Teela Sanders - Paying for Sex in a Digital Age

Providing one of the first comprehensive, cross-cultural examinations of the dynamic market for sexual services, this book presents an evidence-based look at the multiple factors related to purchasing patterns and demand among clients who have used the internet.

The data is drawn from two large surveys of sex workers clients in the US and UK. The book presents descriptive baseline data on client engagement with online platforms, demographics and patterns of frequency in different markets, information on smaller niche markets and client reactions to exploitation, safety and changes in the law.

The book makes clear that a variety of situational as well as individual factors affect the willingness and ability to purchase sexual services. The view that emerges shatters the stereotypes and generalisations on which much policy is based and demonstrates the complexities surrounding who pays for sex and the contours of sexual consumption in consumer culture.

Teela Sanders is Professor of Criminology at the University of Leicester. She is a leading international scholar in research on the intersections between gender, regulation, governance and crime, specifically in the sex industry. Her latest book is Internet Sex Work: Beyond the Gaze (2018).

Barbara G. Brents is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada. She has published research in sexuality, gender and politics in market culture for more than 25 years. Brents is a co-author with Crystal Jackson and Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan of The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland (2010) a study of Nevadas legal brothels.

Chris Wakefield is Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada. Their focus is on intersections of criminal justice and mental health to constrain expressions of gender and sexual diversity, including non-normative sexual identities and transgender experience.

First published 2020

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Teela Sanders, Barbara G. Brents and Chris Wakefield

The right of Teela Sanders, Barbara G. Brents and Chris Wakefield to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sanders, Teela, author. | Brents, Barbara G., author. | Wakefield, Chris (Sociologist), author.

Title: Paying for sex in a digital age : US and UK perspectives / Teela Sanders, Barbara G. Brents and Chris Wakefield.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019052878 (print) | LCCN 2019052879 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138318724 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138318731 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429454370 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: ProstitutionUnited States. | ProstitutionGreat Britain. | InternetUnited States. | InternetGreat Britain. | Sex-oriented businessesInformation technologyUnited States. | Sex-oriented businessesInformation technologyGreat Britain.

Classification: LCC HQ118 .S264 2020 (print) | LCC HQ118 (ebook) | DDC 36.740941dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052878

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052879

ISBN: 978-1-138-31872-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-31873-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-45437-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To all those who are stigmatised by commercial sex.

Teela Sanders is a professor of criminology at the University of Leicester. She is a leading international scholar in research on the intersections between gender, regulation, governance and crime, specifically in the sex industry. Sanders has written seven books, edited eight, and has over fifty peer reviewed journal articles, based on research projects funded from major research councils. A recent Economic and Social Research Council study, Beyond the Gaze, on internet sex work has created some of the largest datasets in the world, and outcomes have involved practitioners good practice, safety resources for sex workers and police and practitioner training. She has recently completed a Home Office project of corrosive substance crime and a sex work project in Nairobi. She has received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 20192021. Her work has influenced government policy and policing guidance, and has been published in major newspapers and outlets.

Barbara G. Brents, PhD, studies sexuality, gender and politics in market culture, and has been researching sexual commerce for more than twenty-five years. She has been a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas since 1988 receiving her PhD in sociology and bachelors of journalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Brents is a co-author with Crystal Jackson and Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan of The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland (Routledge, 2010), a study that situates Nevadas legal brothel industry in the political economy of contemporary tourism. She has published peer-reviewed research on work and violence in Nevada brothels, alternatives to criminalising prostitution, and changing culture and attitudes around sex work. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, Chronicle of Higher Education and Slate Magazine. Brents received numerous teaching and service awards from UNLV. She has been a member of local progressive, environmental, peace and womens movements, and served on the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union and as the Nevada State ACLU President.

Chris Wakefield, MA, is a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Their focus is on intersections of criminal justice and mental health to constrain expressions of gender and sexual diversity, including non-normative sexual identities and transgender experience. Previous work includes measures of LGBT identity in US prisons, gender formulation among transition service providers and intersex youth diagnosis disclosure. Their dissertation examines the daily effects of notification and registry laws on released sex offenders with regards to sexual expression, identity and discrimination. Chris received their bachelors degree in sociology with a minor in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies from Syracuse University and their masters degree in sociology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.