In the prologue, Malarek states that “Before I set to research and write my previous book, The Natashas, on the trafficking of young women and girls into the international sex trade, I had never really thought much about prostitution. Like so many men, I had been programmed from a young age to accept all the lame excuses I’d heard about the flesh trade: that these women were making money the easy way, on their backs; that it was all about sex and no one was being hurt; that the women chose to be in this so—called profession. Throughout my adult life, I had listened to men and women parrot the adage that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. However, after hearing many such chilling personal accounts as those of Stefa, Svetlana, and Irini, detailing the horrors that women and girls – as well as young boys – are forced to endure night after night all around the world, I have concluded that prostitution is the world’s oldest oppression. No group in society is so victimized, so brutally terrorized and abused, as the women and children who are trapped in the vicious cycle of prostitution. And what is so baffling is this exploitation continues to be one f the most overlooked human rights abuses on the planet today.” Reading both The Natashas and The Johns you learn quickly that wording is a very crucial element in the world of johns and pedophiles (which is not synonymous but often linked). I learned this in The Natashas too when he explained that in sex ads the reference to “happy laughing children,” is a code to pedophiles that they offer boys and girls. “Johns are attuned to the power of words and are well aware of the stigma of pay for sex, so most don’t call themselves “john” or “prostitute users,” nor do thy like the term “prostitution.” “Prostitute” is too value-laden, too controversial a world. They prefer more neutral terms, like provider and, for themselves, client. Those who want to cloak what they do with the perceived respectability of commerce speak of a “business transaction: and call sex a “service.” To them, the women are “sex workers,” “service providers,” and “working girls,” or “WGs.” Others who prefer a more mystifying approach borrow from the terminology of book clubs and gamers. Buying sex, they maintain, is simply their “hobby.” They become “mongers” or “punters” or “hobbyist (pp.94).” Malarek enriches the book with actual on-line conversations that johns (aka mongers) have in their chat rooms. As he explains, “The internet has become a one-stop shop for johns — a Yellow Pages directory, support group, and travel advisory rolled into one. It has allowed men who otherwise might not have spoken a world about their soc called hobby to break through the silence. They realize they’re not alone. They can reach out and touch one another –from all corners of the globe –and take comfort in the knowledge that there are millions like them. In the relative comfort of their homes and under the guise of a screen name, the johns share their reasons for wanting or needing sex, their fantasies, their escapades, their best and their worst. But they also rally around one another, offering comfort, validating each others’ feelings and fears, and valiantly defending their lifestyle against attack by outsiders or creeping of guilt….the only requirement is having the mindset of a john. Anyone suspected of being a Christian troublemaker or feminist…need not apply (pp. 9).” Talking about guilt one john who calls himself Loaded says “I feel no guilt whatsoever. I am getting what I need and I am helping them get what they need. No one is being hurt…I do not believe that God would send me to hell for acting on my natural instincts.” These mongers love to behave as if this is somehow a philanthropic activity for the benefit of women, girls, and boys in “third world” countries. Many feel proud for “Feeding her family.” One jokes, ‘They should erect a statue at the Bangkok airport in my honor for all the poor families I’ve helped with my hard-earned money (pp.94-95).” When others mongers try to discuss the guilt they’re feeling about possibly using girls who were not there by choice, fellow mongers jump in immediately insisting that their fellow monger stop letting guilt get to him. “I am unaware if the man owning the corner store or the man who comes to clean out my septic tank is under pressure to sell his service or his wares because of a drug habit, being coerced, blackmailed, or ordered by a judge for back alimony… [T]hat happens to be the fact of life in this less than perfect fucking world. We don’t always get to do what we want to do (pp. 103).” They provide their own statistics and odd rationale. One explains that he tries not to frequent particular establishments where the “risk of trafficking may be higher in places where there is a demand for certain ethnic groups…African girls working in Germany, Romanian strippers in Canada.” He said he preferred to “meet a girl on her home turf where she can be herself (pp. 103).” And the types who utilize prostitution are varied yet, to me at least, not surprising. Prostitutes name the family men who show them their kids’ photos and the loners who because of weak social skills rely solely on prostitutes. Malarek states that “Many seek sex, but some seek something more, craving intimacy from a woman, even if it’s bought.” Others allude to frustrating domestic situations, complaining that their marital sex lives have “dried up.” Some married men complained of their wives getting fat after having children and that they are no longer attracted to them but are too guilty to admit this. Others are tied of dating women that they have to woo, paid sex is convenient and on