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Sex slaves: trafficking of women in Asia

Chapter Five part 1: The Customers

Part 1: 5.1: Open questions about customers in Asian brothels - missing investigations -- 5.2: Reasons to go to a brothel having a joy for some minutes -- 5.3: The lies of Louise Brown - men called with 'domination', 'animals', 'male-dominated society' - but WOMEN are selling daughters and organizing the brothels... -- 5.4: Principle: the more control and the more conservative sexual mores - the more prostitution exists -- 5.5: More sexual appetite of men in a tropical climate - and Asian women are mentally blocked -- 5.6: Thailand and Cambodia: brothels for sexual development of men - because of restrictions during youth -- 5.7: Statistics about customers using brothels -- 5.8: The professions of the Asian customers: youth boys first time having sex - businessmen - old men -- 5.9: Customers in India: AIDS in brothels - businessmen - normal workers - old men

by Louise Brown

presented and with subtitles by Michael  Palomino (2013)

5.1: Open questions about customers in Asian brothels - missing investigations

[There is a principle: The more children are tortured by their parents, the more these children will torture other adults when they are becoming adults...]

Customers are hardly mentioned in an analysis about prostitution

Some magical things happen in the sex industry. One of the most remarkable tricks is just how often the customers vanish [are not mentioned] from both analysis and censure. It is almost as if they were not really that important. Only a few of the many reports written on the trafficking of women and prostitution pay any attention to who is buying sex as opposed to who is selling it. From most of the available research on the subject you might begin to believe that the sex trade involves only poor women and an array of criminal elements.

There are always MORE customers in brothels in Asia

Yet it is obvious that prostitution would not exist without demand from the customers. Commercial sex is an industry and, like any other successful industry, there has to be a sufficiently large number of people who are willing to become consumers. In Asia, the sex trade may have encountered a few problems of distribution and merchandising, and the law is sometimes an irritation, but the industry cannot complain about insufficient customer demand. On the contrary, more men than ever are buying sex.

Why men go to buy sex in Asia? There are no investigations until today

To understand prostitution, sexual slavery and the trafficking of (p.126)

women and girls we need to shift and widen the parameters of the debate. Some frequently sidelined questions need to be dusted off [made visible] and answered. Who, for instance, are the customers? And who buys the girls and women who are locked into sexual slavery? We know a great deal about the girls who become sex workers but next to nothing about the men who buy them. We should ask what these consumers think about prostitution. And why they have to buy sex.

Not investigated men until today

Questions like this remain unaddressed for the simple reason that it is incredibly difficult even to begin answering them. There is an astonishing lack of information on the consumers of commercial sex. What information there is on prostitution is focused upon trafficking and child prostitution. With a handful of notable exceptions, the published books on prostitution in Asia are abysmal [very bad] [1].

[1] The best books on the subject [of prostitution in Asia] are:
-- Indrani Sinha and Carolyn Sleightholme: Guilty Without Trial: Women in the Sex Trade in Calcutta (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996)
-- Siriporn Skrobanek: Traffic in Women: Human Realities of the International Sex Trade (London: Zed Books, 1997)
-- Rita Rozario: Trafficking in Women and Children in India (New Delhi: Uppal Publishing House 1984)
-- Ryan Bishop and Lillian S. Robinson: Night Market: Sexual Cultures and the Thais Economic Miracle (London: Routledge, 1998)
-- Jeremy Seabrook: Travels in the Skinj Trade: Tourism and the Sex Industry (London: Pluto Press, 1996)

On Japan, two excellent books related to the sex industry are
-- Anne Allison: Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club (University of Chicago Press, 1994) and
-- Anne Allison: Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics and Censorship in Japan (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996)

The men are 'decent men' looking for 'harmless adventure'

Many are exposés, principally of the call girl and bar girl sectors, and aim to titillate [tickling]. Or they amount to sex guides for visiting foreigners. From these books it would seem that all prostitutes in Asia are having riotous [without limits] fun and earning a steady income to boot. Sex slaves do not figure prominently in these accounts. And the customers, of course, are fundamentally decent men looking for a bit of harmless adventure.

