Male Sex Work and Society (46 page)
Read Male Sex Work and Society Online
Authors: Unknown
Tags: #Psychology/Human Sexuality, #Social Science/Gay Studies, #SOC012000, #PSY016000
The post-Stonewall expansion of a more publicly acknowledged and truly gay print media changed everything for people selling sexual services that catered to same-sex interests (Blumenfeld & Raymond, 1993). Businesses and independent sex workers who previously had relied primarily on word-of-mouth could now place ads in their local gay press. Gay-oriented newspapers and magazines could be sent directly to people’s post office box or home address, discretely packaged in plain envelopes or wrappings. Perhaps because of a more open sexual climate in the gay community, sexual service providers found a friendlier reception in the gay press than in more mainstream publications.
An Expanding Marketplace for the Commodification of Gay Sex
The very gradual lifting of homophobic repression that began in the 1960s—at least in some major U.S. urban centers—created a small but real space for the growth of a gay marketplace (Sender, 2003). A raft of gay publications such as
The Advocate
and the
Gay Blade
began to appear in print, and with them emerged whole pages devoted to gay-oriented classifieds and to businesses open to working with the gay community, such as bars and bathhouses. With greater exposure to a larger marketplace, the traditional venues for sexual activity became more widely known and utilized. One could pay to enter a specific type of environment where homosexual interactions occurred in a facilitated manner. Locations such as X-rated cinemas, bathhouses, and pornographic video arcades allowed men to pay a fee to enter in order to locate potential partners for sex, or perhaps even for voyeurism or exhibitionism (Gagnon & Simon, 2005). Typically the location provided a sexualized environment that was relatively secure from outside intrusions. Everyone in that environment had similar goals and needs, which allowed them to find potential partners with much greater ease.
The Advocate
and the
Gay Blade
began to appear in print, and with them emerged whole pages devoted to gay-oriented classifieds and to businesses open to working with the gay community, such as bars and bathhouses. With greater exposure to a larger marketplace, the traditional venues for sexual activity became more widely known and utilized. One could pay to enter a specific type of environment where homosexual interactions occurred in a facilitated manner. Locations such as X-rated cinemas, bathhouses, and pornographic video arcades allowed men to pay a fee to enter in order to locate potential partners for sex, or perhaps even for voyeurism or exhibitionism (Gagnon & Simon, 2005). Typically the location provided a sexualized environment that was relatively secure from outside intrusions. Everyone in that environment had similar goals and needs, which allowed them to find potential partners with much greater ease.
Male sex workers were present in venues such as gay bars both with and without the management’s knowledge (Harry, 1974). When the management knew and approved, a sex worker paid them either a cut of their earnings or a flat fee to do business. Typically called “hustlers,” this type of male sex worker could count on a ready supply of customers and a degree of protection from the dangers and vagaries of the street (Visano, 1991). In the gay community, some bars and dance clubs gained a reputation for allowing hustlers to work on the premises (Miller, 2003; Reitzes & Diver, 1982). Known as hustler bars, these venues allowed potential clients and customers to mingle in a more relaxed and social atmosphere than, say, a bathhouse or porn shop (Luckenbill, 1985). These clubs would offer go-go dancing and male stripper revues, frequently as a way for sex workers to show themselves off, make a little extra money, and get to know the clientele so as to foster more lucrative one-on-one meetings later in the night, either in a back room or off site. To a trained eye, these establishments differed from other gay clubs due the more polarized age of the patrons, as they had a high frequency of older clientele mingling with solicitous younger men (Harry, 1974).
More widespread availability of advertising opportunities and other means to gain exposure allowed these establishments to piggyback onto the gay press. Some types of business were relatively new, such as telephone chat lines where, for a fee, one could talk to another man in a sexual way. Such telephone lines, which generally charged a certain rate per minute, allowed users to connect with paid providers, people who would engage in phone sex and “telefantasies” for money. Often these providers assumed a particular persona that would match the requests of the callers using the service. “College jock” or “bear” were common, but one could find most any persona deemed desirable by a potential caller and fill most any sexual taste. Users and providers of these services entered into the mutually agreed-to fantasy that, in real life, the chat line host actually was the persona they assumed during the phone call. Whether or not this was true was less important than the provider being able to create a realistic fantasy experience for the caller (Flowers, 1998).
A variant of paying a provider for phone sex was the all-male party line, where men paid a fee to enter a telephone chat room with other men with the mutual assumption that they were interested in sexual talk and banter. None of the participants were paid for this type of call-in service. Users instead paid a fee for the privilege of having access to the space itself—an environment in which they could express themselves in ways that likely were not possible in other areas of their lives. Men could call to look for real-life sexual encounters, and many came into the space looking for either a sense of connection with other men in similar situations or for some type of otherwise unattainable fantasy experience.
These types of telephone services permitted customers, those both in the closet and out, to express aspects of their needs, desires, and identities that they believed would not otherwise be safe to enact. This pre-Internet space afforded men an opportunity to live out and perhaps even experiment with parts of themselves that remained hidden from others in their social networks. From the anonymous safety of a telephone chat room or in the seclusion of a one-on-one phone call, the customer could meet some of his needs without risking anything other than a few dollars. He could actively participate in fantasies and assume different roles without having them intrude into his regular life. The situation was controllable with clear and defined physical boundaries. It could easily be escaped if needed, simply by hanging up the phone. There was no risk of exposure, and such services met the needs of men who could not or did not want to go to an actual physical space for paid sexual interactions.
