Male prostitution

"Gigolo" redirects here. For other uses, see Gigolo (disambiguation).

File:Modern day street hustlers at work in Prague's Old Town Square in the Czech Republic..jpg

An outreach worker interviews a modern day street hustler at work in Prague's Old Town Square in the Czech Republic.(2009)

A male escort charms a male client with agreeable conversation in this print by Kitagawa Utamaro, from The Pillow Book (Uta Makura), 1788.

Like female prostitution, male prostitution is the practice of engaging in sexual acts for money. Compared to female sex workers, male sex workers have been far less studied by researchers, and while studies suggest that there are differences between the ways these two groups look at their work, more research is needed. Male prostitutes are known by various names and euphemisms including male escorts, gigolos, rent-boys, models, masseurs and hustlers. The term "rentboy" is derived from the fact that the boys rent themselves out. A man who does not regard himself as gay, but who is prepared to have sex with male clients for money, is sometimes called "gay for pay" or "rough trade". Male prostitutes offering services to female customers are sometimes known as "gigolos".

Clients, especially those who pick up prostitutes on the street or in bars, are sometimes called "johns" or "tricks". Those working in prostitution sometimes refer to their trade as "turning tricks".

Slang

Besides English-language slang, there are countless terms for male prostitutes in other languages. These include: Template:Multicol

• hímringyó, meaning "male whore" (Hungarian)
• taxi boy (Argentina and Chile)
• escort (Chile)
• pinguero, jinetero (Cuba)
• cachero, puto, prostituto (Ecuador)
• prostituto, puto, garoto de programa (meaning "program boy"), michê, michet, gigolô (Brazil)
• flete, gigolo or gigolón (Peru)
• Prostituto (Portugal); for comparison, the word used for female prostitutes is prostituta
• jigolo, tokmakçı (Turkey)

• chichifo (pl. chichifos), puto, prostituto, chacal, mayate (Mexico)
• callboy (Germany and in the Philippines)
• boys (Tunisia)
• Masajista, puto (Colombia)
• Stricher (Germany; Stricher is a potentially more derogatory term, compared to callboy)
• 鸭子 → yāzǐ, meaning "duck" (Mainland China)
• 鴨/Money Boy, "ngaap2", meaning "duck" (Hong Kong)
• Gigolò, puttano, marchettaro (Italy)
• Chapero, prostituto, puto, gigolo (Spain)

• Tapin (France), gigolo (France, Germany and many other countries), escorte (France and Quebec)
• Trækkerdreng meaning "boy that walks the streets" (Denmark)
• жиголо – zhyholo (Ukraine)
• жиголо – zhigolo (Bulgaria and Russia)
• жиголо – žigolo (Serbia)
• ζιγκολό – zigolo (Greece)
• 男娼 – danshou　売り専/ウリ専 – urisen (lit. "exclusively sold") (Japan)
• شرموط – sharmūṭ (Arabic)

• zhigolo (Albania)
• żigolo, żigolak, męska dziwka (male whore) (Poland)
• 남창(男娼) – namchang, meaning "male prostitute" (South Korea)
• Sanky Panky, Bugarron (Dominican Republic)
• Escorta, puto (Puerto Rico)
• Kucing (Garong), meaning "cat" (Indonesia)
• Rattopoika, meaning "pastime boy" (Finland)
• Trai bao ("covered boy"), trai gọi ("call boy"), đĩ đực ("male prostitute") (Vietnam)
• Anak ikan, moneyboy, pendangboy (Malaysia)
• Rent Boy (Great Britain)

Male prostitution in various cultures and periods

See also: Category:Prostitution by country

Male prostitution has been found in all advanced cultures. The practice in the ancient world of selling sexual favors by men or women in sacred shrines, or sacred prostitution, is attested to be practised in "pagan" cultures in the Old Testament.

Prostitutes in ancient Greece were generally slaves, as prostitutes could lose their civic rights. A well known case is Phaedo of Elis who was captured in war and forced into slavery and prostitution, but was eventually ransomed to become a pupil of Socrates and give his name to Plato's Phaedo. Ancient Greece and ancient Rome both saw the existence of male brothels.

Work as a same-sex male prostitute in the Medieval Islamic world was similarly restricted to social "inferiors" such as boys and slaves, and while frequenting prostitutes was considered a sin, the practice nevertheless occurred.

Gay bathhouse or brothel, The Bowery, c. 1884.