their terms and they no longer feel at the mercy of “greedy” “demanding women. Apparently fat, loud, feminist, desperate house wives watching, Western women are driving them headlong into the beds of foreign girls (and boys). But Malarek reads between the lines and also the blunt statements and notes, “It’s all about power, dominance, and not losing control. These men see the world changing around them – it is no longer a world that revolves around the male – and they feel profoundly uncomfortable with this new brand of equality. It’s something they don’t understand and cannot accept…belittling modern women who have refused to remain under heel (pp. 130).” Many have so detached themselves from the humans they pay for sex that they treat it and refer to it as a hobby, just like collecting model cars or stamps. They brag about their sex vacations, ask each other very “serious” question about where the best women and girls are, how cheap, what sex acts can they perform and create rating systems. Many also delude themselves that these non-western girls are so happy to be with them. (It’s sad but almost laughable at the same time), and if a girl comes in with an attitude or doesn’t look excited during sex, move on and find one of the many girls that will. Many of these men claim they understand that the women are faking but on the other hand they desperately want to believe that the women really want them. Some of them proclaim johns as the victims of cunning women who use their bodies to manipulate them. While that may sort of true for some porn stars, strippers, prostitutes, most likely in countries where they have no pimp and have the right to come and go as they please, this is not the case for the trafficked women. Those complaining about the “bastardization of the Western male” behave as if these impoverished, war torn foreign countries are Utopia for the weary Western man, whose only desire is for a “good” “pure” woman who will appreciate them. Though most can’t even speak the language of the women they’re soliciting, they believe these women are so happy to play servant master to them and that she is happy to serve and please. “..They construct fantasies of far-flung sexual nirvanas where the women, usually dirt-poor, are all too eager to please. In these places, where the balance of power is comfortably weighted in favor of men (for now), particularly men with money, they try to recoup at least some of their manhood, reclaim their confidence, and nurse their wounds (pp. 132).” This mentality has been used in every form of slavery, not only sexual, since the beginning of time. This idea that the enslaved are more than happy to be enslaved, that they find a natural joy in being controlled and oppressed. For women, lets say at the Bunny Ranch, who assert that they want to prostitute, I feel that is their choice but because some johns have the attitude that “I don’t see any chains” on them regarding foreign sex workers I find it interesting that they often choose to ignore the sight of pimps, bruises, underage prostitutes, and unfathomable poverty as signs that some have or feel they have no other choice but to prostitute. Sexual violence often goes hand in hand in sex exploitation. Malarek discusses the denial and the facts. “On most sex-site discussion forums, johns vehemently deny abusing the women they rent, but the undeniable fact remains that women in prostitution are subjected to violence and abuse at the hands of men who pay them. It is a daily occupational hazard. In fact, there is no other job on the planet fraught with so much danger as prostitution, and in no other so-called profession are so many women murdered each year (pp. 87).” He expertly ties in male resentment and rage towards Western women, and the way that these resentments and rage get taken out on the bodies of particularly foreign women and children. One example of a U.S. man, Dan Sandler who went overseas (originally from Oregon) and created and on-line site said “Welcome to Rape Camp.” (Even just writing that shakes me up). Sandler used foreign women on the site and abused them at the instruction of his on-line clients. When he was finally caught he said this: “They’re selling these women anyway in prostitute houses, where they have to have sex with 10 men a day and get AIDS.” Sandler was unrepentant about his maniacal objective. He hoped the site would “promote violence against women in the United States…I hate those bitches. They’re out of line and that’s one of the reasons I want to this…I hate American women.” Rape Camp triggered outrage among a group of local officials, and Sandler was arrested. facing five years in prison for violating the law on human trafficking and sexual exploitation, he appealed to the U.S. government, which eventually intervened with the Cambodian Interior Ministry, arranging for him to be deported rather than prosecuted….he has never been prosecuted in the United States (pp. 92). Malarek discusses how the Western obsession with porn, hardcore porn at that, has created generations of men who believe that they have the ultimate right to live out anything they choose and if laws prevent them in their own country they’ll seek others. “Some of us travel, and for the rest of the time between trips we don’t get much action in the USA, so we end up jut watching porn (pp. 194).” There is a porn star director who provides instructional tapes for pedophiles on how to rape children. He discusses the Pro-Prostitution groups and the spiraling effects of legalized prostitution. And most disturbing is his chapter about traveling pedophiles. But there are some successes like John Schoolin San Francisco, which makes johns face up