The Sex Safety and Security Project

[SexSafeSecure]

Good day.

You may be aware of the recent successful challenge to Canadian laws relating to various aspects of prostitution. While these legal challenges have opened up a unique opportunity for important changes to be made to enhance the health and safety of ALL people involved in the industry, there are certain advocacy groups who are calling for the implementation of the "Nordic model" - a regulatory approach that effectively criminalizes the purchase of sexual services. These groups argue that people who pay for sexual services pose a "risk" to the health and safety of sex workers. One of the most prominent campaigns currently making this claim is the Salvation Army's "The Truth isn't Sexy" which implies that people who pay for sex are responsible for the trafficking of women and children.

We believe that the generalizations that groups seeking the abolition of prostitution make about the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of ALL people who pay for sexual services in Canada are based on moral convictions and speculation as opposed to actual evidence. We also believe that these generalizations are dangerous. The reason we believe this is because of the invaluable information that almost 1000 people who paid for sexual services in Canada (many of whom are members of this forum) graciously shared with us during our 2009-2010 Johns' Voice study (http://www.johnsvoice.ca/).

Results from the Johns' Voice study played a central role in shaping the legal, political and social debates that surrounded the recent successful legal challenge. They also helped us make it clear to the various groups involved in ongoing legal, political and social debates about the future of Canada's prostitution law and policy that it is absolutely vital that people who pay for sexual services have an opportunity to be listened to and included. The Johns' Voice project was just the beginning.

In our ongoing effort to present a more complete and accurate picture of the diversity of attitudes, beliefs and experiences of people who have paid for sexual services in Canada we are inviting you to be a part of the largest and most ambitious study of Canada's sex industry undertaken to date. The Sex, Safety and Security Study, which is part of a larger research initiative funded the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), seeks to provide a safe, secure and non-judgmental environment for people who have purchased sexual services to have your voices heard and respected and the details of your experiences acknowledged.

If you or someone you know want to take this opportunity to have your voices, opinions and experiences included in this important project please visit our website http://www.SexSafetySecurity.ca or contact Chris Atchison directly to find out more about the project.

[edited by moderator]


Thank-you in advance for your understanding and support.

Chris

Chris Atchison
Department of Sociology
University of Victoria
PO Box 1700 STN CSC
Victoria, BC
V8W 2Y2
email: info@sexsafetysecurity.ca
web: http://www.sexsafetysecurity.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sex-S...05611512938349
Twitter: @SexSafetySecure

 

[exploration]

good luck with your study.

i just browsed the website and your methods to collect data... phone calls... in person interview.... good intentions and you might get some volunteers but i think the majority wont be up for it. i would gather from just my experiences here(so nothing statistical) that the majority of the people here have solid real lives.... you wont get anything from them if there is even a slimmest chance it might risk exposing their identity.... your websites just briefly goes over how the study will keep data confidential... imo, it really isnt enough. I understand your two step research strategy and theoritically it is sound but in scenarios like this where one side can be very public with their viewpoints and the other are traditionally hidden, this is much more challenging.

also your online survey is massive and it reads like a novel. a 30-60 minute commitment is quite a lot lol... imo you might need to go beyond your traditional methods of research. like breakdown your questions and post bits of it on the forums themselves (you have done a pretty good job so far with that other thread you posted).... or maybe enlist the agencies to lend you a hand since the nordic model will pretty much kill their businesses... when you are trying to research on an invisible group like the johns, you might need to think outside the box.

also, you have to wonder the volunteers you have gotten so far, are they truly a good representation of all the johns out there or does your research methods cater to a specific john profile.

i'll end off with what i see is a major hurdle, the challenge for you is to come up with a solid research method that can give you good representation while maintaining research integrity

just my 2cents.... you might know this stuff alot more than I so disregard what I have typed if i am completely off base. i'll just continue to enjoy the hula hoop girl in my sig

 

[SexSafeSecure]

Thanks Exploration for your comments and well wishes for our study.

Some thoughts, questions and observations in response to your post:

When people see policies and legislation being developed that negatively impact their lives or if they constantly see stories in mainstream media depicting them in inaccurate and harmful ways they have two options: 1) do nothing and live with the negative social (stigma) and legal consequences (persecution and prosecution) of their silence; or, 2) to do something about it.

My past experience tells me that people who pay for sexual services do want to have a platform to have their voices heard and included in the conversations that directly affect them and that they do want to have some input into ensuring that a more accurate and complete depiction of the sex industry and their role and experience in it is put forward. In fact, for my Sexuality in the 1990s study 260 people stepped forward and most recently 1000 people stepped forward to participate in Johns' Voice. The results from both of these studies have forced mainstream media, legislators and policy makers, and members of the general public to acknowledge that many of the stereotypes that society has about people who pay for sex are simply incorrect. In doing this they have had to acknowledge that allowing these stereotypes to inform our social understandings, public and health policies and legislation will likely have a negative outcome.

