Male Sex Work and Society (20 page)

Read Male Sex Work and Society Online

Authors: Unknown

Tags: #Psychology/Human Sexuality, #Social Science/Gay Studies, #SOC012000, #PSY016000

What Allan Tyler brings to the fore in this chapter is that men selling sex is a big business. Indications are that more personalized and elaborate escort services, such as the “boyfriend experience,” are considered more empowering than other forms of male sex work because they provide greater income, choice, and safety and are gaining an increasing share of the male sex work market. As the sex industry has become much more commercial, male sex workers need to learn how to market their services successfully. Body type, strategic positioning (top/bottom), and penis size are important elements in marketing male sex work, but advertising these attributes successfully requires communication and business skills. As sellers of sex have become more public because of the Internet and text messaging, the male sex industry has become more mainstream. Clients and workers can now connect almost anywhere at any time via the Internet and cell phones to enter into an immediate commercial transaction
.
 
A: Where do you advertise?
M: Ooh.
Gay Times, QX
, Rentboy, um, Gaydar.
Manjam, Attitude
… GayRomeo, and then other websites. “Oh we have a new agency!” You send your pictures to them, click on the link. So many pumped boys [use] so many websites. Because they’re just like, “Oh, you have to be with us!” and just put them up. But I don’t, actually. (Marcos, 24)
 
There is no one true experience for men selling sex to men. This chapter aims to capture some of the diversity that often is ignored by sensationalized media stories or quantitative studies that have been rationalized by claiming aims of protecting the vulnerable and preventing sexual (and social?) disease. Previous work has focused on the experiences of men selling sex in the streets and bars (e.g., Hall, 2007; Williams et al., 2006), in brothels and saunas, and those who meet clients through private introductions (Weeks, 1995). More recent work on escort advertising has focused on escort review websites (Agresti, 2009; Logan, 2010). This chapter focuses on the advertising of sex and sexualized services to men via gay media, which captures some of the shifting and blurring of sexual boundaries experienced and constructed by men who advertise as masseurs and escorts.
The language we use, which stems from the historical, legal, and political discourse on prostitution and sex work (Brooks-Gordon, 2006; Sanders, 2005; Scott, 2003; Weeks, 1995), fails to capture what is really happening for many men whose experience of and identification with selling sex are limited to specific times and places, and also to specific actions and activities. Many of the men I interviewed, whose stories informed this chapter, do not fall neatly into a single category of male sex worker (MSW), escort, prostitute, or masseur, nor do many of them self-identify as such. Moreover, neither the term “rentboy” (Dorais, 2005; Phua & Caras, 2008) nor the once derogatory but recently reclaimed term “hustler” (Parsons, Koken, & Bimbi, 2004; Scott, 2003) captures the richness and multiplicity of what is true for different men, many of whom have not been “boys” for over two decades. It has come to be understood that the terms “gay” and “bisexual” do not sum up the subjective identities and experiences of all men who have sex with men. Therefore, I have created the initialism M$M to refer generally to men who sell sex and sexualized services to men, which highlights the transactional element of the interaction; moves away from derogatory, legalized, or politicized signs; and reflects my informants’ own constructions of what is and is not “sex” or “work.”
This chapter looks at the development of M$M advertising, from card posting to magazines to online profiles, and the move from text-only advertisements to ads that feature photographs. Finally, it explores the construction of meaning and identities through verbal and visual content. The original research for this chapter is based on data collected from magazines and websites targeting gay men, and interviews with some of the men who advertise in them. Most of the examples in this chapter deal specifically with M$M and do not represent marketing to female clients.
What Can We Learn from M$M Advertising?
 
