Transactional Desire: Exploring Male Student Sex Workers in China

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a descriptive study of Chinese male student sex workers through a grounded theory analysis of 25 semi-structured one-to-one online interviews. We found that the internet and introductions by peers were the two primary channels for Chinese male students to enter the sex industry. Most students were motivated to be involved in commercial sex by a mixture of consumption and sexual desires. Student sex workers motivated mainly by sexual desire often selected clients and considered commercial sex as “transactional hookups.” Student sex workers used strategies, including concealing, separating sex and love, simulating boyfriend experiences, and terminating romantic relationships, to deal with the stigmas they encountered. Sexual health and sexually transmitted disease prevention-oriented sexuality education in China had positive impacts on male student sex workers, but we also found the need for more comprehensive sexuality education. As emerging adults, college students are in a life stage distinct from adolescents and adults. We believe student sex work, as well as emerging adult sex work in general, needs to be differentiated from voluntary adult sex work in both scholarly research and public discussions of the legal status of sex work, especially in cases where students are not informed about the risks of engaging in commercial sex.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Professor Siwei Cheng for her continuous support of this study. Her patient guidance and valuable advice helped and motivated us during every stage of this research. We would like to thank Professor Alexandra Falek from NYU Writing Center for providing useful suggestions during the writing process of this paper. We appreciate the inspirations Ricky Guo gave us at the early stages of this study. We are grateful for the valuable comments and suggestions the three anonymous reviewers gave us.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund (Fall 2021) at the College of Arts and Science, New York University. This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of New York University (IRB-FY2022-6034).