Asian taboo mentality rejecting the discussion about sex and men in brothels - limited discussions

There is a profound reluctance [resistance] in the region [of whole Asia] to research and discuss matters relating to sex. It creates acute embarrassment [because Asian people mostly think that men and sperm are "dirty" and there is no positive literature about sex in Asia]. Prostitution, I was told by people in countries as far apart as Pakistan and Japan, is not a subject worthy of study [because stupid Asian people and above all stupid Asian women think that sex and sperm are "dirty" and nothing more] - especially for a respectable woman like myself [stupid Asian people think that respectable women should not be busy with "dirty" things]. Presumably [probably] being in the mere [real] vicinity of prostitutes, or even talking about them, was enough to brand a visiting academic with the stigmatized brush of whoredom [stupid Asian people downgrade the writer also as a "dirty" whore because stupid Asian people is ashamed for having sex because all is rated as "dirty"]. Debates on prostitution in most Asian societies are usually muted [because stupid Asian people do not want to be intelligent and happy concerning sex, they don't want to change their taboo mentality].


5.2: Reasons to go to a brothel having a joy for some minutes

Poverty is just one factor

When the subject is considered worthy of discussion the discourse centers upon prostitution as a symbol of an individual sex worker's moral degradation or, in more progressive circles, prostitution is interpreted as a development issue. According to this perspective (p.127)

prostitution is intimately related to poverty. Of course it is: poverty creates a steady and reliable source of prostitutes. But poverty is just one factor in a much more complicated story. Sex work is just as much about the way sexuality is constructed, commodified and sold.

[And with little means poverty can be evaded but the corrupt Asian governments are mostly not doing much or not doing anything about it but police and military forces are also enjoying the brothels with the girls from poverty regions...]

Reasons for men to have and to buy sex: fertility, little intelligence, attractiveness, little bit mother like

There are lots of explanations for why men buy sex. Sociobiology provides us with some interesting although contentious arguments about human sexuality. The crux of the argument is that sexual behavior is designed to maximize an individual's ability to pass their genes on the subsequent generations. For men this means mating with a large number of fertile women with a reliable gene supply: they have to appear to possess a minimal quota of intelligence, be reasonably physically attractive and capable of caring for offspring [children].

Reasons for women to have sex: a man for protection and environment - trying out men

For women  these biological imperatives mean mating with a man who will provide protection and an environment in which she and her offspring can flourish. There is a solid and convincing foundation to this logic, but it is not faultless. It does not make genetic sense, for instance, for a man to spread his genes too widely. He cannot help in providing protection and material support for the hundreds or even thousands of children he is capable of fathering. Likewise, for women, the socially and economically powerful men who can provide the best environment for rearing children may not necessarily be the ones with the most enticing gene bank. Even for women, who are supposedly monogamously inclined, it might make genetic sense to sleep around.

Phase of settling down: more control of women for safety of heritage - prostitution, polygamy and concubinage coming up

The transition from primitive communities to settled agriculture - [agriculture was instructed by the gods, the extraterrestrials] - the development of patriarchy and the emergence of private property created a problem. If property was to be passed from one generation of men to the next, men had to be sure that the inheritors carried their own genes. Women's sexuality therefore became more tightly controlled. Yet if men were still to continue with their genetically programmed and fairly indiscriminate mating patterns certain provisions had to be made. The results were prostitution, polygamy and concubinage (p.128).

Both prostitution and traditional marriage can be interpreted as a continuation of a primitive form of human transaction whereby women exchanged sex for food and protection.


5.3: The lies of Louise Brown - men called with 'domination', 'animals', 'male-dominated society' - but women are selling daughters and organizing the brothels...

Lie by writer Louise Brown: men want to dominate women and other men

These sociobiological and functionalist explanations for prostitution are convincing but they need to be more nuanced. The foundations and parameters of sexuality are set by biology. The cultural construction of sexuality works within these guidelines, although culture also causes the parameters set by biology to be modified and reinterpreted. Basically, there are consistent patterns and types of behavior which boil down to exactly the same thing:

all over the world men seek to dominate.

