Escort Advertisements and Male Patronage of Prostitutes

Abstract

Sociologists have devoted limited attention to investigating reasons for male patronage of female prostitutes. To date this research has largely been comprised of non-representative samples of clients. We expand sociological inquiry of this question through a content analysis of the advertisements of 237 female Internet escorts who advertise on a large, national-in-scope (U.S.A.) website. Our findings largely complement those of previous studies that have examined this topic via interviews with clients or prostitutes as well as those of studies that analyzed johns' postings on Internet websites. Offerings of “Girl Friend Experiences,” unrushed encounters, and escort-type services are more common than offerings of anal sex, S&M, B&D, and fetish services. We also discuss the impact of the Internet on the structure of one of society's oldest institutions.

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on a previous draft of the article.

Notes

¹We acknowledge an anonymous reviewer for this insight.

²The quotes from the escort ads are correct. There are numerous misspellings, punctuation errors, and other typos in the ads but the authors did not want to insert “[sic]” repeatedly.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew V. Pruitt

MATTHEW V. PRUITT is a Professor of Sociology at Western Kentucky University. His current research projects include an analysis of fees charged by male Internet escorts and a content analysis of female Internet escort advertisements.

Amy C. Krull

AMY C. KRULL is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Western Kentucky University. Her research interests focus on qualitative methods. Substantively, she has published articles on family caregiving, family violence, pedagogy, and deviant behavior.