Historical evidence from court records and vice investigations shows male prostitution in what is now the United States as early as the late 17th century. With the expansion of urban areas and aggregation of gay communities toward the end of the 19th century male/male prostitution became more apparent, and included baths, brothels such as the Paresis Hall in the Bowery district of New York, and prostitution bars in which so-called "fairies" solicited other men for sex and received a commission for selling drinks.

In western cities, male street prostitutes solicited clients in such places as 53rd and 3rd, also known as "The Four Corners", in New York, Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, Piccadilly Circus, in London, "The Wall" in Sydney's Darlinghurst, The Drug Store and Rue Saint Anne in Paris, Polk Street Gulch in San Francisco, Willow Avenue and Easton Avenue, County Route 527 (New Jersey) in Franklin Township, New Jersey and Taksim Square in Istanbul. Bars, such as Cowboys and Cowgirls and Rounds in New York, Numbers in Los Angeles and go-go bars in Patpong were all popular venues for male prostitution.

Other examples

Young male prostitutes in Edo period of Japan were called kagema. Their clients were mainly adult men.

In southern areas of Central Asia and Afghanistan, an adolescent of twelve to sixteen who was a performer practiced in erotic songs and suggestive dancing and was available as a sex worker. He was known as a bacchá.

In India, a hijra is a physically male or intersex person who may enter into prostitution. Not all hijras are prostitutes, however, and many consider themselves to have a female identity in a male body and accept this as a sacred condition or gift. They dress as women and dance at weddings, child births, and other happy occasions. Many hijras in Pakistan consider themselves to be religious.

Cuban male prostitutes are called jinetero – literally "horse jockey" (i.e. someone who "rides" tourists); female prostitutes are called jinetera.

A male sex worker in the Caribbean who solicits on beaches and has clients of both sexes is called a Sanky-panky.

Present-day male prostitution

The following categorization of the male prostitute is not exhaustive:

A popular "Peep Show" along St Catherine street in Montreal's Gay Village.

Male transvestite soliciting on the roadside (Germany).

Adult bookstores

Around the globe, male sex workers use the "private video booths" in adult bookstores or peep shows to exchange sex for money. Typically, paying clients and sex workers meet at these locations, agree upon a price, then use these private cabins to conduct their sexual activity.

Online

Professional escorts tend to advertise independently on male escorting websites, or else through an escorting agency.

Print advertisements

Most major U.S. cities have weekly gay-oriented newspapers or magazines. Various people who are frequently willing to engage in prostitution, often advertise in the backs of these publications.

Streets, bars, and clubs

Most big cities have an area where male prostitutes regularly make themselves available to potential clients driving by in cars. The informal name of such an area varies by the city. These areas tend to be risky for both the client and the prostitute, since they are subject to surveillance and arrest by law enforcement. Some male prostitutes work in public spaces such as bus terminals, parks and rest stops.

Bathhouses and sex clubs

Male prostitutes may attempt to work in gay bathhouses or sex clubs, but prostitution is usually prohibited in such places, and known prostitutes are often banned.

Male brothels

A male prostitute may work in a male brothel or "stable." This is common in South-East Asia (Thailand, Manila) and may also be found in some larger U.S. cities. The pimp is relatively rare in male prostitution in the West, where most prostitutes generally work independently or, less frequently, through an agency.

Until 2009 when it outlawed all prostitution, Rhode Island was the only U.S. state to allow male sex workers to work legally. (See also: Prostitution in Rhode Island.)

In November 2005, Heidi Fleiss said she would partner with brothel owner Joe Richards to turn Richards' legal Cherry Patch Ranch brothel in Crystal, Nevada into an establishment that would employ male prostitutes and cater exclusively to female customers, a first in Nevada . In 2009 however, she said that she had abandoned her plans to open such a brothel.

In order to work in a legal brothel in Nevada, a cervical exam is required by law; therefore males are technically not allowed to work as prostitutes. In late 2009 the owner of the Shady Lady Ranch brothel challenged this provision before the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board and prevailed. Then, in January 2010, the brothel proceeded to hire a male prostitute to serve female customers, the male prostitute left the business a few weeks later, in March 2010.

In January 2010, a luxurious brothel for gay men was opened in an industrial part of Zurich, the first gay brothel in Switzerland.