[Wrong: men don't want much domination
This is absolutely wrong, because with a complete education also the soul of men can acquire social wisdom about women and form a quite center for the woman. But some men are really machos and are not aware of it, and machos also often go to brothels and then the prostitutes see often these machos and mean that these men would be "normal"].

They seek to dominate women and other men. It is a biologically driven need and its goal is to enhance [intensify] reproductive success.

[But: Also men who don't want to dominate will have a 'reproductive success'].

This need makes power, domination and sex inextricably [without exception] linked.

[Wrong: men also like when women will lead
Sometimes also the men like when the woman is leading. But it seems that writer Louise Brown never had a good partner with a holistic education]

Lie by writer Louise Brown: man in the brothel is an animal

What happens in cheap Asian brothels is just one of the most unpleasant manifestations of a universal theme. Man is an animal.

[Wrong: men are not animals
There are many men who are NOT AT ALL animals but they are just lonely or they are never taken earnest in their family or they are manipulated by their family and are in a converting process not having any girlfriend or they just have a "fun" with friends, and when they come in groups without any education with much alcohol then the situation can be crazy - but women and the WOMAN brothel owner want this so the men will lose their control about their money].

The girls in closed brothels are treated like breeding mares [female horses] because their vulnerability allows men the license and opportunity to behave like animals.

[Wrong: The prostitutes and the WOMAN brothel owner in a closed brothel are stimulating the animal in some men's souls so he will loose his control about his money - but not all men are like this].

And these girls are vulnerable because intensely male-dominated Asian societies have created cultures that keep many young women powerless.

[Wrong: Asian society is not male-dominated but is female-dominated
mostly mothers and women are manipulating and luring the girls into prostitution and manipulating and "seasoning" them - NOT men. Men are "only" the traffickers in the second line for transports and are the customers, but the WOMAN brothel owner is deciding how many customers the girls have! And the WOMAN Minister of Family or the WOMAN Minister of Culture have it in THEIR hands if there is poverty in their country or not!]

Biological pressures and male dominated cultures [Wrong! female-dominated cultures!] are, unfortunately, a largely inevitable and very bad mix - especially if you are a poor, vulnerable girl approaching puberty.

[All is a lie: mothers and women are organizing the brothels
The decisive point is the mother deciding that her daughter will go into prostitution. And mostly the girl is only vulnerable for prostitution when the father has died and only the MOTHER is left with the children without the salary of the father. The basic problem is poverty in the countryside in Asia which is provoked by racism of governments and industries which are downgrading the population of the countryside, and this racism against the population in the countryside is provoked by the general Asian mentality of WOMEN AND MEN in the big towns at the same time: industry is not installing production plants in the countryside giving work and salary to the population in the countryside, and the governments are not installing social institutions for widows, for children, or free schools etc.].

5.4: Principle: the more control and the more conservative sexual mores - the more prostitution exists

Prostitution flourishes in societies that are sexually open and it also flourishes in societies that publicly espouse [supporting] strict sexual and moral codes. We can draw two interrelated conclusions from the Asian prostitution scene. First, the sex sector thrives in places where women's sexuality is under tight control. And, second, the greater a society's rhetorical commitment to conservative sexual mores the greater is its degree of hypocrisy [with a big brothel and prostitution system].

There is a neat symmetry: the more repressive the sexual morality and the more rigid the social conventions, the greater is the tendency to buy sex. This is entirely understandable. As men [one part of men, not all!] cannot openly enjoy a biologically driven (p.129)

need they will do so in secret and will pay for this pleasure because it is not one available for free.

[Supplement: In Asia it is like this: There is control by religion or by mentality, and by not knowing anything about good sex many Asian women are also rejecting good sex driving the men into the brothels].

