‘Christian men pay for sex, too. I help them stop’

Nothing’s working. 

That’s how Ben Scott felt as he looked at the state of the world through a secular lens. The then-university student was an atheist with a strong sense of social justice, but ‘worldly answers’ to preventing extreme poverty, domestic abuse and human trafficking weren’t cutting it. It was demoralising.

“God used social injustice to draw me to him,” Scott says, explaining how he became a Christian through reading the Gospels alone in his room at university and attending Alpha at a local church in Aberystwyth. 

Gripped by the person of Jesus, Scott says his “naive vision to change the world” continued. But his God-given love and compassion for the vulnerable was new. 

Scott was especially animated by the issue of modern human trafficking. It is estimated that 50 million people are living in modern slavery – both forced labour and sexual exploitation. But when Christians gathered to pray and take action against human trafficking, Scott was often the only man in the room. His gender also prevented him from helping on the frontline, as many charities operated a female-only volunteer policy. 

Then, he found Bedfordshire-based Christian charity Azalea. In its mission to end sex trafficking, unusually, it permits men to minister to women on the streets. “It was always a team of three – there’d be two women and me,” he clarifies. “We signposted women to services and offered to pray with them. There were drop-in sessions which provided a safe space and hot meals.

“Sometimes the role of the male volunteer would be quite simple – like making tea and coffee. Healthy interactions with men can be a really powerful part of the women’s healing journeys.”

The turning point

Scott’s voluntary work continued for eight years until one day, his boss, Ruth Robb, tapped him on the shoulder.

“We’re getting stuck,” said Robb. “We can spend years supporting one woman to exit trafficking, go through rehab, move location, start a new life, only for another girl to take their place two weeks later.”

Robb had a lightbulb moment. “If we really want to tackle this, we’ve got to address the demand side.” That meant working with men to stop their purchase of sex. But Scott wasn’t convinced. “I said ‘no’ to begin with,” he tells me. God had broken his heart for the female victims of trafficking – not the men who were exploiting them.  

But slowly, he gained a different perspective. “Of course, these men have made choices we would advise against,” Scott explains. “But the reality is they’re also living with lots of shame and guilt and remorse as a result of that and, in their own way, are suffering. It’s this reminder that we’re all a mixture of victim and perpetrator. And amazingly, God has grace and compassion for all of us.”

Helping Christian men

With Scott’s change of heart, Flint was born. The online mentoring programme named after Isaiah 50:7 (“I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame”) sees Scott and a small team offer free, confidential and non-judgemental counselling to men who have purchased sex.  

Shockingly, most of Flint’s clients are Christians. Is this really an issue inside the Church? To answer this, Scott points to an anonymous survey of 500 men who attend church in Bedfordshire. Just over ten per cent admitted to purchasing sex – around the same as the national average. 

“In your average church, there are men struggling with this,” Scott says. Many of the men who come to Flint are so ashamed that they’ve kept their actions a secret for decades. “Their kids don’t know, their wife doesn’t know. They might even be in church leadership.”

Flint gives them an opportunity to open up for the first time. “Hopefully they can have that weight lifted – I’ve finally said it and told someone about this stuff.” The next step is encouraging them to “widen their accountability” by disclosing to a trusted friend or pastor. 

Every story differs. “There was one guy who had been buying sex for years. Then he became a dad for the first time. When he saw his baby daughter, God convicted him. It was like: You can’t be doing this anymore. Let’s do something about it.”

Speaking in general terms to protect the identities of those Flint works with, Scott says: “They know that they’re feeling apart from God in some way and they want to be close to God again. So that’s what we start working on. If a man is walking closer to God, the less likely he is to go out and buy sex.”

Bad attitudes

But it isn’t easy, and attitudes in the Church can make it harder for people to change. 

“There was one guy who did amazingly well. He left behind sex buying and pornography. He became an advocate for change. He was talking to people in his church, which is really brave, but one person responded: “We should hang them all.”

If a man is walking closer to God, the less likely he is to go out and buy sex

Scott points out that Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son contains “a literal example of a man who’s purchased sex. He strayed from God and squandered his wealth on wild living and prostitutes” (see Luke 15:13). And yet, even here, there is grace. “When the father sees the prodigal son returning, he runs towards him with compassion. That’s what we’re trying to replicate.” 

Scott does not justify the behaviour of men who purchase sex. But he’s also aware that many have experienced past abuse or trauma themselves. In that sense, Flint’s work is comparable to Azalea’s, he says. 

“If you meet women in the street and ask: ‘Is it your choice to be here?’ quite often, the initial answer is: ‘Yes.’ But as you get to hear their story, you realise there was abuse and exploitation and, really, it wasn’t their choice at all. There can be stuff like that in the men’s pasts too.”

A new future

Flint is a new ministry and has so far worked with just 25 men. Nevertheless, Scott reports that 100 per cent have reduced the amount they are purchasing sex, and 70 per cent have stopped entirely.

Scott is convinced there are many more redemption stories to come. If God can take Saul – the worst persecutor of the Church in his day – and turn him into the greatest evangelist, imagine what he might do with men who, like the prodigal son, have used prostitutes. 

“I believe that God wants to raise these men up to do awesome stuff,” he says. “They are the greatest threat to commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking that the world has ever seen.”