Male Sex Work and Society (45 page)

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Endnote
 
  
1
    “Agentic” refers to the ability to make choices.
_________________
*
Figure 9.2
and
figure 9.3
are from printed and online materials distributed by HOOK Online, Inc., a U.S.-based grassroots program that supports men who are or were involved in the sex-work industry. According to its mission statement, “HOOK educates men in the sex industry, clients, and the public about sex work to reduce harm and to develop a network of service providers and nonprofit programs.” Their program is about “encouraging dialogue between men in the sex industry about choices for health and wellbeing; promoting visibility and representation of the needs and issues of men in the sex industry within public and private forums; fostering informed discussion about men in the sex industry; encouraging sex industry businesses to recognize their role as conduits in communicating with men in the sex industry by adopting harm reduction efforts as responsible business practice; [and] aiding social service providers to respond in a non-stigmatizing manner to the needs of men in the sex industry.”
Christian Grov and Michael Smith paint a vivid picture of early cultures of men who have sex with men (MSM) and their close relationship to male sex work. The history of male sex work closely reflects changes within and changing attitudes toward male-male sexual encounters. Early male sex work occurred in clearly defined spaces, often the underground spaces of cinema, porn arcades, beats, and bathhouses. New information technologies and changing social attitudes have bought male work out into the space of private homes, five-star hotels, organized sex tours, and mainstream cultural venues. These technologies also have allowed greater diversity in terms of services offered and sought. Some researchers have spoken of the new tribalism that has evolved in MSM culture in the last decade. There is now a wide range of highly visible MSM subcultures, which have flourished because of new opportunities for communication provided by the Internet. This has increased diversity and made visible the polymorphous nature of sexual desire, and also created greater opportunity to find peer support in terms of male sex workers’ health needs and general welfare. However, the new “tribalism” also poses challenges in terms of promoting public health. Unlike the early phases of the HIV epidemic, there now are clearly many gay communities to speak to rather than one clearly defined gay community. This noted, there has in fact never been a single gay community. It has always been fluid, contingent, and improvisational, with shifting boundaries and conflicts. This merely reflects the diversity among MSM in terms of how they themselves perceive and live their lives. Post-AIDS researchers have described increased division within gay communities, as men develop diverse responses and sexual expression relative to HIV. Thus the term “tribes” has been suggested as one that accurately describes homosexual sociality. Indeed, there is wide variety among the male sex workers who service MSM and their diverse tastes, once again making male sex work a microcosm that reflects wider changes in MSM cultures and subjectivities
.
Gay Subcultures
CHRISTIAN GROV
MICHAEL D. SMITH
 
A Look Back: Technology, Culture, and Sex (Work)
 
Gay Print Media in the Post-Stonewall Era
 
Money and sex have always made the perfect couple. We can look back at the ancient Greco-Roman world, where some commentators complained about the high price of the attractive male companions favored by the nobility (Polybius, 1979). Or, we could talk about the young working-class men involved in prostitution during the sexually repressive Victorian era (Perkins & Bennett, 1997). But, if we want to review a more recent history of male sex work, we might start with the advent of the post-Stonewall gay press. It was only after Stonewall that the gay community came out from the shadows and asserted itself as a player on the national stage. With increased openness came both a larger sexual marketplace and an expanded means of reaching potential customers.
Few gay publications existed prior to the Stonewall riots and the burgeoning gay civil rights movement of the late 1960s (Meeker, 2001). The first to openly declare itself a homosexual publication was the Mattachine Society’s
ONE Magazine
, which began publication in 1953 and continued until 1967.
1
It was soon followed by
The Ladder
, started by the Daughters of Bilitis in 1957.
2
However, the gay social environment was too closeted and too well policed for a broadly disseminated press, or for much open communication to occur between men interested in buying or selling sexual services (Higgins, 1999; Kennedy, 1995). People rightly feared to reveal themselves due to rampant discrimination, as the stigma that attached itself to being an identified homosexual was associated with inordinate personal and professional consequences (Bullough, 2002). The gay print media was constantly harassed, ignored by potential advertisers, and had precious few outlets for dissemination. It was not until 1958 that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling to establish the right to distribute gay media through the mail. It previously had been considered obscene by the U.S. Postal Service, which had refused to handle issues of
ONE Magazine
.
Such conditions meant that, until the opening provided by a national gay civil rights movement, opportunities to advertise any type of sexual services were very limited. There were a few broadsheets that could be picked up in gay clubs or bathhouses, but they were not widely available and one had to visit such a venue to get them (Harris, 2001). Furthermore, going to a club or other gay-identified establishment carried its own risks, and many people did not even know such establishments existed, or where to find one if they did (Bullough, 2002). Thus, such publications as these were often were passed from hand to hand among groups of friends in limited social networks that did not extend far beyond the limits of a small gay community. Simply possessing such a publication carried the chance of being “outed,” of being identified as a homosexual.

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