I have to apologise if this thread is inappropriate or upsetting. If anyone has an issue with it, holla

A recent article in a local paper mentioned that about twice as many young men have at some point sold some form of sexual services compared to women in the same groups. I haven't yet had the opportunity to dig into the studies (to determine for example how transgender participants were categorised by the researchers), but from the discussion I gather that these results have been replicated--in several European countries--among young men and women in both the general population as well as in groups of LGBT youth. The results of those studies can't be generalised to the world as a whole and probably can't be used directly in a discussion of eg. trafficking/slavery and the like without a number of qualifications.

Anyway, a discussion of this article on a Facebook group (brought on by someone's perception that, in discussions of prostitution in Sweden, the public and media focus has been more or less exclusively on women, thus rendering boys and men who sell sex invisible) has made me wonder:

Are young men more likely than young women to sell sex? (in the western world, I guess)

If so, why?

If not, what are possible explanations for the findings in the studies that have found such a difference?

In the discussion, a social worker working with at-risk youth mentioned that, in her experience, boys and young men were more likely to sell sex as a form of self-injury. Is that a plausble explanation? Can this have anything to do with the greater risk of being subjected to--often violent--discrimination?