Customers: Why Prostitution thrives in a hypocritical society, by Stephanie Shaakaa

For every woman selling her body, there is a man buying her silence, yet only one is judged by daylight. We shame the women on the street but spare the men behind the wheel. The real market for prostitution is fueled not by hunger, but by hypocrisy.

Prostitution endures not because morality has failed, but because economics and hypocrisy sustain it. Behind every bright lipstick is a broken system, and behind every transaction, a man society refuses to see. We outlaw the supply and protect the demand, then call ourselves moral. The truth is, prostitution’s customers are society’s best-kept secret.

For every woman standing by the roadside, there is a man parked quietly in the shadows, wallet ready, conscience asleep. Yet when dawn breaks, society hurls stones only at her. We call her immoral, shameless, and fallen, while the man who funds her survival walks into church freshly shaved, singing hymns louder than anyone else.

We often talk about prostitution as if it were a one-sided sin, as if women are out there selling themselves to the wind. But markets do not thrive without buyers. No matter how society pretends otherwise, prostitution is not powered by poverty alone, it is sustained by demand,by men who patronize, protect, and perpetuate it. If they stop buying, the market collapses. It is that simple.

So who are these men? They are not faceless strangers lurking in dark alleys. They are businessmen in crisp suits, politicians on campaign trails, pastors on revival missions, and everyday men who judge by day and indulge by night. They are the same men who scold their daughters for dressing provocatively but fund a woman’s rent across town. The hypocrisy is not hidden,it is institutional.

We shame women for selling their bodies, yet we glorify the men whose money buys the transaction. In a society that claims to be moral, how is it that only half the sin is punished? If prostitution is a trade, then every man who pays for it is an investor, an active stakeholder in what he publicly condemns. But we only crucify the trader, never the customer.

Prostitution, stripped of judgment, is an economic response to desperation. Many of these women are not chasing pleasure but survival. Behind every bright lipstick is a broken promise, a failed job search, unpaid school fees, or hunger biting through dignity. Before you judge her body, ask what failed her spirit and who paid for her silence.

That woman by the roadside might have been a teacher once, until her salary stopped coming. Another is there because hunger gave her no other choice. She is not chasing pleasure; she is buying her children one more day to live.

But beyond poverty lies another uncomfortable truth the men who exploit it. For every story of a woman forced into sex work, there is a man comfortable enough to make that offer. For every brothel, there is a businessman’s car parked nearby. We may pretend the supply is the scandal, but the demand is the disease.

Strip away the moral outrage, and prostitution is, at its core, an economy a brutally efficient one. It functions on the same laws of supply and demand that govern any other market, except that its currency is intimacy and its cost is human dignity. The same truth echoes everywhere, in every city, every system, and every silence.

Every thriving sex market from Lagos to London tells the same story: there is demand, and where demand exists, supply will rise to meet it. The mistake we make is treating prostitution as a moral failure of women rather than an economic response to male-driven demand. It is capitalism in its rawest form emotionless, transactional, and brutally fair.

When poverty meets desire, a market is born. When jobs disappear and wages shrink, desperation becomes a survival strategy. For some, the body becomes the last asset left to trade. In Nigeria’s widening inequality, prostitution becomes not just a choice but an economic adaptation, a form of unspoken labour in a system that has failed to provide alternatives.

And like any thriving business, prostitution has its own ecosystem: recruiters, middlemen, hoteliers, drivers, online platforms all earning their share. The trade generates billions globally and sustains local micro-economies in our cities. Yet we pretend it does not exist, even as it quietly contributes to the informal economy.

Economically, prostitution persists because it is profitable not just for the women, but for the men, businesses, and institutions orbiting around it. The bars stay open, the hotels stay booked, the transporters keep moving, and the city stays awake. Morality may frown, but money smiles, and in an economy where cash is king, profit always wins over principle.

Until we name the buyers, the market will never close. You cannot outlaw an industry while protecting its customers. You cannot shut down the supply while the demand keeps knocking. Prostitution will remain recession-proof because the men who sustain it remain unchallenged.

Prostitution, in essence, is not just a social problem; it is an economic mirror. It reflects our failures of policy, morality, and opportunity. And like every market born of inequality, it thrives not because people are evil, but because people are desperate and others are willing to pay for that desperation.

But as technology advanced, prostitution did not fade; it adapted, following the money into new, quieter spaces. Today, it no longer hides in dark corners; it glows on screens. The new red-light district is digital. Brothels have become Instagram handles, clients slide into DMs instead of dingy motel rooms, and the sugar-daddy culture is simply prostitution rebranded for the elite a contract of silence wrapped in luxury. Yet once again, the world points fingers only at the women, while the men’s names vanish into encrypted chats and deleted messages.

If we truly want to fight prostitution, we must first unmask its patrons. We must ask why society spares the buyer but destroys the seller. Why the same man who condemns wayward women funds their existence. Why our moral compass points only one way downward.

It is easy to condemn the woman we see; it takes courage to confront the man we know. Until then, prostitution will not end. It will only evolve, dressed in finer clothes, hiding behind finer lies, sustained by the same unspoken hypocrisy that feeds it today.

Prostitution does not thrive because women love sin, it thrives because society loves silence. It survives because money shields the guilty and shames the visible. The real scandal is not that women sell their bodies, but that men keep buying them. The same world that underpays women in offices overpays them in hotel rooms. Until we stop pretending morality can fix what economics sustains, the trade will thrive hidden in our hypocrisy, protected by our silence.

The street is not the problem. It is the wallet that pulls over.

Vanguard News

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