Some participants were acutely conscious that sex work is an age-limited profession; for many, clients certainly became harder to find once they entered their late twenties and early thirties. This is especially so because the majority of male sex work in Kenya and Namibia, as perhaps elsewhere in Africa, is oriented around youthful, sexually attractive boys/men/transgendered people. Models of the macho older male sex worker exist, usually as a symbol of patriarchy and monetary power, but they are not as prevalent in terms of sex work among men. A key attribute of sex work, then, is anxiety about what happens after sex work—that is, what to do upon leaving the profession, often with no savings or socially recognized work skills or experience that corresponds to the labor needs of the given country, even if a person who sells sex actually has these skills.
Where do you feel most at home?
Despite their many stories of family rejection, some sex workers still live with their birth families. Whether they feel at home there is another matter. Many say it is difficult to achieve a sense of belonging or of “being at home” wherever they live, given the stigmas of both their sexuality and the sex work profession. The study participants say they feel at home with fellow male and transgendered sex workers, and sometimes with other LGBTI people, as a kinship of choice and commonality; however, LGBTI people sometimes reject them due to their sex work and social status. Being “at home” with other sex workers is manifested, for example, in the way they look out for one another when working on the street. This relationship of care often includes female sex workers, although in some contexts there is strong rivalry and mistrust among female, male, and transgendered sex workers.
Participants reported that maintaining a home could be complex. The majority typically rent small rooms in poorer neighborhoods, where neighbors gossip when they bring boyfriends or clients home; indeed, many avoid bringing clients to their homes for this reason. A number say they have moved frequently, often to escape escalating gossip and neighborhood hostility, or because they can’t pay the rent. Some do maintain good neighbor relations by being polite, congenial, etc. Home provides these men a haven, a safe place to return to after an evening of exposure and potential risk on the streets, in the bars, and in clients’ rooms or cars—even if home is just a rented room.
Sex workers’ feelings about home are especially salient, given the level of rejection, alienation, illegal work and sexuality, risk, and vulnerability in their lives. Eric Harper (2013) describes sex work as a means of obtaining a space within which to exist, a form of independence, as it were, employment, and for some sexual enjoyment and pleasure. He goes on to describe that sex workers, in a metaphorical sense, “use” sex work to overcome a sense of homelessness and that it intersects with urban space, art, ethics, consumption, sexuality, class, race, and a social construct of citizenship. MSWs’ social contexts include meeting friends, drinking and going to bars, in-house parties, clubs, and restaurants. They are always alert for business opportunities, and many say they have a sense of being homeless, of feeling like an outsider within the sociocultural context of their life space, of not belonging in the world other than as a marginal player. Some feel a strong allegiance to their ethnic identity but have little sense of family kinship, although some do have significant relationships with family members and are invited to parties and other social gatherings. Very few attend formal church services.
What are your views on the changing legal, social, and cultural contexts of homosexuality in Africa?
The study participants expressed a general sense of both hope and despair. Hope was particularly associated with changes in the South African constitution that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and legalized same-sex marriage, which may influence other African countries. A national sex work program is now in place and is aligned with the South African National AIDS plan, and the male and transgendered female sex work movement is growing. Kenya, too, is witnessing a nascent, even pronounced social transformation with respect to sexuality, such changes being bound up with neoliberal social-economic transformations. However, trafficking, homelessness, and xenophobia seem to be on the increase in Africa, with constant threats of deportation; the study participants also expressed concern about male (and female) sex workers who have fled certain countries because of human rights abuses. They believe it will take a long time for the African continent to accept male-to-male sexuality and sex work.
In Kenya’s cities, particularly Nairobi and Mombasa, social spaces for gay and other men who have sex with men are increasingly apparent. For example, a number of bars tolerate and to some extent accept LGBTI clientele. These changes reflect the wider momentum for change in Kenya, where recent government policies aimed at promoting economic growth and liberalization are contributing to changes in social attitudes and a new culture of individualism, as a younger generation seeks increased social mobility and personal choice in working and self-expression in consumption. This has tended to promote a new global outlook. An emerging, if uneven, tolerance of LGBTI communities and rights is a facet of this social change in some urban areas. It is notable, for example, that the prime minister of Kenya recently called for the arrest of gay couples in the country but later was compelled to retract his statement due to civil activism, including from the LGBTI community. This reflects the sociocultural context of LGBTI issues in Kenya, where political and social attitudes reveal strong homophobic prejudice at the same time new and emerging social attitudes are acquiring some legitimacy.
