Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2011, and its statistics on prostitution and drug use and the legal situation in the Netherlands and Spain are from that time and may have changed since.
According to a recent statistical study, Spanish men are the biggest consumers of prostitution in Europe. One in three men admits to having paid for sex at some point, which puts Spain at the top with 40%, well ahead of second-placed Switzerland at 19% and Austria at 15%.
That said, the results may rest on shaky foundations because of the Spanish mindset. Spanish men are open by nature and have no qualms about admitting that they’ve been with a prostitute at some point, especially considering that there are still Spaniards who are proud of having taken their son to a brothel to lose his virginity with a prostitute. For them, it’s one way a father shows his son that there’s a strong bond between them, and he feels very proud to be with his son on such a happy and important day (the passage from boy to man).
Another custom that drives the consumption of prostitution in Spain is the stag party. Even though most grooms won’t admit it, in Spain many still say goodbye to single life with one last “escape” before entering monogamy.
In other, more conservative countries of the European Union, admitting that a man has paid for this kind of service is still considered shameful and humiliating for him, so there could well be high consumption of prostitution there too, just kept more private.
If the figures in this report reflect reality, Spain would be consuming more prostitution than even the country of sex tourism, the Netherlands (14%), where prostitution is fully legal and Amsterdam has its “Red Light District”, where prostitutes display themselves in windows as if it were a clothing shop.
The negative side of these figures is how they add up with Spain’s other statistics on vices. If we are at the top in consumption of prostitution, at the top in cocaine use, and have such lax laws against organized crime gangs, that would explain why Spain is a paradise for organized crime, both in drug trafficking and in the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation. Not to mention the day someone publishes statistics on political corruption by autonomous community (Spain’s regions): that one would put us at the top of Europe with an “absolute majority”. Welcome to Spain!
Featured image: Bert Kaufmann, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
