Men’s demand for sex far outstrips that of women and the gap is set to widen with major implications for laws surrounding prostitution, according to a new paper from the Institute of Economic Affairs.
One of the key claims in the IEA paper is that there is a major gap between men and women in sexual desire. “Male sexual desire is manifested at least twice as often as female desire, with the gap growing over time,” according to the author Catherine Hakim. She decries the view of some feminists that gaps in sexual desire is a patriarchal myth.
She cites 30 nationally representative scientific sex surveys from countries across the world conducted between 1990 and 2010 to make her case. All of these surveys find that men have a significantly stronger sexual desire than women. The studies include countries that are considered to have extremely relaxed attitudes to sex as well as more conservative societies.
There are also wide gaps between men and women across a range of sexual interests. Men are three times more likely to have frequent sexual fantasies and two-thirds of men accept, and two-thirds of women reject the idea of sexuality without love.
Men are two to 10 times more enthusiastic than women for trying every variation in sexual activity. Men were much more likely to have a positive view of one-night stands and were more open to having more than one sexual partner while in a relationship. However, it appears to be the case that the gap between men and women in sexual desire is wider in more male-dominated non-Western societies, according to a cross-cultural study of 29 countries.
With such a massive sexual demand from men that is not being met the report argues prostitution and an increase in the sex industry are inevitable. Hakim, a British sociologist and research fellow at the Civitas think tank, says that as the world becomes wealthier the demand for luxury goods of which sexual services are one will increase.
The rising status of women in education and work across the Western world means that women are becoming increasingly independent of men and can afford to withdraw from sexual markets and relationships they think are disadvantageous. This creates a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs and sex workers to capitalize on. This leads Hakim to conclude that decriminalization of prostitution would produce far better results than current policies.
Addressing the critics of decriminalization who argue prostitution has a host of negative consequences, Hakim argues that “all available evidence points in the direction of prostitution and erotic entertainments having no noxious psychological or social effects, and they may even help to reduce sexual crime rates.”
Criminalization of buyers and sellers of sex only serves to push sex work underground, endangering both parties, according to the report. Not only that but the nature of the modern world makes prohibition an increasingly untenable situation. Technology and more liberal social attitudes have fundamentally changed the market for sex.
“Globalization makes sexual markets international in scope. Recreational and non-marital sexuality is becoming just as important as reproductive and marital sexuality, and the distinction between amateur and professional sexual encounters is becoming increasingly blurred.
“Decriminalization is the only workable way forward. The proposal to copy Sweden and criminalize customers in the sex trade is a complete waste of public money, unforgivable in a time of austerity,” Hakim said in a press release. The paper comes in the wake of calls by Amnesty International to decriminalize prostitution to ensure the safety of sex workers.
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