Example: Pakistan with prostitution taboo - all is secret - and terrible abuses are not detected

I spent several weeks researching prostitution in Pakistan but found it very difficult to make significant progress. It is hard investigating prostitution in a country in which sex for sale is not supposed to exist. The Pakistani government has only recently acknowledged that such vices do, perhaps, occur. Previously it was considered unthinkable that sex could be bought and sold in an Islamic state. Unsurprisingly, however, prostitution is as extensive in Pakistan as anywhere else. In fact the practice of commercial sex may be even higher in Pakistan than in most other Asian nations. What is more troubling is that terrible abuses within the industry are all the more common because the trade is so highly secretive.

Principle: Asian countries often prohibit sex before marriage - so men go to prostitutes

Sex workers are essential to the functioning of Asian societies. If men want to control women within their own families and yet still have sex with multiple partners there has to be a pool of prostitutes. In terms of numbers this pool is really quite small but it services lots of men. In most respects men benefit from the system because it is one they have made to suit their needs. But, in other ways, it lets down some individual men. They cannot, for instance, have legitimate sexual relations before they marry. Plenty of them nevertheless decide to have illegitimate ones both before and during marriage.

Example: men in India want sex before the marriage - visit brothels - but they want a virgin for marriage

Among the Indian prostitute users that I interviewed were a small number of unmarried educated young men who bemoaned [deplore] their inability to have sexual relations with women before they married. This, they explained, was why they bought sex. It would be much better, they maintained, if they were free to form casual relationships with women from their own social circles, but, alas, the young women in question were sadly and frustratingly unavailable. I thought this sounded like a seed of progress and an indication of changing attitudes, but their reaction to my next question threw the thesis into doubt. They were outraged at my suggestion that they should marry a woman who was not a virgin.

Impossible, they (p.130)

insisted. When I asked why, I was met with some evasive replies along the lines of 'How could I trust her?' and 'She wouldn't be respectable' One young man said that his wife had to have no prior experience of sex, otherwise, 'She might have enjoyed sex with another man more than she enjoyed sex with me.' It appears as if the sexual double standard has a lot of life left in it in India. So, therefore, does prostitution.

Principle: not prostitution is the shame, but getting caught is the shame

Most customers have no qualms about buying sex as long as their activity can be hidden. The unofficial codes of Asian societies sanction the buying of sex providing that this activity does not disturb the surface appearance of the respectable social order. It is not so much the act that is bad. What is bad is getting caught.

[Not mentioned: Asian peeping mentality blocking everything
In Asia there is not only a mentality with sexual taboo, but there is also a cruel peeping mentality, and Asian people mean that this would be "intelligent" having good spying devices or spying methods. Therefore the Asian people will also never reach considering sexuality as "normal", and perhaps this is also the reason that many brides are rejecting sex with the husband because they don't want to be "cought" by the neighbor. This means at the end that the mentally retarded Asian people are blocking any own and healthy sexuality by peeping each other and that they are driving themselves into mental illnesses like envy, jealousy and at the end also murder by only little reasons].

5.5: More sexual appetite of men in a tropical climate - and Asian women are mentally blocked

Principle: Asian men have an 'enormous sexual appetite' - because of the tropical climate

It is assumed by a majority of people in many Asian societies that men have enormous sexual appetites that can be satisfied only by frequent intercourse - preferably with a large number of women.

[This sexual drive of men - but also of women - exists also because of the tropical climate in most parts of Asia driving bodies to an optimal function of organs and glands, above all when there is good food with vegetables and fruits from origin and not contaminated earth with the original content of minerals].

Bangladesh: tropical climate provoking much need for sex

A very senior Bangladeshi police officer, who was genuinely concerned about the problems associated with prostitution, explained earnestly to me that the whole business of sex and the commercial sex sector was complicated by the weather. Apparently, Bangladesh's high temperatures stimulate men's passions and contribute to the demand for sex workers.

[Well, this police officer from Bangladesh is forgetting the factor of missing education and above all of missing further education in Asia thus in such countries men and women are believing at the same time that sexuality would determinate the whole life because in many Asian houses are only existing TV and beer bottles but there is not one single book. Many Asian people mean that books exist in school only...]