Sex tourism

Main article: Female sex tourism

In contrast to most of the other venues, sex tourism in regards to male prostitution caters mainly to female clients. Women travel to Southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Croatia, Spain and Genoa), to the Caribbean Basin (Jamaica, Barbados, Dominican Republic, and Martinique), Tunisia and Kenya in Africa, Bali, Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand to enjoy sex tourism, while Nepal, Morocco, Fiji, Ecuador and Costa Rica are less well known destinations. Here, women travel to specific locations to enjoy a holiday and find a "temporary boyfriend" who will provide escort services as not only a dining companion, tourist guide, dancing companion/instructor and often procurer of softer illicit drugs like marijuana and ecstasy, but also to provide sex services. German women frequent Sosua in the Dominican Republic, Greece, and Morocco. The Japanese prefer Bali in Indonesia and Canadians and Scandinavian females seem to be open market consumers. The women are of every age but are predominantly middle-aged women looking for a romance and sex. Male prostitution is increasingly visible in India; gigolo service is growing but there are cases of harassment of client women by gigolos.

Risks

As in all forms of prostitution, the male prostitute and his client can face risks and problems. For prostitutes, the risks may be health-related including sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, physical abuse, legal/criminal including solicitation, drug and age of consent laws, societal/familial social stigma, rejection by family and friends, gay-bashing (in the case of male-male prostitution), loss of job, and emotional including sense of exploitation or of leading a "double-life", loss of affect, and self-destructiveness. Teenagers and runaways engaging in sex work are particularly at risk.

For clients, risk may come from being robbed, or, rarely, being blackmailed or injured. The German fashion designer Rudolph Moshammer, for example, was killed by a man who claimed Moshammer had reneged on a promise to pay him for sex. When male prostitutes steal from their male clients or take money without "putting out" sexual services, it is sometimes referred to as "rolling a john".

Research suggests that the degree of violence against male prostitutes is somewhat lower than for female sex workers. Men working on the street and younger men appear to be at greatest risk of being victimized by clients. Conversely, the risk posed to clients of male sex workers (in terms of being "rolled") seems to be less than many imagine. This is especially true when clients hire male sex workers from an established agency or when they hire men who have been consistently well reviewed by previous clients.

Stigma

The difference in age, in social status and in economic status between the hustler and his client is also a major source of social criticism. This same social stigma may also be attached to amorous relationships that do not involve prostitution, but which may be seen by society as a form of "quasi" prostitution. The older member of the relationship may be qualified as a "sugar daddy" or "sugar momma"; the young lover may be a "kept boy" or "boy toy". In the gay community, the members of this kind of couple are sometimes called "dad" and "son" (without implying incest). This social disdain for age/status disparity has been less pronounced in certain cultures at certain historical times (see "Male prostitution in other cultures and periods", above).

Help and support for male sex workers

Rich Holcomb and James Waterman displaying the Project Weber poster at the 2010 HIV Prevention Summit in Washington, D.C.

One of the many locations in Providence where sex workers were recruited for the Project Weber needs assessment survey

In the United States, there are few resources and little support for male sex workers living and working on the streets who seek recovery. There are many issues that need to be addressed if recovery from this traumatic lifestyle is possible. They are at a high risk for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and C, rape and abuse. Many male prostitutes are addicted to drugs and only have sex with men for money to support their drug use. A great number of male prostitutes consider themselves heterosexual, which makes identifying and treating them difficult because of their reluctance to disclose their behaviors to health care and substance abuse professionals.

After identifying that there was no data available on male commercial sex workers in the state of Rhode Island, Richard Holcomb, founder of Project Weber, helped develop a survey tool to conduct a needs assessment on this population. This required him to recruit and survey 50 male sex workers living on the streets of Providence, R.I. The fact that Holcomb and his team are former sex workers themselves was one of the primary reasons why this needs assessment was successful. For the first time in Rhode Island history, there is now valuable data on male sex workers.

Prostitution was legal in Rhode Island between 1980 and 2009 because there was no specific statute to define the act and outlaw it, although associated activities were illegal, such as street solicitation, running a brothel, and pimping.

Project Weber is a harm reduction program in Providence R.I. that offers resources and support such as needle exchange and HIV testing to male sex workers living on the streets. This program is named in honor of Roy Weber, a young sex worker who was murdered on the streets of Providence on Christmas Day 2003. Since 1998, Holcomb has created several documentary projects on the subject of male prostitution and addiction. He has done film work on this subject on location in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Academic and feminist studies

The topic of male prostitution has not been overlooked in academic studies by feminist theorists. In a study by feminist theorists Justin Gaffney and Kate Beverley, the insights gained from research on male sex workers in central London allows comparison between the experiences of the 'hidden' population of male prostitutes and the traditionally subordinate position of women in a patriarchal society. Gaffney and Beverley argue that like women, for male sex workers, hegemonic and patriarchal constructs ensure that they also occupy a subordinated position within society.

