What men say when apprehended for kerb crawling: A model of prostitutes clients' talk1

Prostitution research has traditionally focused on women engaged in sex work while the male clients have been so hidden that their characteristics and motives have been difficult for researchers to study. A general confusion exists in parliamentary debates, media, and policy, as to who the clients of prostitutes are, and their purpose for the visit (Carpenter, Citation2000). Despite the lack of theoretically informed debate about the role of the consumer in the buying and selling of sex, recent policy and legislation in England has continued to criminalize the male customer of on-street sexual practices. This paper presents data from 518 cases in which men were stopped for street soliciting (or ‘kerb crawling’), and contributes to the ongoing prostitution/policing debate by providing an analysis of the language these men use to justify their actions when stopped by the police for soliciting women. From the analysis of such attributional accounts, a new theoretical model of client behaviour is presented. Discussion focuses upon the utility of such a model to further our understanding of prostitutes clients' behaviour, their contact with law enforcement, and their subjective reasons for seeking commercial sex. 1Requests for reprints to first author bbg1@le.ac.uk at the School of Psychology, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH. This paper is based on work conducted for a doctoral thesis which was funded by the Economic Social and Research Council (award no. R0042974404). The second author was academic supervisor.