodily capital – not selling ‘themselves’ but services
Women exploiting their sexuality / femininity
Selling a fantasy within commercially bounded contract
Exploitation within this meaning: working conditions / stigma
Burn out that exists between female indoor sex workers similar to that of nurses. 19

20. Demand & Supply Interact
Abolitionist arguments fail to understand the interactions between supply, demand and the market
Persistent inequalities and opportunities / entrepreneurship for women ($£) = supply
Persistent push and pull factors for men = demand
Consumerism as key force in late capitalism:
1) Commodification of sexuality
2) ‘Mainstreaming’ of sex and commerce 20

21. So, why do Western civilizations tolerate the sex industry?
Capitalism = economic framework that commodifies everything
The market/profit most powerful dynamic in cultural change?
Sex, bodies, sexuality, pleasure are not exempt
Respectability, professionalization, embourgeoisiement ensures expansion & mainstreaming
Tension between ‘the market’ and ‘morals’ BUT shifts in economic place of the sex industry through mainstreaming means that social and cultural norms adapt as capitalism embraces sexual and bodily commodification.
The universality of a LESS disapproved of practice 21

22. References
Bernstein, E 'The Meaning of the Purchase : Desire, Demand and the Commerce of Sex', Ethnography 2(3):
— 2007 'Sex work for the Middle Classes', Sexualities 10(4):
Brents, B. and Hausbeck, K 'Marketing Sex: U.S Legal Brothels and Late Capitalist Consumption', Sexualities 10(4).
Davis, K 'The Sociology of Prostitution', American Journal of Sociology 2(5):
Hausbeck, K. and Brents, B. G 'McDonaldization of the Sex Industries? The Business of Sex', in G. Ritzer (ed) McDonaldization: The Reader: Pine Forge Press.
Hawkes, G A Sociology of Sex and Sexuality, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Hochschild, A 'Emotion Work, Feeling Rules and Social Structure', American Journal of Sociology 85(3):
Illouz, E Consuming the Romantic Utopia, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sanders , T 'Male Sexual Scripts: Intimacy, Sexuality and Pleasure in the Purchase of Commercial Sex, ' Sociology 42(1). 22