Although I have heard stuff like this before, I recently read a post based upon new research on men who buy sex. Understanding demand for women and the johns who buy them is essential. We know that if demand ceased, then there would be no profit in providing the supply of “goods.” In other words, no women would be needed, used and sold in sex trafficking.

Men Who Buy Sex

Comparing Sex Buyers with Men Who Don’t Buy Sex, is a comprehensive study by Melissa Farley, PHD, and Founding Director of the Prostitution Research and Education.

These are some of the facts:

66% of the sex buyers observed that a majority of women are lured, tricked or trafficked into prostitution. They knew.

74% of the sex buyers reported that they learned about sex from pornography.

Buyers also started young, with their first legal drinks, and a quarter of them bought sex away from home.

Regular buyer would be 7x more likely to rape a girl (if no one knew) and were more likely to take part in sexual crimes or crimes against authority.

But, what I found more interesting is that they would stop buying sex.

What would deter a buyer?

  • 89% would be deterred if their names were to be added to a sex offender registry.
  • 90% wouldn’t buy if imposed a fine of  $1,000-$2,000.
  • ALL buyers would be deterred if they had to spend a month in jail!

Really? Maybe sometimes the consequences of enforced laws really do change morality. They might not necessarily change the person, but they just might make a culture where it is unacceptable to buy sex.

Please read this post, Ten Things You Might Not Know About Men Who Buy Sex  for other facts about men who buy sex.

The Value of Women in Our Media

Maybe you don’t think buying sex reduces the value of sex or women (or men, when it goes the other way), but we do know that as long as buying sexual services is okay, sex trafficking thrives. More and more facts and testimonies support out theory that most prostitutes and porn stars do not actually want these jobs, but either don’t know how to leave the sex business once they are stuck in it, or are so brainwashed with lies that they don’t think they have any worth except as being a sex toy (which will be taken from them if they don’t give it).

Sadly, our media and culture encourage the objectification of women. I had a video on here showing normal ads for products. In all the ads the women were sex objects with men (or many men) dominating women sexually. Then, to highlight how wrong this is, in the movie they replaced the objectified woman with a man and the women with men. It helps you realize how ridiculously we have accepted women are sex-objects. But, it was a little too graphic so I decided to remove it.

The point is, we accept the objectification of women. Is this okay? Especially since we know that this road leads to a culture where buying women and sex-trafficking become okay.

 Who is Doing Something About This?

The Defenders, run by Shared Hope, is really cool because they are all about helping men see their role in the demand, how they can be part of fighting sex-trafficking, and supporting each other to be men who respect women rather than using women. Here is a short movie about them:

A few years back Ashton Kutcher did a Kickstarter campaign to create ads, inspiring “manly” men to publicly declare that they won’t buy girls. I don’t know if anything is still going on with this officially, but I do know that guys are still taking pictures and posting them online, with signs that read “Real Men Don’t By Girls” – thereby creating a culture where it becomes socially unacceptable to buy women.

 

Surprisingly, I am not totally naive and realize all real men struggle with things like lust, or, objectifying women. They might not go out and find a prostitute, at least to begin with, but that doesn’t mean they won’t buy sex online in the privacy of their home.

Sex and Money is an excellent documentary, which shows us the connection between pornography and sex-trafficking. It is worth watching.

We know that porn is the introduction for most men to buying sex, and it is a pretty hard habit for both guys and girls to kick once they get started. For you who are struggle with adverting your eyes from images, or buying sex through porn or in person, check out XXXChurch.com. These people are excellent at helping average people overcome their temptations. They even have online tools to help you at that even traveling sports players use.

Porn Harms is another excellent resource. Not only do they have plenty of research about the negative effect of porn on their website, but they also have a lot of tools to help people who are struggle with porn or the effect of porn on their families. Would it be weird for me to say “Use them. Not girls . . .”?

Thanks XXXChurch, Defenders, Sex and Money, Pron Harms and so many others who are making the effort to be sure they and those they impact will not buy women!

 

Here is the Sex & Money trailer: