ONE in ten British men have paid for sex, research shows, and Susan*, 30, from London, found out her boyfriend was one of them.
Slumped on the bathroom floor, waves of nausea washed over me.
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I felt violently ill, but not because of a stomach bug – rather with sheer disgust at the confession my boyfriend had just made.
With eight shocking words – “I sleep with prostitutes when I go abroad” – my world had imploded.
I’d always thought of sex tourists as older, sweaty, creepy blokes on holiday by themselves, who see women only as pieces of meat to buy.
But, suddenly, I had no idea who I’d been sharing my life with for the past two years.
And it’s not just me as, according to a new poll, one in 10 British men have paid for sex, and the majority did it while abroad.**
Alex*, 32, and I met online in early 2022.
We had our first date at a local pub and I didn’t look back.
He was funny, attractive and gentle, and after years of bad dates and short-term relationships that went nowhere, I felt like the stars had finally aligned.
Both keen runners and foodies when we weren’t working – him in finance and me for a local authority – we revelled in cosy nights in together cooking, followed by early morning jogs.
My friends joked we were old before our time, but I loved how stable and drama-free our relationship was.
In summer 2023, we moved in together, and I felt so happy.
Our sex life was great, too.
You might call it “vanilla” – neither of us were into anything out of the ordinary – but Alex really cared about my pleasure as well as his own.
Little did I know that my very normal, happy relationship was anything but.
Alex worked for a multi-national company, which meant his job regularly involved travel, and during the two-and-a-half years we were together, he went abroad with work six times, including to Amsterdam, New York and Dubai.
Not for a moment did I ever worry he’d cheat on me, let alone pay to do so with a sex worker
Along with those work trips, he also went on a few holidays without me – including a stag weekend for his older brother to Hamburg, a golfing trip with colleagues to Phuket in Thailand and a lads’ break with uni friends to Tenerife.
It never bothered me – I had my own friends, and I used our time apart to visit my family in the north of England, enjoying any photos I received from Alex wherever he was.
Not for a moment did I ever worry he’d cheat on me, let alone pay to do so with a sex worker.
Yet that’s exactly what he did – and the only reason I found out was because I caught an STI from him.
At first, I thought it was a UTI, but when it didn’t clear up and I began to experience pain in my abdomen too, my GP ran some tests and called me with the horrifying news that I was actually suffering from gonorrhoea.
Shaking with shock, I ended the phone call.
It wasn’t just the fact I had an STI, it was the realisation that I must have caught it from Alex.
He was the only man I’d slept with without protection since having the coil fitted early in our relationship, when I’d had a sexual health check at the same time.
Perhaps, I told myself – desperate for there to be an innocent explanation – he’d unknowingly had it since before we met?
That evening when he got home, I took a deep breath and told him my UTI was in fact an STI.
Common STIs
Here’s a list of common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including both curable and viral infections:
Curable STIs:
- Chlamydia: A common bacterial infection that can cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) in women and urethritis in men.
- Gonorrhea: Another bacterial infection that can lead to PID in women and urethritis in men.
- Syphilis: A bacterial infection that can cause sores and, if left untreated, can lead to serious health problems.
- Trichomoniasis: A parasitic infection that can cause vaginal discharge and itching.
Viral STIs (often lifelong, but manageable with treatment):
- Genital Herpes: A viral infection that causes sores on the genitals.
- HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus): A viral infection that weakens the immune system, leading to AIDS.
- Hepatitis B: A viral infection that can damage the liver.
- HPV (Human Papillomavirus): A group of viruses that can cause genital warts and some types can increase the risk of certain cancers.
His face went ashen and I instinctively knew there was no innocent explanation.
“Who was she?” I shouted through tears, assuming he’d been having an affair or had a one-night stand with a female colleague.
“Tell me now, I need to know how you gave this to me.”
At first, he denied everything, insisting he’d been faithful and had no idea how this had happened.
But I screamed with rage, demanding the truth, until he began to sob and confess.
Vile ‘addiction’
“I sleep with prostitutes when I’m abroad,” he stuttered, explaining he’d meet them through websites, strip bars, brothels and even on the street.
He told me his “addiction”, as he called it, began three years before we met.
A drunken night in Amsterdam on a stag do had seen him pay for sex in the city’s red light district.
He’d felt ashamed, and wrote it off as an error of judgement.
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Then, six months later, on another holiday, he’d met a girl in a strip bar and took her back to his hotel, where he paid for sex again.
Nobody he was away with knew what he’d done and he told me he’d got a thrill from the illicitness of it, in stark contrast to his very sensible life and reputation back home.
When he used the word “addicted”, I looked at him with disdain, but he insisted he had become hooked on the buzz he got each time he went away, knowing that a night or even an hour or two of taboo sex was his for the taking.
After meeting me, he said he’d wanted to stop, and each time he came home from a trip he promised himself it was the last time – but it never was.
He admitted, on a couple of occasions, the women hadn’t insisted on a condom and he’d been really drunk.
It was then that I ran to the bathroom to throw up, terrified about what else he might have given me.
He must have contracted gonorrhoea and passed it to me.
He said he’d had no symptoms, but by then I had no idea what to believe.
It was then that I ran to the bathroom to throw up, terrified about what else he might have given me.
He was pleading for forgiveness, but I told him to leave or I’d call the police.
How could I forgive the fact he’d preyed on impoverished young women, paying them to get his kicks – and, in doing so, made a fool of me and risked my health?
That was last summer and, although tests revealed he hadn’t given me anything else and I’m now clear of gonorrhoea after a course of antibiotics, I’m still coming to terms with what Alex did.
I left the flat we rented together and moved in with friends. I refused to see or speak to him again – all the arrangements to move my belongings and put the lease in his name were made via my friend.
He sent me countless messages, begging for a chance to talk, but I deleted them all. I’d heard all I needed to.
I have tortured myself, wondering whether I missed any signs about who he really was.
If I hadn’t caught an STI, would I have one day married him, and lived oblivious to his dirty habit for years?
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I’ve recently started therapy to help me rebuild my self-esteem, which was left decimated.
I still have very little confidence in my ability to judge people, especially men, and haven’t dated since our split.
My close friends know what happened, and were appalled, but I just told my family things had run their course.
I couldn’t bear to tell them the sordid cause of my split.
Perhaps Alex’s confession and what it has cost him will have given him the motivation to kick his sex-tourist habit.
For the sake of the next woman he has a relationship with, I hope so.
* Names have been changed.
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