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Are classes enough to cure an epidemic?
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Can We "Cure" the Men Who Pay for Sex?
Relationships
Can We "Cure" the Men Who Pay for Sex?
© Ale Burset
Photo of Brooke Jarvis
BY BROOKE JARVIS
February 2, 2017
Inside a two-month program that aims to end prostitution—and help dismantle the patriarchy—by rehabilitating the men who perpetuate it.
The men cross their arms, slouch, and spread their feet wide—and you've never felt anything quite like the overwhelming awkwardness, the tangible defensiveness, that surrounds them. All eight have been busted for trying to buy sex. They've paid fines or spent time in jail or, in some cases, been forced to register as sex offenders. And now they're here, in this beige classroom, for the final, and most unusual, part of the punishment meted out by King County, Washington.
For the next couple of months, they'll be required to think deeply about what led them to the parking lots and motels where they were arrested. They'll be asked to plumb their emotions and to contemplate their place in the patriarchy. It's a modest experiment with a rather immodest goal: to solve the sex trade by changing the lives of the men who perpetrate it.
I wanted to see what on earth this might look like in practice. An eight-week court-ordered course meant to teach so-called johns about empathy and healthy relationships, about gender socialization and victim-blaming and toxic masculinity? When I asked for a closer look, the men in a recent course were invited to vote on whether they'd be okay with a female reporter quietly observing it all from the back of the room. Remarkably, they said yes.
And so, on a Thursday evening, I shook hands with the men, one by one, as they trickled in, took their seats, and slumped in silence. The usual small talk was clearly moot here. What would they say? Each man already knew at least the outline of how the others had ended up in that room, because it was the same way he had ended up there.
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Offenders' names have been changed throughout.
For Akio, who's 40 but has a shyness that makes him seem much younger, it was a first-time lark. He made a point of calling it “hanging out” when he asked how much he and a friend would be charged for an hour with a woman at a Ramada Inn.
Steve, 60, divorced, fresh from stalking allegations and more than one restraining order, had responded to a daddy-daughter deal on a fetish site.
Jason, a 22-year-old Mormon just back from a two-year mission—during which spending time with the opposite sex was strictly off-limits—arranged for a $70 blow job from a girl (she made a point of telling him she was a minor, though he swears he didn't go looking for that). She told him to meet her in the parking lot between a bank and a McDonald's.
Laughing, he offered another way to put it: “We're trying to teach them how to love.” Then he stopped laughing and said, “For real.”
David, 51 and fairly new to the computer, was on Craigslist looking for deals on auto parts when he noticed there were other ads there, too, ads for young women. Back in his military days, he'd bought sex on the street pretty regularly—“I treat 'em just like a human,” he told me later. He clicked on one of the ads and got an answer back from someone who gave her name as Jen. “What if I'm under 18?” she asked him. David went to meet her at a 7-Eleven, but when he got there, there was no Jen. There never had been. There was only the police waiting for him.
Man after man, the details differed but the denouement was the same: They went to a parking lot or to a motel or to some other rendezvous expecting sex, and got something else. The blood drains, the stomach drops, and instead of the woman he arranged to meet, there's a police detective standing in the doorway or stepping out of the car. Some of what followed was predictable: the trips to court, the heavy fees, to say nothing of the shame that must be borne before wives, bosses, pastors.
▪▪¤▪▪☆▪▪¤▪▪☆▪▪¤▪▪☆▪▪¤▪▪
Entertainment
Culture
Video
Subscribe
Search
GO
Can We "Cure" the Men Who Pay for Sex?
Relationships
Can We "Cure" the Men Who Pay for Sex?
© Ale Burset
Photo of Brooke Jarvis
BY BROOKE JARVIS
February 2, 2017
Inside a two-month program that aims to end prostitution—and help dismantle the patriarchy—by rehabilitating the men who perpetuate it.
The men cross their arms, slouch, and spread their feet wide—and you've never felt anything quite like the overwhelming awkwardness, the tangible defensiveness, that surrounds them. All eight have been busted for trying to buy sex. They've paid fines or spent time in jail or, in some cases, been forced to register as sex offenders. And now they're here, in this beige classroom, for the final, and most unusual, part of the punishment meted out by King County, Washington.
For the next couple of months, they'll be required to think deeply about what led them to the parking lots and motels where they were arrested. They'll be asked to plumb their emotions and to contemplate their place in the patriarchy. It's a modest experiment with a rather immodest goal: to solve the sex trade by changing the lives of the men who perpetrate it.
I wanted to see what on earth this might look like in practice. An eight-week court-ordered course meant to teach so-called johns about empathy and healthy relationships, about gender socialization and victim-blaming and toxic masculinity? When I asked for a closer look, the men in a recent course were invited to vote on whether they'd be okay with a female reporter quietly observing it all from the back of the room. Remarkably, they said yes.
And so, on a Thursday evening, I shook hands with the men, one by one, as they trickled in, took their seats, and slumped in silence. The usual small talk was clearly moot here. What would they say? Each man already knew at least the outline of how the others had ended up in that room, because it was the same way he had ended up there.
TRENDING THIS VERY SECOND
Entertainment
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Offenders' names have been changed throughout.
For Akio, who's 40 but has a shyness that makes him seem much younger, it was a first-time lark. He made a point of calling it “hanging out” when he asked how much he and a friend would be charged for an hour with a woman at a Ramada Inn.
Steve, 60, divorced, fresh from stalking allegations and more than one restraining order, had responded to a daddy-daughter deal on a fetish site.
Jason, a 22-year-old Mormon just back from a two-year mission—during which spending time with the opposite sex was strictly off-limits—arranged for a $70 blow job from a girl (she made a point of telling him she was a minor, though he swears he didn't go looking for that). She told him to meet her in the parking lot between a bank and a McDonald's.
Laughing, he offered another way to put it: “We're trying to teach them how to love.” Then he stopped laughing and said, “For real.”
David, 51 and fairly new to the computer, was on Craigslist looking for deals on auto parts when he noticed there were other ads there, too, ads for young women. Back in his military days, he'd bought sex on the street pretty regularly—“I treat 'em just like a human,” he told me later. He clicked on one of the ads and got an answer back from someone who gave her name as Jen. “What if I'm under 18?” she asked him. David went to meet her at a 7-Eleven, but when he got there, there was no Jen. There never had been. There was only the police waiting for him.
Man after man, the details differed but the denouement was the same: They went to a parking lot or to a motel or to some other rendezvous expecting sex, and got something else. The blood drains, the stomach drops, and instead of the woman he arranged to meet, there's a police detective standing in the doorway or stepping out of the car. Some of what followed was predictable: the trips to court, the heavy fees, to say nothing of the shame that must be borne before wives, bosses, pastors.
Can We "Cure" the Men Who Pay for Sex?
Posted from gq.com
Crime
Society
Morals
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 3
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