Male Prostitution Enters a New Era: The Print Personal Ad
Although telephone lines could provide an excellent fantasy experience for pay, many men desired a real-life encounter with another man. For them, searching through the personals could be an effective way to find someone to hire. Instead of having to cruise the street to find a hustler, men could search classified ads for a man who might fit their requirements and meet their needs. This minimized risk for the customer in terms of “getting caught” and of having an unsatisfying encounter. Furthermore, personal ads were an especially effective means for small-scale sexual entrepreneurs to advertise (Harris, 2001). A reasonable fee could buy an ad that would be read by thousands of people. For the first time, a broad gay sexual marketplace came into existence, one that effectively brought the customer a range of potential sexual service providers. Peppered among the ads to cure lonely hearts, sell real estate, and locate roommates were advertisements for masseurs, escorts, and the newly emerging telephone chat lines already discussed.
FIGURE 10.1
Covers of two historically significant gay publications,
ONE Magazine
and
The Advocate
. Both signaled the gradual lifting of the repression of homosexuals.
ONE Magazine
and
The Advocate
. Both signaled the gradual lifting of the repression of homosexuals.
Men offering sexual services now had a venue other than the street or hustler bar through which to seek clients. The early venues contained a number of disadvantages that sex workers might want to avoid. On the street, a male sex worker was more vulnerable to police harassment or to being attacked, and he had a more difficult time sorting through potential customers to select the best offer in terms of pay or desired sexual practices. Furthermore, a male sex worker would have to cruise the streets without any guarantee of pay. If he worked in a hustler bar or for an agency, the sex worker would have to sacrifice part of his income to the establishment. This decreased his earnings and meant that he had less control over his work environment, customer selection, and job experience.
Working through the personal ads was perhaps safer, as customers could be prescreened to some degree. It was easier, customer solicitations came via the mail, potential customers could be compared, and one could negotiate fees and sexual preferences with interested parties before ever meeting. Therefore, the personal ad accelerated growth in a new category of male sex worker: the independent escort. Working men became quite sophisticated in describing their available services in three lines or less. Although legal and editorial restrictions limited what one might say in a publicly published venue, even in the relatively friendly gay press, certain code words and turns of phrase could communicate a great deal in a fairly limited space.
Home Videocassettes Open a Vast Market
The sexual marketplace for men seeking men expanded slowly through the 1980s and 1990s. As more men gradually came out of the closet and/or at least became more aware of their sexual attraction to other men, they sought increased opportunities in that marketplace as both customers and providers (Walters, 2001). The emergence of videotape equipment for the home resulted in a booming business for pornographic films. What had been a relatively small industry blossomed in just a few years into a network of production and distribution companies that could generate real money. No longer limited to showing films in theaters or arcades, distributors expanded their reach. Stores that sold gay porn in print quickly accommodated themselves to offering videocassettes as well.
Home use of gay pornographic films also expanded in what seemed like exponential fashion. Men could order films through catalogs that sent the tapes to their homes, discreetly packaged, without ever having to venture into a gay-identified establishment. Men who had access to a local porn shop and felt safe enough to use it could acquire such films in that locale, along with a growing supply of toys, lubricants, magazines, and books. Some mainstream videotape rental outlets in the larger cities even had gay porn among their X-rated straight offerings. One no longer needed to view such material in a public venue; it now could be seen in the privacy and security of the home, minimizing risk of exposure and increasing the ability to review the material as many times as one wished—alone or with company. The ability to choose among a vast array of titles and themes afforded men interested in sex with men choices that they had never before experienced.
The increased demand for pornography also meant an increased demand for actors willing to appear in films. This marketplace in gay videocassettes created recognizable porn stars who developed specialties and followings that corresponded to the type of sexual activity portrayed in their movies. Men working in gay porn ranged from the ranks of escorts and hustlers to professionals who worked only in the film business (Thomas, 2010). They could earn decent money for their work in a market that seemed to have an insatiable demand for new and ever more professionally produced content. Actors could boost their incomes by doing personal appearances at gay-oriented events, as male strippers, or by engaging in other forms of sex work such as escorting. Having appeared in a gay porn film allowed a sex worker to command higher fees, and customers enjoyed being able to meet and perhaps even have sex with the men they had seen in their porn movies. Fantasies could be made into reality—for the right price.
FIGURE 10.2
Screenshot from the “men seeking men” section of Craigslist, a classified advertisements website.
The Internet Changes Everything: Sex Work Goes Digital
The emergence of the Internet as a commercial venue in the mid- to late- 1990s accelerated the development of the sexual marketplace for gay-oriented content in ways that both paralleled and diverged from the introduction of videocassette players almost two decades earlier. The Internet, like the videocassette, allowed customers to enjoy sexual services from their own homes, giving them what they wanted when they wanted it, as well as privacy, convenience, and security. It also allowed customers to do more comparison shopping, often with online pornography catalogs, and to buy exactly the content they desired at the price they were willing to pay. They also could preview films online and order those they liked, or download them onto their home computer. The Internet also allowed people to buy short clips of sexual scenes.
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