Male Sex Work and Society (48 page)

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

Conclusion
 
Throughout history, gay and bisexual men have been marginalized and persecuted, which often meant that men interested in sex with other men had to hide their sexual identity and behavior and engage in clandestine sexual encounters. With the gradual easing of such oppression, and perhaps as a means of reclaiming what had been so long repressed, gay and bisexual communities have sexualized aspects of their public and private culture. This sexualization involves the more open expression of masculine sexuality, where a willingness to pay for sexual products and services carries far less stigma than it does in the heterosexual world. Over the decades, the gay community has used the most recent trends in communication and technologies to reify gay culture, including the commodification of sexuality. As illustrated in this chapter, there are common threads running between gay culture, sexuality, and the commodification of sex, including sex work. Thus, male sex work in all its various forms reflects the pressures on, and the norms generated within, gay culture.
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Endnotes
 
 
1
     The Mattachine Society, founded in 1950, was one of the earliest homophile/homosexual organizations in the United States.
 
2
     The Daughters of Bilitis was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States.
What is refreshing about this chapter is that it gives some attention to the issue of exiting sex work, whereas most research on male sex work has been focused on people entering. In terms of what brings people into sex work, most early accounts assumed sex work to be a product of exploitation and economic survival. Only recently has there emerged a professional discourse on male sex work in which it is examined as a rational career choice. Exiting sex work might also be considered a choice. If we can develop a better understanding and appreciation for the factors associated with exiting, it would help service providers deal more effectively with the health and welfare of male sex workers. Exiting sex work also brings into focus the mature male body and mature masculinities. Much of the research on male sex work has focused on the youthful male body and youthful expressions of masculinity, which promotes the idea that male sex workers are typically young men who have been exploited by older clients. The idea that older male sex workers could be desired by younger clients has remained largely unexamined, yet a cursory examination of escort sites from around the globe indicates that men of all ages are engaged in sex work.
 
Introduction
 
In recent decades, there has been increasing interest in male sex work among academics, policymakers, and those offering specialist service provision to male sex workers (MSWs). The research literature in the UK context has primarily explored the female sex worker, and the policy and legal discourses have focused on males only as clients, pimps, traffickers, and abusers—which is how male identities often have been constructed in the UK sex work policy context (Gaffney, 2007; Kingston, 2009, 2010; Whowell & Gaffney, 2009; Whowell, 2010). However, the 2003 Sexual Offences Act made all prostitution-related offenses gender neutral. As a result, sex work should now be understood as involving male and transgender people as well as women, at least in the legal context.

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