Cambodia: tropical climate provoking much need for sex

In Cambodia male sexual desire is considered insatiable. One woman simply cannot satisfy the average man. A Cambodian proverb, 'Ten rivers are not enough for one ocean', expresses this very aptly. Men believe that they are entitled [have a right] to have sex and they believe that they have a right to buy it. That is not all: they believe they have a right to cheap sex. Their beliefs are then validated [confirmed] because there are lots of poor women ready to sell cheap sex to them. Assumptions about the boundless limits of male sexuality feed into an argument that has common currency throughout the world. Prostitutes are needed as a kind of safety valve [side path], allowing men burdened by awesome libidos to have a sexual outlet. If this outlet did not exist then 'innocent' women would inevitably be raped (p.131).

[Luise Brown does not see: In poor societies in a tropical climate with sexual taboos and restrictions prostitution is really a "safety valve"
The author Luise Brown reproaching sexuality to men is wrong. She does not see the mentality of poverty and the harsh restrictions for men. The view with prostitution as a "safety valve" is very real for cultures in a tropical climate when there are sexual taboos and restrictions, and when there is no education or only a basic education, and when there are no free sport's facilities. Men - and also women! - in these cases do not know what to do in their free time. When there is also a free consumption of alcohol in the street during day and night, then the population does not know AT ALL what to do with their free time because they loose more and more their brains by alcohol consumption. And then the brothel is just their level. And this is the case in many Asian countries. Thus it would be good to eliminate the restrictions, and the brothel systems should be legalized and controlled well and should not be secret. And the education systems should be better and the countryside should not be discriminated any more and thus poverty in the countryside should be eliminated. But the author Luise Brown only is reproaching that men have a sexuality, and this is not very precise...].

Prostitution in this context changes from a social vice [sin] into a worthy social service. Rather than being exploiters of poor women, the customers are, in fact, socially responsible citizens seeking to curb [reduce] their own potentially destructive sexual behavior.

[Luise Brown does not see: There is no "destructive" sexuality, but women are destructive:
Luise Brown says that it would be "destructive" to have a sexuality - well, she does not see that in Cambodia there is
-- sometimes no education at all
-- sometimes no Internet at all
-- but there is good food grown on good earth with the original content of minerals giving force to men
-- and there is enough alcohol
-- and there are aggressive movies in TV with threats, extortions, killings and also showing rapes
-- and often there are no free sports facilities
-- and thus intelligence is not very high but energies are negative
-- and Minister of Culture, Minister of Education or Minister of Family in the governments are mostly WOMEN but they are not changing anything of these circumstances
-- and also the intelligence of women is not very high in these countries and there are many prostitutes making easy money, or luring children into prostitution
and that's why men don't know what to do in their free time and they go to a brothel. Add to this only a little percentage of men have a strong sexual drive. Mostly they are sleeping with their alcohol in a hammock and they are blocking any sexual activity with their alcohol.

The evil is the taboo of sexuality and the secrecy of prostitution which should be legalized, organized openly and in a controlled way. And perhaps some more education and less racism against countryside population would be good for Asia for having less poverty in the countryside. This racism against the countryside is also organized by "proud" women in the towns. The author Luise Brown did not investigate well but only saw those men in brothels making bad jokes with the girls when they were drunk and young women when they were prostitutes...]

It is risky to suggest how many men buy sex in Asia because there is a woeful [sad] absence of firm statistics. Figures are impossible to derive because the sex trade is hidden and often illegal, the acts are done in private and few clients are willing to identify themselves. Very few studies on prostitute use have been attempted and these are usually micro studies and are open to question.


5.6: Thailand and Cambodia: brothels for sexual development of men - because of restrictions during youth

Studies about brothels in Thailand

Thailand is perhaps the best analyzed country. In 1990 a study by the US Agency for International Development concluded that 75% of Thai men had purchased sex and that 48% of men had had their first sexual intercourse with a prostitute. These figures have not been seriously challenged [put into question] and they are corroborated [confirmed] by other small studies. For example a survey in the Klong Toey slum in Bangkok found that 82% of men and 66% of women thought that it was normal for men to visit sex workers [2].

