This paper analyses the discourse of a group of men who buy sex from women, examining the way they explain and justify their pleasure in such sex. They do so through two sets of interpretations: on the one hand they assert that the commercial exchange is a mutual emotional and sexual relationship between clients and the women who provide sex, and on the other hand they assert that the payment of money discharges all larger obligations associated with relationships. The result is a profoundly self-serving interpretative schema in which women who provide sex are ascribed an identity and agency to position clients in an almost wholly benign light.

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Indepth interviews were recorded with 24 clients of female sex workers to explore their perspectives on the control of commercial sex encounters. The men saw the encounter as falling into three phases, only the first of which -the decision to have sex -was under their control. Subsequent phases -the negotiation of services and the performance of sex -they argued to be under worker control. The men considered that they acquiesced in worker control because they saw themselves as respectful of a woman's right to control her body and because they considered themselves attentive to workers' sexual pleasure. At the same time, this acquiescence was considered to exculpate them from any responsibility for safer sex practice. Thus while the men argued they were consistent condom users, they held their partners responsible for ensuring this consistent condom use: women supplied condoms, and were held accountable for any condom failures. The discourse of these men therefore functioned both to present clients benignly and to exculpate them from any responsibility for ensuring the safety of the commercial sex encounter.

This paper reports on an in-depth study of how men who buy sex construe risk in relation to their sexual activities. Twenty men were contacted in a massage parlour, four more through sex workers or newspaper advertisements. In-depth, face-to-face interviews were recorded. Two main discourses were articulated by the men to "manage' risk. Parlour clients articulated a discourse of the "cordon sanitaire' which they defined in various way to encompass elements of both commercial and non-commercial sex. Most felt while they operated within this they ran only those risks inevitable in life. Outside the cordon were dangerous venues, especially the streets. A few felt either fatalistic or invulnerable about possibilities of risk even within this "cordon sanitaire'. Street clients articulated a different discourse about risk, based on a strategy of discrimination between women.

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