Research on M$M advertising is relatively scarce. A broader literature does exist that looks at classified personal ads generally (Cocks, 2009; Deaux & Hanna, 1984) and gay men’s classified ads specifically (Baker, 2003; Davidson, 1991; Livia, 2002). Most recently there has been a great deal of interest in how men who have sex with men use the Internet to interact, usually with a focus on the prevention of HIV (Carballo-Diéguez et al., 2006; Nodin et al., 2011; Wilson et al., 2009). As the Internet has become an integral part of daily life for many people, researchers have started to focus on social networking sites (Light, 2007; Light & McGrath, 2010; Mowlabocus, 2007a, 2007b, 2010a, 2010b) and the online profiles that MSWs use to interact with clients (Agresti, 2009; Logan, 2010; Phua & Caras, 2008).
Some research has been done with MSWs who use magazine and Internet advertising, distinguishing between the advertising cohort and street workers (e.g., Koken, Bimbi, & Parsons, 2010; Minichiello et al., 2000; Morrison & Whitehead, 2007a, 2007b; Parsons, Bimbi, & Halkitis, 2001). Other research on MSWs in the United States illustrates how those who advertise on the Internet use technology to screen clients and discuss safer sex, and the role the Internet has played in their entry into sex work (Cunningham & Kendall, 2011; Parsons et al., 2004). There is evidence that men who buy sex review their experiences in online forums (Logan, 2010). U.S. researchers have revealed that Internet advertising allows MSWs to prebook clients who come to town on business trips, whereas magazine advertising primarily attracts clients who have been drinking in bars or using drugs (Parsons et al., 2004). Again, much of the past research was conducted with an emphasis on HIV prevention. This chapter builds on and updates previous research, as dramatic changes have occurred in mobile communication technologies—including smart phones, Wi-Fi, and social networking “apps”—along with advances in the treatment of HIV and the discourse among sex workers, gay men, and, more broadly, men who have sex with men.
There is an emerging body of research that focuses on the content of male sex work advertising (Agresti, 2009; Logan, 2010; Phua & Caras, 2008) but, like past work on personal classified ads (Baker, 2003; Davidson, 1991; Livia, 2002), it is largely focused on the text content. Previous research on male escort advertising has focused completely on text-only advertising (Cameron, Collins, & Thew, 1999) or has limited its focus to the advertisement text (Phua & Caras, 2008). As technologies and advertising conventions have developed, so has research interest in the visual content of these ads (Reavey, 2011; Rose, 2007).
Research examining the meaning of the photographs on gay men’s personal profiles has found that pictures of faces signal honesty, presence, and authenticity, and an investment in being identified in a gay space (Mowlabocus, 2010b). Similar theories are being applied to the commercial profiles of M$M. Logan and Shah (2009) analyzed the difference in prices between male sex work Internet advertisements that did and did not have photographs. They found that MSWs who included at least one facial picture had higher prices than those who did not post photographs that revealed their faces. This chapter describes these newer, more visual, and more interactive forms of advertising.
Cameron, Collins, and Thew (1999) analyzed issues of
Gay Times
in the mid-1990s to look for significant patterns between the advertisers’ self-described characteristics, such as age, ethnicity, physique, and proclamations of masculinity, and the types of services they offered, described as ordinary “mainstream” sex or more fetish-focused activities, including dressing up, role-play, and BDSM.
1
They found that advertisers promoting fetish-related activities were older than the average, and men who said they were “older” (over 26 years) were also more likely to claim to be bisexual or indicate other signs of masculinity. They also found that men who promoted themselves as “foreign” (to an assumed British audience) were younger than the men who promoted themselves as British or claimed no national identity.
Phua and Caras (2008) picked up the exploration of nationality and ethnicity in online advertisements and also looked at race. Although they used the photos in the advertisements to confirm or compare claims of race and ethnicity, they did not analyze the photos beyond that. They compared the way white American men described themselves in their ads with (mainly mixed-race) Brazilian men’s descriptions. Phua and Caras categorized these self-descriptions and how he M$M constructed themselves for their audience. Similar to Deaux and Hanna’s 1984 study on personal ads in magazines, they found 23 categories that included physical descriptions, sexual acts, age, and race; the research for this chapter found 26 similar categories. In both magazine and online profiles, men construct “brands” (Phua & Caras, 2008) or unique selling points to differentiate themselves from their colleagues/competitors in the surrounding ads, often creating packages of physical characteristics (muscularity and penis size), personal characteristics (discrete, passionate), and services offered (fetish, “boyfriend experience”).
Ad content is becoming more complex to analyze, due to the inclusion of both graphic and textual content, and there are opportunities to collect data that are readily available on the Internet. Profiles on Gaydar and Rentboy, for example, thus offer a readily available resource for studying the meanings people attach to sexuality (Davidson, 1991).
Where Men Advertise
 
People buy magazines … People from America buy the magazine, people that comes to London—a lot of Arabs, they buy the magazine. Because they know that it’s a gay thing. They don’t know—they don’t go to gay places, but they go to
GT
and they know that there are escorts in the back of it. It’s kind of a classy magazine. It’s not really a trashy magazine. I think that’s why they charge [as much as they do]. (Marcos, 24)
 
Whether in Ancient Greece, Victorian London, or modern-day Los Angeles, there always have been places where people sold sex and used signals to indicate that sex was for sale. In Ancient Greece, boys wearing long hair and makeup stood outside the barber shop or the perfumery (Evans, 1979). In Victorian London, Piccadilly Circus was renowned as the place to find a particular type of male company, and fingering one’s lapels was understood to be a form of advertising. Coded messages were sometimes placed in mainstream periodicals of the time that to the knowing present-day reader may seem at once quite obvious and, compared to contemporary ads, quite coy: “Youth 21, versatile slim attractive English [offers] full personal services to gentlemen of any age, at my place or yours” (Cocks, 2009, p. 145). Today, print and online advertisements act as both place and signal.
While journalistic sources claim the Internet dominates contemporary marketing by MSWs, interviews with M$M reveal three main spaces for advertising and promoting their services: notices posted in gay pubs, magazines aimed at a gay readership, and the Internet (see Koken et al., 2010; Parsons et al., 2004); website categories can be subdivided into individual sites, agency sites, and social-networking sites.

Other books

Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
The Eagle's Vengeance by Anthony Riches
The Last Stormlord by Larke, Glenda
Strawman Made Steel by Brett Adams
Heart of Stone by Aislinn Kerry