Number of British males paying for sex doubles in 10 years: survey

Number of British males paying for sex doubles in 10 years: survey

	Published : Thu, 01 Dec 2005 20:05 By : Paula Demarzio Print this Story

LONDON: Twice as many British men were engaging in commercial sex compared to a decade earlier, a new survey reports in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

The survey covering 11,000 adult Britons first in 1990 and then in 2000, found a 100 percent increase in the number of men paying for sex. The first survey had found one in every 20 adult Britons paying for sex.

The first findings said 5.6 percent of the men said they had patronised commercial sex workers in the past. 5 percent of this group said they had paid women for sex last year while 2 percent said they had done so within the previous five years.

The figures had doubled over the next ten years. The people most likely to engage commercial sex workers were unmarried or divorced Londoners in the age group 25 to 34.

More than 50 percent of the men hired new sexual partners while abroad, in countries that had higher prevalence of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. More than one in every three of those who paid for sex had changed sexual partners ten or more times over five years.

The survey rings a note of caution that while more men are being exposed to STIs because of their lifestyles, only one in five chose to go through sexual health tests in clinics and even fewer were checked for HIV.

Latest UK health figures reveal a rise in STIs such as gonorrhoea (growing 97 percent between 1997 and 2002), Chlamydia (up 103 percent) and HIV. Currently, there are 58,000 HIV positive people and last year 104,155 people were diagnosed with Chlamydia.

Lead author Dr Helen Ward said there were many reasons why more men were paying for sex.

The authors of the survey attributed the rise to “a more liberal attitude towards commercial sex” as well as greater availability via sex tourism, escort agencies and the Internet. Other reasons included rising divorce rates. There were also “more men with money and more women looking for this type of work” the study’s chief author Dr Helen Ward said.

She urged health authorities to direct their health promotion campaigns towards the large number of British males who pay for sex. She also called for further research focusing on young male tourists and single and divorced Britons.