In contrast, social theorists writing from a poststructural critical theory perspective have claimed that unlike women, for male sex workers, hegemonic misogynistic social constructs ensure that they are seen by "johns" as less likely to take on submissive roles. Based on a series of interviews, Douglas Langston finds the attitude of "johns" and underground male sex workers on gender relations 'remarkably misogynistic.' Langston argues that both express a remarkably similar misogynistic tendencies to the point of male homoerotism and fetishization of patriarchal domination, especially over subjects seen by society as less likely to take on submissive roles.

Popular culture

Main article: Male prostitution in the arts

The male prostitute or hustler is a frequent literary and cinematic stereotype in the West from the 1960s onwards, especially in movies and books with a gay perspective, in which he may be a stock character, often portrayed either as a tragic figure, as in the film Mysterious Skin in which a male prostitute has a history of molestation, or as an impossible object of love or an idealized rebel. Though less frequent in the cinema and in novels, the male prostitute with an exclusively female clientele (the "gigolo" or "escort") is generally depicted as less tragic than the gay hustler. The film My Own Private Idaho, starring Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, focuses upon the friendship between two male prostitutes. Rob Schneider stars as a gigolo in his slapstick farce Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and its sequel. Another well known movie featuring male prostitutes is Midnight Cowboy. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone offers an older woman and a young gigolo in a tragic tryst.

See also

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• Age of consent
• Female sex tourism
• John (prostitution)
• Sexual tourism

Bibliography

For novels about male prostitution, see Male prostitution in the arts.

• Aggleton, Peter (1999), Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and AIDS, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, ISBN 1566396697
• Elias, James (1998), Prostitution : on whores, hustlers, and johns, Prometheus, ISBN 9781573922296
• Friedman, Mack (2003), Strapped for cash : a history of American hustler culture, Alyson Books, ISBN 9781555837310
• Itiel, Joseph (2002), Sex Workers As Virtual Boyfriends, Routledge, ISBN 9781560231912
• Itiel, Joseph (1998), A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers, Routledge, ISBN 9780789005960
• Lawrence, Aaron (2000), The Male Escort's Handbook: Your Guide to Getting Rich the Hard Way, Late Night Press, ISBN 9780966769111
• Padilla, Mark (2007), Caribbean pleasure industry: tourism, sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 9780226644363
• Preston, John (1994), Hustling: a gentleman's guide to the fine art of homosexual prostitution, Masquerade Books, ISBN 9781563331374
• Saunders, Dean (2008), Nice Work If You Can Get It, John Blake, ISBN 9781844545094
• Steward, Samuel M. (1991), Understanding the male hustler, Routledge, ISBN 9781560241119
• Sycamore, Matt Bernstein (2000), Tricks and treats: sex workers write about their clients, Routledge, ISBN 9780789007032
• Taylor, Jacqueline Sánchez (1997), Marking the margins : research in the informal economy in Cuba and theDominican Republic, Leicester University discussion papers in sociology, no S97/1, University of Leicester, Faculty of Social Sciences, Dept. of Sociology, OCLC 37157551
• Taylor, Jacqueline Sanchez (2001), "Dollars Are a Girl's Best Friend? Female Tourists' Sexual Behaviour in the Caribbean", Sociology, 35.3, Sage Publications: 749–764, ISSN 0038-0385, OCLC 367611972
• Weitzer, Ronald John (2000), Ronald John Weitzer (ed.), Sex for sale: prostitution, pornography, and the sex industry, Routledge, ISBN 9780415922951
• Lumsden, Ian (1996), Machos, maricones, and gays: Cuba and homosexuality, Temple University Press, p. 7, ISBN 9781566393713

External links

• Marching Orders for Sex Workers.
• Reaching Out to Men Involved in Prostitution
• 15 mm: Pop-Culture and the Male Escort.
• ""Female sex tourism in Brazil", Beau Monde Press, July 19, 2006
• Beijing, Tom Miller in (7 May 2006). "Boys flocking to be 'ducks' for China's bored housewives". The Observer. 'Women pay,' he says, 'to buy a duck for a few hours of chatting, drinking and flirting. If they then want to rent a hotel room for the night, the price rises.' All the yazi in the nightclub earn as much as seven times the city's average wage.
• The Hipster Rent Boys of New York