to the reality of their “hobby” and countries like Sweden that are really taking a stand. He talks of the men who utilize positions of power, even one rescue worker who saved many kids and then he was discovered soliciting an 18-year-old boy that he himself rescued just a few years earlier. Many of them men take pictures and videos of the children and women they use in foreign countries and post them on-line amongst each other. They share ways of having access to children. Some suggest volunteer work in these countries or working for UN aid agency explaining that you’ll look like a saint and “score lots of women.” and one man says, “I work in Higher Education, and many years ago did a brief leadership development lecture in Myanmar. That is now my cover. I travel every year to ‘teach’ in some third world country, where UNFORTUNATELY there is not telephone service and very little internet service. In other words, I cannot be reached. Not only do I have the perfect cover for a spouse, but co-workers think I am a saint for volunteering in third world countries (pp. 187).” It is estimated that nearly 50 percent of the men who travel to places like Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines are there for sexual tourism; many carrying preconceived notions and an aim to partake in sex with children. When I learned that little children forced to perform oral sex to these men, referred to as giving Yum Yum, are so traumatized that some cannot drink milk, yogurt and fear any white man that they see (many Asian child sex cases include white Johns but definitely not all), that crushed me for a moment. Often they are trained to do these by "caregivers" until they are of age for other kinds of sex, though as we learn age does not stop “other kinds” of sex. The idea of a child understanding how to perform oral sex like robots, and doing so at the will of others who are making money off them, is the most disgusting and dehumanizing thing I have ever heard in my entire life and that will never change. The distorted rationalizations and justifications offered by these opportunistic johns are truly mind-boggling. Often they convince themselves that they are doing nothing wrong, that it is culturally acceptable to have sex with children in the countries they visit. They pretend to believe that Third World nations do not have the same social taboos against sex with children as the West, and that the children are less sexually inhibited. These traveling perpetrators feel free to experiment with child sex while abroad because of the anonymity that comes with being in a foreign land-anonymity that provides them with freedom from the legal and perhaps personal restraints forbidding this kind of behavior in their homeland. Even more disturbing is that so many of these men sidestep any pangs of guilt by convincing themselves that they are helping the child’s family escape economic hardship by exchanging money for sex. This is the ultimate conscience pacifier (270). Groups of young girls and boys have been rescued from child sex slave situations with American teachers and aid workers. “ICE agents have even caught American predators heading to Third World nations to work as teachers and aid workers, jobs that put them in close and continuous contact with children (pp.277).” This book is deep, some may accuse Malarek of painting all prostitution with one brush but his opinions aside, the facts are indisputable. I didn’t cry after reading The Natashas but after living in the minds of these johns for 298 pages, I closed that book and cried for a while. Though I knew some of the rationale, the cockiness, the smugness, the code words, the complete disregard for another human being and child was so shocking that I was nauseous. What also disturbed and worried me was that Western women, as a western woman myself, who was just “accused” of being a feminist at a party two weeks ago, are being blamed for the trying to better our lives and millions of foreign women are paying for it. The fact is these women want the same rights and protection as us but don’t have the power to enforce that and therefore they are “fair game.” Yet the men who are creating this international tale of horrors remain under the radar. I don’t know of any woman I know would believe or even consider that her husband, father, brother, son, and friends, take part in this. What can we do? How do we start to uncover the real faces behind these tacky screen names and on-line home-made pornography, and hold them accountable for the exploitation, diseases, and the babies and lives they leave behind? I literally can quote this book to death. I have so many bent pages that it’s increased the width of the book. It is one of the most sadly enlightening and powerful examinations of johns thus far. People must read it. Married women, single women, young and old men and married men. We need to discuss the rage, the rational, and the price this is costing everyone whether we realize it or not. My post about this is long, there were so many disturbing quotes that as I said I could have gone on and on but if you want to read more reviews start by cutting and pasting this link below and on. http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=6477 In the The Johns, Sex for Sale and the Men who Buy It, Victor Malarek looks at the “demand” side of prostitution, as he did the “supply” side in The Natashas. I found this book disturbing on so many levels (this explains the unusually long post). As with his last book I have used direct quotes him quite a bit because I think the words speak for themselves. Right from the beginning Malarek goes for the jugular using facts and real voices.