I agree with you that very few of the men, women and couples who pay for sex will 'out' themselves publicly in order to have their voices heard. You are also right that "the majority of the people here have solid real lives.... you wont get anything from them if there is even a slimmest chance it might risk exposing their identity." You go on to say that my "websites just briefly goes over how the study will keep data confidential...imo, it really isnt enough."

I appreciate your concern about security, privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity but it would appear that since you looked only at the information we provide on the main web pages you probably would not have had the opportunity to read the very lengthy and detailed statement of informed consent that people who participate are presented with before starting the survey or interview. We did not want to overwhelm people who visited the main sexsafetysecurity.ca web pages with lengthy details and descriptions (people generally go to web sites to get the basic facts).

People who participate in the self-administered questionnaire and those who sit down and talk with me in a phone interview remain anonymous. I do not ask for, or collect any, information that could be used to identify an individual and the instructions in both the questionnaire and interview are quite clear about that (I am interested in people's attitudes, beliefs and experience not their identities). The statement of informed consent also provides rather detailed information about the lengths we have gone to ensure that information provided is kept completely private and confidential. Some of these protocol include maintaining ownership and physical control over the servers that house the data, the use of high-level encryption, and the daily transfer and removal of all data from the server for storage on a non-networked computer. While I do feel that these practical and technical protections are well and fine, I think that any prospective participant that does his/her due diligence will also look into who I am and what I have said publicly and in my writings over the past 18 years about people who pay for sex. When people do the research they will see that I go to the mat for my participants, I take stringent precautions to ensure that identities are protected and that communities are not harmed as a result of the work that I do and I do not attempt to cherry-pick the information people provide me to present a one-sided account. I am not an advocate for any group or position, I am a social and health researcher that is committed to doing the BEST research (transparent, ethical, methodologically sound and analytically rigorous) possible. I feel that by doing what I do best the multiple "truths" about the sex industry will come to the surface and this will allow for the development of programs and policies that do not bring about harm to the people involved in the industry.

As for the length and detail of the online survey, you are quite correct it is "massive." I could have designed a questionnaire that simply asked canned and surface level questions that allowed me to analyze the information that participants provided in an equally surface-level manner but it seems to me that this is precisely the problem with much of the "research" that is done on this subject. It is precisely this surface level information and analysis that allows for simplistic generalizations about entire populations of people. Simplistic generalizations about people who pay for sex lead to stereotypes.

The survey that I have designed allows people to provide as much detail as they want about their attitudes, beliefs and experiences. People who participate are made aware of the fact that they are NOT required to provide details if they do not feel comfortable doing so but by providing details they are taking control of their stories and reducing the likelihood that they will be misinterpreted. There is context and reason behind all of our experiences, it is the absence of the description, acknowledgement and understanding of the reasons and context that has allowed groups seeking the criminalization of people who pay for sex to present an image of sex buyers as 'social misfits,' 'sexual deviants,' 'violent,' 'diseased,' 'child molesters,' 'predators,' 'perverts,' 'psychologically imbalanced/psychopaths,' 'paedophiles' and 'immoral degenerates,' and 'traffickers.' In the end it is up to the people who participate to decide what they do or do not share and what images of sex buyers they want society to have.

When it comes to how good of a representation of people who pay for sexual services I get by placing information about the project in the spaces that I have, all I can say is that my approach does not rely solely on forums such as TERB for inviting people to come forward and participate. I am going much wider and employing a variety of strategies to ensure that the word gets out to as many corners of the sex industry as possible. Having said this, at the end of the day it is not possible to talk about "representative" samples of people who pay for sex, just as it is not possible to talk of "representative" samples of people who sell sex. My goal is to present a platform for as many people as I can from as diverse array of backgrounds a possible. The typical study of people involved in the sex industry is 20-30 participants, in Johns' Voice I managed to get 1000. The question is, would you be more comfortable basing social, health and legal policy decisions on the results from a study involving 30 people or 1000 or 10,000? Numbers don't ensure accuracy but they do help with presenting diversity.

 

[PreciousPrincess]

xoxox

 

[rhuarc29]

Seems to me the best way to get Johns (I hate that term) to contribute in large numbers would be for the government to guarantee amnesty and confidentiality. But since when does the government want to hear the opinions of people who pay for sexual services? Their interest lies elsewhere.

I wish you luck in this endeavor and I appreciate it, even with it's drawbacks.

 

[SexSafeSecure]

Seems to me the best way to get Johns (I hate that term) to contribute in large numbers would be for the government to guarantee amnesty and confidentiality. But since when does the government want to hear the opinions of people who pay for sexual services? Their interest lies elsewhere.

