Investigating the clientele of prostitutes in order to have a better knowledge of their expectations and practices, to reveal the reasons for their behaviour, is not easy. This penetration of the intimate sphere of the person contradicts deep desires to preserve anonymity and to remain faceless. They want to enjoy clean consciences, by denying any acknowledgement of personal responsibility. This is one of the reasons why clients, although key players in the prostitution industry, have not received the attention of social researchers.
Feminists regard this gap as a deliberate omission due to the tacit acceptance of male privilege in the control of sexual practices. Studies focus much more on supply than on demand because of the moral stigma surrounding the subject. There are methodological difficulties in identifying the diversity and heterogeneity of clients. Through 38 interviews with local and foreign clients of Asian prostitutes in Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong, and the testimonies of 15 Indonesian prostitutes, this paper to identifies the motivations, justifications, and profiles of men paying for sex.
Our interviews show similar aversions in Asia. Anonymity avoids shame and the redefinition of commercial payment into various alternative narratives building on the unequal status of the women in economic, social, and cultural terms protects the male sexual privilege.
While the consumer may remain invisible, he is in fact the base of the whole system. One wonders then why the client is so systematically excluded from all studies and analysis. Why is his role totally ignored? Who is this client, what is he looking for and why? Feminists tend to view this voluntary omission as a tacit acceptance of masculine sexual practices and privileges.
The studies emphasized the prostitutes themselves, their living and working conditions as well as their relationship with their clients, yet revealing little or no information on these clients Khin ; Truong ; Hall ; Seabrook Toward the end of the s, with the onset of AIDS, numerous studies and reports devoted entire pages to describing the social, economic and cultural profile of the prostitutes and their role in disease transmission. Yet only a few lines of these reports concern the clients even though they are more numerous than the prostitutes, thus deliberately minimizing their importance.
