Mitchell Centre Seminar Series
| Dates: | 26 March 2025 |
|---|
| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
|---|
| What is it: | Seminar |
|---|
| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
|---|
| Who is it for: | University staff |
|---|
|
|
Giulia Berlusconi. University of Surrey
Understanding risk in commercial sex markets: Exploring sex buyers’ sexual networks to understand their purchasing patterns and perception of risk.
Despite ongoing policy discussions regarding further criminalising the purchase of sex in England and Wales, we know very little about how sex buyers understand and perceive a range of risks associated with paying for sexual services, including the risk of seeing someone who may be coerced and the risk of arrest and prosecution. Proposed legislative changes towards a ‘Nordic’ model (i.e., full criminalisation of sex buyers) assume that the risk of arrest and prosecution will deter clients from paying for sexual services, thus reducing trafficking and exploitation. However, sex buyers in England and Wales already face prosecution for buying sex from someone who has been coerced, even when the client is unaware of the exploitation. Furthermore, prostitution laws—whether partly or fully criminalising clients—are seldom implemented by law enforcement agencies, and their deterrent effect has been questioned. Some scholars also argue that criminalising men who purchase sex may prevent clients from becoming ‘accountable active participants’ (Sanders, 2008a: 414), and may deter them from reporting potential cases of trafficking and sexual exploitation.
The impact of current and future legislation on sex buyers’ choices ultimately depends on how buyers understand the risks associated with buying sex and how their perception of risk influences their attitudes and behaviours. This paper uses use online communications on the largest British online community of female sex workers and their male clients to study clients’ buying patterns to understand their decision-making processes when it comes to choosing to engage with sex workers. It explores whether sex buyers pay attention to potential signs of exploitation when engaging with and visiting sex workers, and whether they try to avoid those who may be coerced. While the validity of risk factors associated with human trafficking and sexual exploitation has been questioned by some scholars, interviews with sex buyers suggest that clients use them to assess the risk of engaging with sex workers who may be coerced. This paper therefore assesses whether buyers tend to avoid sex workers who display characteristics associated with trafficking and exploitation, such as very young age, preference for in-calls, and poor English proficiency.
We developed a web crawler and scraper software to fetch relational and textual data from an online platform dedicated to reviewing sex workers’ services. The data, organised in a bipartite network, include sex workers and their clients and is based on reviews published between January 2014 and December 2017. Additional information based on clients’ reviews of sex workers and the sexual services received includes providers’ reputation, average price of the service, and location. We use descriptive network statistics and statistical models for bipartite network data to explore clients’ purchasing patterns and test whether clients tend to avoid high-risk providers. Exponential random graph models for bipartite networks include both dyad-independent terms (e.g., whether sex workers are affiliated with a brothel or whether they work on their own, their English proficiency and their nationality, as reported by their clients) and dyad-dependent terms (e.g., degree distribution, three-paths) to understand tie-formation processes in clients and sex workers’ sexual networks and, ultimately, provide insights into clients’ purchasing patterns.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
G30
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