[2] Duang Pratheep Foundation: 'Klong Toey Aids Control Project', Bangkok, 1998, p.14

[The author Louise Brown does not see: poverty without education - and WOMAN government members are blocking free sexuality in Asia
It IS really NORMAL for men to go to brothels
-- when people have no or almost no education about sexuality
-- when the society has no youth magazines, no youth books about love, or when the topic of love is a taboo at home, or when first love is even forbidden
-- and when they have only alcohol and terrible violent movie in their TV, and
-- when girls and women don't know how to enjoy sex in a safe way but all is rated only "dirty".
These bad conditions can be found in many poor regions in Asia and also in Latin "America". And most of Minister of Culture, Minister of Family or Minister of Education are WOMEN since 20 years and NOTHING is changing but these Asian Ministers are also rating sex as a "dirty" thing as it seems. Thus brothels should be legalized and controlled and then any abuse of children would stop, but the author Luise Brown does not understand these connections].

Similar statistics can be found in studies undertaken in neighboring Cambodia where a survey discovered that 60-70% of men were thought to visit prostitutes [3].

[3] Hanna Phan and Lorraine Patterson: Men are Gold, Women are Cloth (Phnom Penh: CARE International, 1994)

Active and sexy Thai men

Thai male sexual culture actively promotes male promiscuity and the purchase of sex. Such values are rapidly being exported to neighboring countries of the Mekong Basin [4].

[4] Archavanitkul: Trafficking in Children, p.59

[The author Louise Brown is concealing: Thai women have many men since 1964
First in all cultures of the world men had several wives because many men died in wars and there were always more women than men. Then in Thailand Thai women were first having many men during Vietnam War in the R&R resorts. So it is only natural that Thai men also are having sex with several women in brothels when they are forbidden to have sexual relations before marriage, and when crazy Thai mothers and crazy Thai women declare sex and sperm as "dirty". It should just be legalized and organized well without violence and without child abuse. It seems writer Louise Brown did not investigate men well but is just copying the meaning of some feminist activists of Europe who are fighting prostitution in Asia without considering the other conditions].

Comparatively rich and culturally dominant Thailand acts as a magnet for the poor and also as a promoter and distributor of an unhappy sexual code.

[Who makes whom unhappy? Thai women cal sex and sperm "dirty" making Thai men unhappy driving them to the brothels].

5.7: Statistics about customers using brothels

The information of Louise Brown: from partners from organizations, governments, newspapers

My own guesses [estimations] on prostitute usage in Asia are highly impressionistic and are based upon interviews with people who have extensive knowledge of the sex industry within their own countries. They include humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, government officials, journalists an health care professionals working in the field of reproductive health and the control of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

[But with Asian customers the writer Louise Brown did not speak much...]

Estimations: high percentage of men using brothels: Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Pakistan - lower percentage: India, Bangladesh, Indonesia

On the (p.132)

basis of their information I believe that the proportion of men who buy sex is very high but that it also varies between Asian countries. Towards the high end of the scale are societies like Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Pakistan. And towards the lower end are countries like India, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Informants in Japan and Pakistan were extremely insistent that the scale of commercial sex was enormous in their own societies. Comments that the purchase of sex was 'universal' among men, or that it involved 'all men' at some point in their lives, were repeated by informants who worked in different fields and who arrived at this verdict completely independently of each other. Although it is extremely unlikely that such sweeping generalizations are true, these opinions suggest that the scale of the commercial sex sector within Asian countries is extremely large. In most Asian countries, most men will pay for sex at least once in their lives. Many, moreover, are habitual buyers.

[The author Luise Brown does not see: Men are in brothels because...
-- Asian women mostly are not free but controlled and restricted to be virgins, or
-- because men have their reasons for not bothering their sterile wife with their demand of sex because men want to evade more humiliations by insults
-- because Asian culture says that "good women" do not have much sex, and
-- because a positive sexual youth education is missing and
-- because the Asian governments and their mostly WOMEN Ministers of Culture are also mentally limited and think that sexual taboos and restrictions and prohibitions and sexual terrorism against sexuality of men AND women would be "good".

