Twice as many British men paying for sex
LONDON, Thursday (Reuters)
The number of British men paying for sex doubled during the last
decade and they were more likely to have had a sexually transmitted
infection (STI), according to a study published on Thursday.
The increase may be due to the rise in divorce rates and in the
number of men who have never married, it says.
It found that men who paid for sex were likely to have had more
sexual partners, many of them overseas including in countries with
higher rates of HIV and other STIs.
The study, by researchers at Imperial College London, based its
findings on surveys of 11,000 British adults carried out in 1990 and
2000.
In 1990, 5.6 percent of men said they had paid for sex at some stage
during their lifetime, with 2 percent saying they had done so in the
previous five years and 0.5 percent in the last year.
Ten years later, the figures had doubled with 9 percent of men
admitting they had had “commercial sex”, with 4.2 percent paying for sex
in the last five years and 1.3 percent saying they had done so in the
last year.
The study, published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections,
said that based on the 2000 results, men aged 25-34, living in London
and who had never married or were divorced, were the most likely to have
paid for sex.
More than a third of them had 10 or more sexual partners during the
previous five years and over a half had had new sexual partners while
abroad.
“The rate of divorce has increased, as has the proportion of men who
are never or previously married, and this may explain some of the
increased ‘demand’ for commercial sex,” the researchers said.
“All reports suggest an increasingly large and diverse sex industry,
with more opportunities for the sale and purchase of sex via clubs,
escort agencies, the Internet, and sex tourism.”
Britain has seen a significant rise in STIs, with chlamydia up 103
percent and gonorrhoea cases up 97 percent between 1997 and 2002, along
with a rise in new HIV infections.
Almost one in 10 men who paid for sex had had an STI but the study
said it was not clear if this higher incidence was through commercial
sex or because they had had more partners. |