ABSTRACT
This chapter considers that image of the client and the trending effort to arrest, prosecute, and demonize the client, an effort known as “End Demand.” It juxtaposes claims and practices of End Demand ideology with real-world sex industry experiences of clients and providers. Those experiences reflect and exemplify the substantial literature challenging dominant cultural constructions of sex workers’ clients as violent or otherwise pathological men, and illustrate baleful effects of client targeting as public policy. Intertwined with End Demand ideology is the one-dimensional image of the client as a male predator who buys sex from a helpless woman. Despite the plethora of studies and accounts from sex worker activists that describe the surprising ordinariness of clients, the sinister and sensationalized image of the buyer persists. The insistence thatallprostitution is somehow coercive, along with the notion of sexual slavery, often accompanies efforts to target clients.
