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The Johns

Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It
Jul 23, 2009DavidB rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
The issue of prostitution is contentious already but with this book Victor Malarek tries to explore the “other side of the equation”: If prostitution and Human Trafficking is about supply and demand. An exploration of the desire side is needed to solve the problem. Unfortunately this book falls short. Malarek uses their own words for the basis of this book but the musings of self professed “mongers” gathered from websites have little depth. These die-hard “Johns” have misguided beliefs and little true insights into themselves, their psychology and their motivations let alone the actual social, political or economic status of the world. Malarek can barely contain his disdain when writing about these men and doesn’t much rely on the analysis experts (unless it facts and figures about prostitution). The book is a first person’s investigation into why some men use prostitutes that only offers their own narrow-minded reasoning as facts. To counterpoint their beliefs, Malarek uses other first person accounts of how horrifying the lives of prostitutes really are. The men who use prostitutes already fear looking too deeply into themselves and to guilt and shame them risk their taking the defensive and further aversion to understanding their behaviour. Malarek seems to be more concerned with catching and prosecuting offenders rather than a holistic approach to solving the roots of crime. According to the book (Chapter 16 pg. 265) what’s needed is to re-school men’s beliefs for the best results in recidivism and thus negating the demand side of the equation. More needs to be done to look at why men pay to have sex with women. Understanding one’s psychology and motivations will enable men to look at the consequence of their actions—how it hurts themselves as well as others. For that more books will need to be written and then read.