In 2014 Merel van Mansom carried out a qualitative study on the purchase of sexual intimacy on female clients of male sex workers. This dissertation of her Master Studies ‘ Gender, Sexuality and Culture’ with the title: ‘Feeling like a Natural Woman: Dutch female demand for male supply in the world of Gigoloism’ received the LOVA thesis Award 2015 and has recently been published in the LOVA magazine 36.

Abstract of publication:

This explorative study based on in-depth interviews with female clientele of gigolos tangles with theoretical and political discourses about sex work, when considering the current international demonization of sex workers clientele in a prostitution-as-violence-against-women paradigm. Describing and analysing the demands and desires of female clientele of gigolo’s, questioning ‘why’ they book a gigolo, and ‘what’ they gained after the transaction, can contribute to important insights concerning the sex market and the dichotomy between male and female sexuality. Especially when the female clientele seems to deconstruct a social stigma theory on a sexual double standard (SDS) with a new biological imperative that addresses the naturalness of female sexuality. This small explorative study is one of the first social scientific studies about female clientele of gigolos. I hope it will contribute to a better understanding on the diversity of sex work and a direction towards implementing more qualitative studies on the demand side of the commercial sex industry instead of the prevailing studies on the supply side. “

If you would like to receive a .pdf of this study please contact Merel van Mansom