Add to this a prostitute can also be a social help concerning other problems when in poor regions no psychological help for social problems is available. But all these circumstances are NOT considered by the author Louise Brown].

The perceived [found out] rate of prostitute use in Asian societies bears similarity to that of men in Western societies during an era which was far more sexually repressive than today and when women's sexuality was tightly controlled. Social reformer Robert Dale Owen estimated that half of the adult male population of New York City in the 1830s visited prostitutes on a regular basis [5].

[5] Reay Tannahill: Sex in History (New York: Stein & Day, 1992), p.357

In 1948 Alfred Kinsey's report on sexual behavior suggested that 69% of the adult male population had purchased sex on at least one occasion [6]

[6] Alfred C. Kinsey et. al.: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (London W.B. Saunders, 1948)

A number of small-scale studies on contemporary prostitute usage suggest that a smaller percentage of men are now buying sex in Western societies. Estimates understandably vary. One report in the US in 1993 suggested that around 20% of men buy sex [7].

[7] Samuel S. Janus and Cynthia I. Janus: The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior (New York: John Wiley, 1993), p.348

Example: brothel customers in London

In 1997 a study by Middlesex University [South England] claimed that 80,000 men purchase the services of prostitutes in London every week [8].

[8] Guardian, 26 September 1997

This would indicate that around 10% of London's male  population are prostitute users.

[Wrong: In 1991 London hat 6.679,699 people [web01] thus 80,000 are just a little bit more than 1% of the population].

These statistics are open to question but they do prove that although prostitution exists everywhere, it is also less common on more sexually (p.133)

relaxed societies where there are greater opportunities to enjoy sex outside marriage.

[-- with youth education with youth love literature and magazines
-- with sport activities and free sport facilities
-- with courses aside school system
-- with libraries and with a reading culture and with a wisdom culture
-- with general flexibility in relationships BEFORE marriage
-- with legal love literature and porn and all variations of sexuality
-- with the liberty to live together WITHOUT marriage etc.

Asian countries can only dream of such a liberal society system and stupid and criminal Asian governments and Ministers of Culture are limiting and prohibiting everything with a mentality which is against free sexuality - so Asian men go to brothels to get an emergency of sexual satisfaction with a woman for some minutes. It's not a joy for Asian men to live like this. The brothels should be legalized and controlled so they will be a good part of life for everybody, without slavery. Add to this brothels are mostly in the hands of WOMEN, and no prostitute will have a shield on their front "I am a slave" because she will be punished for this. So men don't know who is slave and who is not. But author Louise Brown does NOT see all this...]

5.8: The professions of the Asian customers: youth boys first time having sex - businessmen - old men

Who are the men who buy women enmeshed in systems of sexual slavery? There is not a stereotypical Asian sex consumer, just as there is not a stereotypical Asian prostitute. Some clients would be appalled of they thought they were buying women who had been forced into the profession but I fear that, for all too many customers, this kind of consideration is totally immaterial. All classes, religions, ages and ethnic groups are represented among sex workers' clients. Wealthier men frequent clubs and purchase high-class call girls while the cheaper brothel sector tends to be patronized by the less affluent. There are, however, no fixed boundaries.

Example of the Philippines: a mayor of a town wants and pays only virgins

A casa owner in the Philippines revealed that some of her clients were wealthy men:

<My best regular client is the mayor. He likes to visit the casa every fortnight [every two weeks] or so. He often telephones to see when I have new virgins in because they are his favorite.>

[Philippines are a "catholic" country].

