New Pleasures and Old Dangers: Reinventing Male Sex Work

Abstract

Understandings of male sex workers (MSWs) shift with technological, conceptual, and social changes. Research has historically constructed MSWs as psychologically unstable, desperate, or destitute victims and their clients as socially deviant perverts. These perceptions, however, are no longer supported by contemporary research and changing societal perceptions of the sex industry, challenging how we understand and describe “escorts.” The changing understandings of sexuality and the increasing power of the Internet are both important forces behind recent changes in the structure and organization of MSWs. The growth in the visibility and reach of escorts has created opportunities to form an occupational account of MSWs that better accounts for the dynamic and diverse nature of the MSW experience in the early 21st century. Recent changes in the structure and organization of male sex work have provided visibility to the increasingly diverse geographical distribution of MSW, the commodification of race and racialized desire, new populations of heterosexual men and women as clients, and the successful dissemination of safer sexual messages to MSWs through online channels. This article provides a broad overview of the literature on MSWs, concentrating its focus on studies that have emerged over the past 20 years and identifying areas for future research.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant Program.

Notes

¹For the purpose of this article, sex work is an occupation where a sex worker is hired to provide sexual services for monetary considerations. A male sex worker (MSW) has been defined as any male who engages repeatedly in sexual activities with persons with whom he would not otherwise stand in any special relationship and for which he receives currency and/or the provision of one or more of the necessities of living (food, clothing, protection) or other items of monetary value.

¹For the purpose of this article, sex work is an occupation where a sex worker is hired to provide sexual services for monetary considerations. A male sex worker (MSW) has been defined as any male who engages repeatedly in sexual activities with persons with whom he would not otherwise stand in any special relationship and for which he receives currency and/or the provision of one or more of the necessities of living (food, clothing, protection) or other items of monetary value.