LifestyleQuestion: what do y'all think of gay male sex work?

submitted by ukrdude10 from self.LGBDropTheT

Hello, I'm quite new here, but I see that many of you are critical of sex work in general. Do you think male prostitution is equal to female prostitution in terms of exploitation?

I know these settings are quite bad for women, who are often vulnerable, voiceless, and easily become victims of trafficking and exploitation. On the other hand, I don't see much of a problem with grown men selling sex services for money. Gay porn stars and escorts seem to be more confident and comfortable, same with the street workers I have met.

I welcome your opinions as well, feel free to change my mind.

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[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 34 insightful - 1 fun34 insightful - 0 fun35 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't want to give too much identifying information about myself, but I will say that for a long time I worked in California in a job that assisted drug addicts, homeless people, sex workers, impoverished people, etc, helping them to get their life back together. Like I said, I don't want to get into too much detail. In this job, I met a lot of sex workers, both male and female, and I will tell you about some of the male sex workers. Yes, some of them were indeed gay, but more often they were straight. (About 35% gay 65% straight) many of them were either homeless or couch surfing, most of them were below 25, and a big chunk of them were "18-19" and I put that in quotes because I believe an equal amount were underage claiming to be 18-19. And others were older but claiming to be 18-19 because that's what the customers like. At least 80% of them were on drugs, as bad as heroin and meth, not so much cocaine, they all used pot. A lot of them, the minute they made money they ran to their dealers to score.

Many of these homeless youth had been approached by predatory men who offered them money to film videos. One kid got gang-raped on camera and didn't get any money afterwards. Another kid was luckier, he got to shoot some fetish videos where he was naked except for some combat boots and he had to jerk off onto the boots. He got paid $500 cash. Another kid got paid $250 for some guy to piss in his face and mouth. These were all straight guys. All addicted to heroin. They were told the videos would not be shown in America, but in Japan/Europe. One of them was super-proud of this and kept joking that he was a famous pornstar in Japan. He was in so much internal pain that he had to choose to laugh about it instead of crying. I have dozens of stories like this.

There was an area in the place where I worked called "the fruit loop" which is where these kids found customers. The straight boys usually just did blowjobs, to get just enough money to buy themselves pizza and drugs, the gay boys were the ones more likely to go all the way. The gay boys always seemed more angrier than the straight boys to me and less likely to be on heroin/meth. A lot of them had the "I ran away from home because my family is homophobic" story. Like really, they all had the same story, all their stories would blend together like they were the same person.

One gay boy found himself a "sugar mama" this (very unattractive, according to him) middle aged woman took him home, gave him a shower, clean clothes, food, with the expectation that he would get in her bed and sexually pleasure him afterwards, and they had this disgusting arrangement. This gay boy had to eat this nasty woman out every night if he wanted a safe clean home to live in.

I have hundreds of stories like this. When you're hungry and desperate and addicted and nowhere to go, sex work isn't work, it's survival. And it's not sexy, romantic, or empowering. It's slavery.

If it was a perfect world where people had money and a safe place to live and no addictions and sex work was just an option and they could pick and choose their customers, then fine. But this is not what I saw. I did meet many women sex workers who tried to act like this is how it was for them "high class call girls" but sooner or later once they trusted me more they started venting about how creepy and disgusting their clients were. One girl broke down in my office crying about how this rich businessman bit her breast (it was bruised with teeth marks) and then just kept holding her down and spitting in her face over and over again. This is not okay. I can't even tell you how many of these women got raped during their "work." It's not safe.

[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for helping these people. Your story about the gay boy and his sugar mama angered me. I hope he’s in a better place. And it shows how damaging and destructive homophobia is, because most of these gay kids would never have been prostitutes had their families accepted them or least tolerated them. Plus, prostitution highlights how badly drugs have affected society.

[–][deleted] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't believe we should normalize sex work ever. Commercialization of sex normalizes the idea that people's bodies are commodities, and that if someone is in poverty that they should feel pressured to selling their body as a last resort. That's unacceptable. I'm against commercial sex work and commercial pornography.

[–]lavender_menace 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Agreed. Same goes for surrogacy.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ugh, yes. Nobody is entitled to reproduce; there's plenty of kids in need of adoption, and the stereotype that reproduction is the ultimate, and necessary goal of all women is regressive and stupid. A woman can be successful and fulfilled without needing to have children to do so.

[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If a man - or a woman - made a choice to become a prostitute, a stripper or a porn star even though there are other options, then it’s none of my business. As long as he knows he can quit what he’s doing, as long as he’s an adult, as long as he consents to everything and as long as he’s not doing this out of desperation. He’s still degrading himself. Yes, it was his choice, but he is treating himself as a commodity for sex. And if he’s a porn star, there’s the added problem that people will know that he’s sold his body for sexual purposes, and this could affect his ability to get certain jobs or raise a child. Not to mention the risk of STDs he will have to worry about.

Unfortunately, most people in the sex industry did not have a choice. A lot of rentboys, porn stars and strippers have drug addictions, are homeless or are deeply in debt. They’re desperate. They’re being exploited. They would never have worked in the industry if they had other options, or if they knew they had other options, or if they weren’t impoverished, addicted to drugs or running from the mafia. Other than the fact that sex work is mentally scarring, it can also be extremely dangerous. A rent boy could get raped or beaten by his client. And a lot of prostitutes are in the country they work in illegally. Not blaming them, some were told they’d get a job in construction in the new country, only to emigrate and then find out they were lied to.

If prostitution is to be legalised, there should be strict regulations in place to ensure the safety of the prostitutes. But I still don’t want it promoted. And there should be organisations that help sex workers quit the sex industry for good. Counselling services should also be available, because a lot of sex workers are broken people, and are therefore easily taken advantage of.

[–]HelloMomo 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What I just really can't get around is that even if someone wants to be a prostitute in some vague sense, they don't the individual interactions. If the actually wanted to have sex with this customer, they wouldn't have to be bribed into it. The whole thing fundamentally hinges on the idea that sexual consent is a good which can be bought and sold. And that's just so rape-y.

[–]Poofter 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Not really equal. Both pretty sad, too.

[–]ImNOTRobertPaulson 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a difficult topic. On one hand, I am very socially Libertarian, and I believe an adult should have full autonomy over their own body. That includes to use it or do things with/to their body that I don't think is positive or that could be harmful.

However, I also understand we don't live anywhere close to the type of world where a decision like being a sex worker is so uncomplicated. People seldom do it because they want to. There are issues of addiction, exploitation, and trafficking, among other things.

Sex work, on its own, is not something I have much issue with, as long as it's between consenting adults. I'd be for legalizing prostitution as long is it was heavily regulated, ran properly, and didn't take advantage of people in already horrible situations.

We, as a society, decry sex workers "selling their bodies" to make money, but have no issue with someone breaking their back or doing untold physical damage to their bodies working in a warehouse or other physically demanding job.