Example of Bangladesh: all kind of customers - boys, students, rich men, old men

A cross-section of males visit closed brothels. This is how a sex worker in Dhaka [capital of Bangladesh] described the clients she had entertained during her period of debt bondage:

<My clients were all ages. Some were boys and some were old men. A few were rich and some were college students. Well-off university students would come in a group to the brothel for the whole night. They would sit and talk and joke together and have sex with the girls.>

Example of Bangladesh: early love is forbidden - school boys also go to brothels

The age of some of the customers is corroborated [confirmed] by other sources. An HIV/STD intervention program, known as the Shakti Project and targeted at sex workers and their clients in Bangladesh (p.134),

found that a minority of customers were schoolboys of twelve to thirteen years of age.

Example of Thailand: schoolboys of 13, middle-aged men, old men

A young Burmese woman who worked in a Thai brothel made similar observations about her own customers.

<I had all sorts of clients including boys who were still at school. A few were only about thirteen. There were old men and middle-aged ones. Some had white hair and looked like a grandfather.>

It has been estimated that between 60,000 and 80,000 men buy sex each day in Calcutta [9].

[9] Sinha and Sleightholme: Guilty Without Trial, p.10


5.9: Customers in India: AIDS in brothels - businessmen - normal workers - old men

Husbands distributing AIDS coming from brothels

This is astonishing when we remember that in 1993 - and in the midst of the global AIDS epidemic - the Indian Minister of Health said that the country would be saved from the scourge [evil] of AIDS by strong family values [10].

[10] Cited in Chris Beyrer: War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and AIDS in Southest Asia (London: Zed Books, 1998), p.14

Either the assessment of prostitute use in Calcutta was uncharacteristically sloppy or the Minister of Health needed a more professional briefing. If we look at HIV infection rates in terms of the percentage of the adult population who are infected, India is not suffering the misery of many sub-Saharan African countries. Even so, the disease is beginning to spread very rapidly in India and four million people are now thought to be infected [11].

[11] World Health Organization and Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS: Report on the Global HIV / AIDS Epidemic, June 1998

Heterosexual commercial sex plays a significant part in the spread of HIV in the country, and prostitute users are taking the disease both to the women they buy and to the women they marry. A recent survey of four hundred women who were treated for sexually transmitted diseases in Pune found that 93% were married and 91% had never had sex with anyone other than their husband. Almost 14% of these women, however, were HIV positive [12]

[12] World Health Organization and UNAIDS: AIDS Epidemic Update, December 1998

In 1997 4.3% of women attending antenatal [pregnancy] clinics in Mumbai were also found to be HIV positive [13].

[13] World Health Organization and UNAIDS: India: Epidemiological Fact Sheet on HIV / AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, June 1998

We can infer [make conclusions] many things from this but the most persuasive point is that a sizable number of Indian men must have a seriously muddled impression about the requirement of family values (p.135).

Calcutta brothels: "superior brothels" with businessmen and professional people - cheaper brothels with rickshaw pullers and petty traders

A large proportion of Calcutta's prostitute users will buy from the brothel sector. The Sonagachi red light area caters to middle- and low-income groups. In the superior brothels girls say their clients are businessmen and professional people: they are government officers, lawyers and doctors. In the cheaper brothels the clients are rickshaw pullers and petty traders. It is hard to categorize these men because they belong to many different professions and classes. The one thing they have in common is that they buy sex, and the women that they buy are both poor and from despised communities and castes.

Voices: wondering about old men

Inexperienced sex workers appear to be very confused about why so many customers want to buy them. One terribly distressed [desperate] Cambodian prostitute questioned me on this subject.

<Why did these old men want to have sex with a girl like me? They have wives. They have daughters like me at home. I don't know why they come here. They have nice houses and money. Why do they have to spend it one me?>

[Well: the bride does not want much sex at all considering sex as "dirty", and in this way the Asian brides are driving their husbands into brothels...]

Voices: to go to the brothel because the bride does not like sex - or it's just like a hobby

An older, well-seasoned prostitute in Calcutta had a much clearer picture of her customers:

<Men come here because maybe their wife doesn't like sex or they don't like their wife. Or their wife is pregnant or she lives in the countryside. But I think for most it's just like a kind of hobby.

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Sources

[web01] London Bevölkerung: http://london-chips.tripod.com/Bevoelkerung.html

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