This study explores the moralization of purity and perceptions of harm as constraints on sex buying among men. Purchasing sex has long been considered an offense against public morality. While personal morality provides a powerful constraint on offending, and people may vary in the extent to which they experience moral intuitions about bodily and spiritual purity, research has so far neglected the role of purity moralization in understanding sex buying behavior. We hypothesize specifically that moral intuitions about purity constrain sex buying by leading people to perceive it as inherently wrong and by eliciting perceptions that sex buying is harmful to prostitutes. We test these hypotheses in a nationally representative survey of U.S. men (N = 2,525). Results indicate that purity moralization is associated with reduced sex buying, and that this relationship is mediated fully by perceptions of sex buying as harming prostitutes.

本研究探讨了纯洁的道德化和对伤害的看法作为对男性性购买的限制。长期以来，买春一直被认为是违反公共道德的行为。虽然个人道德对犯罪行为提供了强有力的约束，而且人们对身体和精神纯洁的道德直觉体验的程度可能会有所不同，但迄今为止的研究忽视了纯洁道德化在理解性购买行为中的作用。我们具体假设关于纯洁的道德直觉通过引导人们认为性交易本质上是错误的以及通过引发人们认为性交易对妓女有害的看法来限制性购买。我们在一项针对美国男性的全国代表性调查中检验了这些假设 ( N= 2,525）。结果表明，纯洁道德化与减少性购买有关，并且这种关系完全由将性购买视为伤害妓女的观念来调节。