Becoming a Male Client of Compensated Dating

ABSTRACT

This study explores men’s experiences in compensated dating (CD), particularly their process of becoming a client of CD in Hong Kong. By drawing on 30 individual interviews with male clients, cyber-ethnography of a major CD on-line forum, informal conversations with CD participants, off-line participant observations, and the sparse literature available on this under-examined social phenomenon, we also analyze men’s subjective understandings of being a client, of CD providers, and of CD itself, which influence men’s CD experiences and condom use behavior. Finally, this study sheds light on the contemporary issues of masculinity and sexuality in Hong Kong.

Notes

¹ Since 2009, Yang Memorial Methodist Social Service has carried out a Concern Action in Relieving Enjo-kosai Youth (C.A.R.E.) Project to serve adolescents involved in CD and to increase the social awareness of CD on its plausible physical and psychological harms to adolescents as well as a possible threat to the public hygiene and ethics. The project was funded by The Community Chest between April 2010 to April 2013. Regardless of the lack of external funding, the C.A.R.E. project would still go on after April 2013. Refer to C.A.R.E. project’s website for more details. Retrieved on March 15, 2013. (http://careproject.yang.org.hk).

² Ching: literal translation of a senior fellow.

³ Dai Ching: literal translation of the highest grade within all the senior fellows. The seniority stems from their CD experience or length of time in the CD world.

⁴ CC is an abbreviation for C Chung, a Cantonese term meaning individually operated female sex worker.

⁵ cbox: abbreviation for chat box.

⁶ Girls who work under an agent in the field of CD are known as Agent girls or A girls. Sometimes, they are also referred as fake CCs because they work more like conventional sex workers than CCs. So, A girls are usually not desirable and are avoided by the Brothers.

⁷ Social Welfare Department. Retrieved December 13 2012 (http://www.swd.gov.hk/doc/fcw/proc_guidelines/childabuse/Chapter03_udated_at_April08.pdf).

⁸ Cap 200 Crime Ordinance. Retrieved on December 13 2012 (http://www.legislation.gov.hk/blis_pdf.nsf/6799165D2FEE3FA94825755E0033E532/46A02C9D714527F1482575EE004C2BC1/$FILE/CAP_200_e_b5.pdf).

⁹ American Sociological Association, American Sociological Association code of ethics. Retrieved October 11, 2010 (http://www2.asanet.org/members/ecostand2.html#12).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cassini Sai Kwan Chu

CASSINI SAI KWAN CHU received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hong Kong. She has been involved in research related to commercial sex in Hong Kong. Her interests lie particularly in the study of gender, sexuality, and sex work in modern times. More specifically, she explores how the changes of the commercial sex industry, from clients and providers’ perspectives, reflect the transformation of intimacy and sexuality in late modernity.

Karen Joe Laidler

KAREN JOE LAIDLER is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Hong Kong. She has been involved in criminological research—applied and theoretical—in the United States and Hong Kong. In the United States, her interest in the articulation of gender and ethnicity in gangs dates back to the late 1980s. She continues to publish in this area, focusing especially on violence and drugs. In Hong Kong, her research has focused on the sex work industry, and changes in the drug market, especially the rise and problems associated with psychotropic drugs, and generational differences among heroin users.