Sex-buying happens all over the globe. In Sweden, every 10th man has payed for sex at some point. Sex-buying is also one of the primary causes to why the sex-trade exists.
Effects
Sex-buying has negative effects for:
The person being prostituted
The sex-buyer
Society
The sex-buyer
There are three kinds of sex-buyers in Sweden:
The All-consumer
This person’s motive for buying sex is simply get in contact with women, but avoid deep relationships. This person often has a sex addiction, and many of them are stuck in a “treadwheel”. Some of them seek support at clinics.
The Relationship Seeker
This group of sex-buyers often have a hard time when it comes to relationships. They can find it difficult to start a relationship with someone else, they can feel overlooked, and they often have a low self-esteem.
The Supplementary Buyer
At the surface, the supplementary sex-buyer will be a regular person, but will among other things no longer be satisfied with their sexual relationship with their partner. This group of sex-buyers have families.
Attitudes in sex-buyers
Sex-buyers share some attitudes, experiences and behaviors that separates them from people who don’t buy sex.
In comparison to people who don’t buy sex, sex-buyers report a higher likelihood for sexual aggression and committing rape. Sex-buyers often makes a distinct difference between “regular women” and “women in prostitution”.
When these research findings are compared with people who don’t buy sex, the results indicates that sex-buyers share some key characteristics with men who are at risk of practicing sexual aggressiveness.
Source: Prostitution research
Sex-buyers and criminality
Studies show that sex-buyers participates in a significantly larger amount of criminal activities than non-sex-buyers. It’s far more likely that a person who buys sex also will commit other crimes, including crimes related to violence against women, drugs, and weapons, as well as crimes committed against authorities.
Concerning crimes related to violence against women a study found that this was unique to sex-buyers in particular.
Source: Prostitution research
Sex-buyers and rape
Compared to non-sex-buyers, those who buy sex reports at a higher lever to have committed sexually forceful acts against women, both to women in prostitution and to women outside of prostitution. These differences are statistically confirmed.
Source: Prostitution research
Sex-buying in Sweden
It was estimated in a survey about prostitution in Sweden* that 5 percent of the Swedish population, 10.2 percent of men and 0.1 percent of women over 18, at some point had bought sex, which is said to correspond to roughly 260,000-330,000 people.
*Svedin et al. 2012
Sex-buying and sex-addiction
In a survey about prostitution in Sweden* (report year 2009-2011) 209 separate individuals had gotten in touch with any of the KAST units to seek support**. Out of these, 54% were sex-buyers, and 42% had a problematic sexual behavior/sex-addiction. Out of these 209 people, 20% received treatment.
The report’s evaluation of the treatment carried out by the KAST units is based on a total of 29 people’s (28 men and 1 woman) participations, and out of these only 15 people (52%) state that they at some point had bought sex.
In a substudy based on population, performed by the researchers, they could find that the sex-buying men differed from the men who claimed to never have bought sex, in several ways. This included the fact that the sex-buyers reported an increased consumption of alcohol or drugs, several traumatic incidents during their childhoods, occurrence of violence in earlier or current relationships, a large amount of sexual partners, a more active usage of the Internet for sexual purposes, as well as an increased appearance of compulsive sexual behavior.
*Svedin et al. 2012
**Buyers of sexual services
The text above is borrowed from a Lansstyrelsen report: “Prostitution i Sverige 2014”, here you can read the survey in its entirety: Read more.
The sex-buyers law
In 1999, Sweden, as the first country in the world, introduced a law prohibiting the buying of sexual services. Buying sex could lead to the penalty of 50 daily fines up to imprisonment for one year.
Brottsbalken (the Swedish criminal law) chapter 6, 11 § Anyone who, in any case other than as referred to in this chapter, obtains a temporary sexual connection to compensation, will be sentenced for the purchase of a sexual service to a fine or imprisonment for a maximum of one year.
What is being said in this first paragraph applies even if the compensation has been promised or given by someone else*.
Sex-buying is a so-called surveillance crime, which means that all included parties have no interest in reporting the crime: neither the sex-buyer, nor the person being prostituted, or even society isn’t likely to report the crime that is sex-buying. To find and arrest suspected sex-buyers, police resources are required.
*Law (2011:517)
Source: Targeting the sex buyer
Evaluation of the Sex-Buyers Law
An evaluation of the Sex-Buyers Law, published in 2010, showed that the prohibition against the buying of sexual services has had a considerable effect and is an important tool in preventing and combatting prostitution and sex-trafficking.
The most important conclusions in the evaluation:
The amount of people being used in street prostitution in Sweden from 1999-2008 were lowered by half.
Before the Swedish Sex-Buyers Law came into force, the presence of street prostitution was approximately the same in Stockholm, Copenhagen (Denmark) and Oslo (Norway). In 2008, the number of people in street prostitution in Copenhagen and Oslo were three times higher compared to Stockholm.
The fear that street prostitution would go underground has not been realized. All prostitution depend on being able to advertise, otherwise sex-buyers won’t be able to locate it. And so if sex-buyers can locate prostitution, then so can the police.
*Prostitution via the Internet increased in Sweden during the time, but not because of the Sex-Buyers Law, but because of the increasing usage of the Internet in general. The investigation found that prostitution via the Internet was much more widespread in Denmark and Norway, compared to Sweden.The noticeable increase in prostitution in Denmark and Norway did not have any equivalent in Sweden, and it wasn’t possible to see any other reason to this than the effects of the criminalization of sex-buying.
According to the police, the prohibition on sex-buying had prevented the establishment of organized crime in Sweden. The law worked as a barrier against sex-trafficking and pimping in Sweden, and the focus on the sex-buyers has been essential in the work to find and prosecute cases of sex-trafficking.
Before the law came into place, many were critical, but studies made after 2009 show that 70% of the population support the law. The prohibition of sex-buying not only reduced prostitution, but it also had a normative effect on peoples attitudes towards sex-buying.
The investigation could not identify that the prohibition had had any negative effects for people in prostitution.
The investigation found that the law must be combined with legal resources to make sure the law stays effective in its efforts to combat prostitution and sex-trafficking.
Source: Regeringen.se, Statens offentliga utredningar, Targeting the sex buyer
Sex-buyers and relationships
Compared to non-sex-buyers, those who buy sex has had a considerably higher amount of sexual partners.
In one study, it appeared that 54% of sex-buyers stated that they currently were in a relationship. Research shows that the reason for people buying sex is generally not due to a lack of sexual partners. McKegany (1994) found that 66% of sex-buyers in Glasgow currently lived with a partner.
Chetwynd and Plumridge (1994) found that 50% of sex-buyers in New Zealand were in a relationship.
Source: Men who buy sex, Prostitution research
First time buying sex
In a study, 44% of the interviewees reported that their first purchase of a sexual service had been done before they themselves had turned 21 years old. The findings in this study showed a variation from age 12 to age 58.
More than two thirds of the men (78%) had bought sex before they themselves had turned 25 years old.
Source: Men who buy sex