A reader asks:
I read your post and answer to the question: “How does one find a male prostitute for a straight female?“ Is there really a market for females that want male prostitutes? Could you recommend a male prostitute that a man could fashion himself after (both physically and mentally)? And could you recommend any books, websites or articles on the topic?
I’m afraid there just isn’t much of a market for heterosexual male prostitutes, which is why that reader had so much trouble finding one. While every town in the world has female hookers and most make much more than they could at other jobs for which they’re qualified, men who want to do sex work usually deal mostly with men. This isn’t to say that no woman ever pays a man for sex, but those who do so are statistical outliers and therefore not a dependable source of income. The English sex worker Sensuous Amanda expressed it quite well:
Whilst I won’t say there is no market for straight male escorts, I will tell you that it is a teeny tiny market and it is awash with bright eyed hopefuls. As far as I know, even the successful guys do it part time and have another job to pay the rent…Boys, go for it if you want, but don’t rely on it for income. For instance, my ex – a tall strapping chap, pretty good looking, in his early 30s at the time – advertised his services. He’d seen what I was earning and decided that he wanted in on the action. He never made a sodding penny. Nothing. Not so much as an email or a call. Not even a timewaster.
That article also suggests a helpful model: Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. No, he wasn’t a sex worker, but that’s exactly the point; as Amanda writes, “in general, women don’t want [it]…to be a charade. We want a man to be all of those things to us because he wants to be. Not because we’ve just handed him a wad of twenties…” Or as I expressed it in “Just Drawn That Way”, “it is a rare woman indeed who will pay for sex with a man [because] it is an undeniable statement that he is not attracted to her, and that invalidates the primary reason for which [most women] might seek unprofitable, non-relationship sex.”
People try to refute that by pointing to female sex tourists, but the exception proves the rule because what these women are looking for is adventure and romance rather than sex per se, which is why they seek this in exotic places rather than at home. Furthermore, you must remember that dollars, pounds and euros go a long way in such locales; what constitutes a generous fee there might be only a small sum in the Global North. That matters because women tend to be cheap tippers, especially where sex is concerned; as I explained once before, “A friend of mine who owned a male stripper service in addition to his escort service eventually had to stop offering so-called ‘bachelorette parties’ because none of his boys would do them anymore. The reason they gave? ‘Women are lousy tippers and they’re more interested in the buffet than the dancers.’” The good, dependable income in sex work is from male clients, whether the sex worker is male or female; as Amanda put it, “You wanna be a male escort? Fine, you go for it sweetie. You wanna make real money as a male escort? Lube up, bend over and take one for the team.”
I don’t know of any other resources for heterosexual male escorts, but by serendipity one of them (who says he has 15 years of experience) posted a reply just a few weeks ago on the very same Sensuous Amanda post I quoted above. He confirmed that he couldn’t make enough to live on, points out the difficulties of trying to see more than two to three clients a week, and explained that his sessions have to be open-ended on time rather than by the hour as with female escorts. He has a lot to say that I think you’ll find enlightening, including the fact that 75% of his clients were couples; this of course reinforces what I said above, because if it weren’t for the man’s interest in the fantasy you can be sure his wife wouldn’t be there.
