One in ten British men 'paid for sex'

More than a tenth of men in the UK have paid for sex, according to a major new survey into sexual behaviour across Britain.

The third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles conducted by researchers at University College London found that 11 per cent of men had paid for sex. For women, the figure was just 0.1 per cent

Paying for sex tended to be linked with "hedonistic and risky behaviours" the researchers said, and those who did so were twice as likely to be diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection such as syphilis. Gonorrhoea or HIV, the [2]BBC reports.

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Lead researcher Dr Cath Mercer told the BBC: "I think I was most surprised that it is not paid partners making up most of the total, but they are having more partners generally. These men tend to be highly sexually active."

Contrary to the prevailing perception that men who paid for sex were typically "lonely older men", the most likely group to have paid for sex in the past five years were men in their twenties and thirties.

Two thirds of the men who admitted to having paid for sex had done so while abroad, predominantly in Asia and Europe.

"It could be down to opportunistic reasons such as a lads' weekend away, paid-for sex is available, it's something they wouldn't necessarily do at home, but in that situation it happens, but there are other reasons as well," said Dr Mercer. "What we do in the UK won't stop men paying for sex, we may push them abroad even more."

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