I wish you luck in this endeavor and I appreciate it, even with it's drawbacks.

Thank-you for the support rhuarc29 and I am more than happy to use my capacity as a researcher to work with people who purchase and pay for sexual services to put forward a more complete and accurate image. I have always found the terms 'pooner,' 'trick' and 'mark' to be more annoying but I guess it is all a matter of perspective and preference.

I guess one of the ironies of the Sex, Safety and Security project is that in a round about way the government is flipping the bill to hear the opinions of people who pay for sexual services.

 

[George W. Bush]

good luck with your study.

i just browsed the website and your methods to collect data... phone calls... in person interview.... good intentions and you might get some volunteers but i think the majority wont be up for it. i would gather from just my experiences here(so nothing statistical) that the majority of the people here have solid real lives.... you wont get anything from them if there is even a slimmest chance it might risk exposing their identity.... your websites just briefly goes over how the study will keep data confidential... imo, it really isnt enough. I understand your two step research strategy and theoritically it is sound but in scenarios like this where one side can be very public with their viewpoints and the other are traditionally hidden, this is much more challenging.

also your online survey is massive and it reads like a novel. a 30-60 minute commitment is quite a lot lol... imo you might need to go beyond your traditional methods of research. like breakdown your questions and post bits of it on the forums themselves (you have done a pretty good job so far with that other thread you posted).... or maybe enlist the agencies to lend you a hand since the nordic model will pretty much kill their businesses... when you are trying to research on an invisible group like the johns, you might need to think outside the box.

also, you have to wonder the volunteers you have gotten so far, are they truly a good representation of all the johns out there or does your research methods cater to a specific john profile.

i'll end off with what i see is a major hurdle, the challenge for you is to come up with a solid research method that can give you good representation while maintaining research integrity

just my 2cents.... you might know this stuff alot more than I so disregard what I have typed if i am completely off base. i'll just continue to enjoy the hula hoop girl in my sig

I agree...more importantly, who is the hula hoop girl.....

And Yes, SSS, good luck with your study...

cheers GWB

 

[driveharder]

Seems interesting.

 

[exploration]

I agree...more importantly, who is the hula hoop girl.....

And Yes, SSS, good luck with your study...

cheers GWB

i dont know but i would like to find a sp that can use a hula hoop like her

while we are on this topic, who's the girl in your sig with the impressive control of her lower body?


to OP thanks for your detailed response. since it seems like that you have been researching this topic for a number of years, can you tell us what are the statistics like? what percent of the legal age males actually use a sex provider? split into age groups or frequency of usage. or income levels etc.

would be interesting to then compare it to what our SPs / MPs are saying their clientele is like to determine if you are indeed getting a good representation. not saying you arent of course. just curious if different parts of the country has vastly different demographics that make up their Johns.

also do you have an idea where your replies geographically are coming from or is even that information anon?

 

[SexSafeSecure]

to OP thanks for your detailed response. since it seems like that you have been researching this topic for a number of years, can you tell us what are the statistics like? what percent of the legal age males actually use a sex provider? split into age groups or frequency of usage. or income levels etc.

would be interesting to then compare it to what our SPs / MPs are saying their clientele is like to determine if you are indeed getting a good representation. not saying you arent of course. just curious if different parts of the country has vastly different demographics that make up their Johns.

also do you have an idea where your replies geographically are coming from or is even that information anon?

IT is impossible to know what percentage of males purchase sex in Canada because that question has never appeared on the Canadian General Social Survey. It has appeared on the US version and a recent article by Monto and Milrod the authors claim that in the US, roughly 14% of men between the ages of 18-75 have paid for sex, with only 1% reporting having done so during the previous year. While these estimates may be correct, it is hard to tell since the General Social Survey is not really a "representative" sample of the American population (it excludes people in institutions, those living on reserves, those without a phone, etc.). Having said this, the 10-15% estimate seems to be one that is commonly reported in national sample studies in western countries (the numbers are considerably higher in SE Asia, Africa, and Latin America).

One of the goals of the larger project that I am working on (www.understandingsexwork.com) is to be able to compare and contrast the accounts, experiences, opinions and beliefs of clients and service providers so by this time next year we will have the comparison you are looking for.

As for regional differences among people who pay for sex, there certainly appear to be. Much of these differences reflect the fact that the commercial sex marketplace differs considerably across Canada in terms of types of venues (e.g., street, independent in/out-call, club/bar, agency, etc.) and the level of 'acceptability' of commercial exchanges in the specific city/town. The level of stigma and control that people experience appears to be related to the ways they are able to sell and purchase sexual services. This is one of the reasons that I am going across Canada to talk with people who pay for sexual services so that I can get a better idea about the similarities and differences in experiences in different rural, suburban and urban settings.