Nevertheless, Kenya has an enduring culture of homosexual and sex work prejudice. Same-sex sexuality is heavily stigmatized and LGBTI people are often subject to abuse and harassment. Police officers are among the perpetrators of such violence and often are reluctant to support and protect victims of homophobic crimes. In health-care settings, people of same-sex sexuality often face similar discrimination. For example, gay men and other men who have sex with men often encounter hostility and discrimination if reporting anal STD symptoms, despite new health ministry guidelines on male-to-male sexuality, sex work, health, and HIV. This occurs in the context of an especially high rate of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men in Kenya—reportedly 15 percent of all new HIV infections in 2010. This is confirmed in a study of at-risk populations (also referred to as key populations; Desmond Tutu Foundation, 2011) that includes MSM and sex workers. A Kenyan and South African study reported that MSM had the highest rates of HIV (6.8 cases per 100 people; Price et al., 2012)
In Namibia, despite the fact that no legislation exists concerning same-sex sexuality (although there are laws against sodomy), the study participants believe the oppression and abuse directed toward them is driven by institutions (policymakers, politicians, and police) rather than by civil society. They now have easier access to public spaces and more tolerance from at least some quarters of civil society, and there is increasing visibility of gay doctors, nurses, and teachers who do not mask their identity. Health facilities, however, are still discriminatory and not gender sensitive.
The moral climate elsewhere in Africa is volatile and violent, as evidenced by the murder of same-sex rights activist David Kato in Uganda and the Ugandan parliament’s efforts to pass an “antihomosexuality bill.” The murder of gay men and sex workers in South Africa, police harassment and violence, and the “corrective rape” of lesbians in townships attest to this currency. The sociomoral position of homosexuality in Africa contributes to a sense of social anxiety and danger among male sex workers, although most say they feel relatively free in much of day-to-day life, having found some degree of freedom in sex work, although this must be interpreted with respect to people’s abjection and lack of choice with regard to selling sex.
What makes you vulnerable and what makes you safe—thoughts, places, people, and behavior?
The study participants’ safe spaces correspond to their collective identity or “family of choice”—that is, the subculture of sex work, which includes bars, clubs, and other indoor/outdoor venues where they feel safe and have a sense of agency. Many also said that sex work makes them feel both safe and vulnerable, as selling sex is a way to purchase some freedom and autonomy and yet is risky and dangerous. Power relationships are often based on the youth and sexual prowess of the sex worker, on the one hand, and the fiscal prowess of the client on the other. Clients can be violent and aggressive, and many of the sex workers said they have unsafe sex, either by choice, at the client’s insistence, by force, or because of a lack of self-control brought on by excessive alcohol or drug consumption (Richter et al., 2013). The advent of HIV treatment as prevention has also created a false belief that condoms might not be necessary.
Using mood- and mind-altering substances to excess is part of the scene in which some men work and socialize, and many said that it makes sex work tolerable. Other risks include significant police harassment and violence, which is often sexualized, such as rape/forced sex. These risks had become commonplace for some and they were somewhat inured to their effects, whereas others felt the risks keenly and constantly, hence the use of drink and drugs.
Other risks cited by the study participants included health-HIV, domestic violence, being arrested (for sodomy and/or sex work), and homelessness. Nevertheless, this “risky world of sex work” also provides a haven, a place to belong, to find connection, and, conversely, to feel safe. The participants typically said that sex work was a “way of being” and of finding a sense of meaning in life. Important within this were social connections and support with other sex workers, and sex work as a space where men were able to realize and explore their sexuality in a context where same-sex sexuality was most often abject. As such, the social milieu of sex work offers a symbiotic sense of social cohesion and self-realization in otherwise complex and often negative circumstances, which was manifest in research participants’ complex attitudes and experiences of risk
and
safety, vulnerability
and
protection, which are constant and close companions when selling sex.
Conclusion
It is imperative that the hitherto silenced voices of MSWs are given a platform on which to articulate their experiences and to advocate for nonprejudicial access to health and social services, civil and legal rights, sexual and health education, and HIV prevention programs that are specifically designed for male sex workers and other men who have sex with men.
Men who have sex with men in Africa (those who sell sex and those who do not) and who do not necessarily subscribe to hetero-normative injunctions often have been excluded from policy and program planning and research regarding HIV/AIDS, STIs, hepatitis screening, and sexual health, chiefly because of prejudice and denial. Men who sell sex may be doubly stigmatized, due to their assumed sexual orientation and as sex workers, and are therefore subject to abuse and harassment. Police officers are among the perpetrators of violence against MSWs, or they join the justice and health-care systems in being dismissive of or reluctant to deal with, support, and protect male sex workers who are victims of violence. In health-care settings, MSWs face discrimination, are denied access to basic treatment and care, and encounter hostility when reporting symptoms of a sexual nature, including HIV. Such factors inevitably drive and compound MSWs’ vulnerability to HIV.
Against this background, this chapter has aimed to present a nuanced account of the lives and life worlds of male sex workers in southern and eastern Africa, as explored in some specific workshop and research activities conducted with ASWA. The research consciously avoided approaches to the study of sex work that classify “types” of sex workers or quantify the risks of such work, focusing instead on the day-to-day practices, perceptions, and experiences of these men. In basing the study on firsthand accounts of sex workers’ lives, we sought to ground the research in an experiential epistemology that was personally and emotionally sensitive. We argue that such an approach can offer important insights into sex workers’ life experiences in a manner that provides new and significant pathways for addressing their social vulnerability, rights, risks, HIV issues, and health.
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