Now that women have achieved equal rights and equal pay, they’re crossing the final sexual barrier — like generations of their fathers and brothers, they are buying the best sex money can buy, and they’re enjoying every uncommitted moment of it.
Male Prostitution — Women Who Buy Men
Debby can’t control herself. The seventeen-year-old brunette’s eyes sparkle as she brushes back her sweat-dampened bangs from her forehead. Snugly clad in tight Calvins and a shimmering silk blouse, she bounces to the pulsating music and hungrily takes in the sexy floor show at the Brooklyn nightclub. Her twenty-eight-year-old married sister, Joy, in a prim pantsuit, is also having a hard time containing herself tonight. In the seats behind Debbie and Joy, middle-aged women stuffed into pastel dresses move back and forth, mischievous girlish smiles on their faces. All told, these 200 grandmothers, mothers, and daughters are clearly enjoying their charity benefit (with a side of male prostitution).
What could get them out on a Tuesday in February? A “Ladies Only” male strip show … and the illicit promise of what might come after. The ladies are lapping it up as the transvestite MC in black sheath and silver sandals, tells the “girls” to lie back and enjoy themselves. “God knows how long it’s been for some of you,” the MC quips. The women roar.
The busboys and the manager seem to shrink against the wall in the face of these women and their out-in-the-open, I-don’t-give-a-damn sexual exuberance. A tidal wave of unadulterated, no-holds-barred delight sweeps over the room as a blond stripper dressed as a doctor struts out. What’s behind the innocent good times of these proper suburbanites is powerful stuff. It’s hunger and delight. Pure female lust.
“The Doctor” strips out of his antiseptic whites. Soon he’s totally nude except for a whimsical Snoopy sock covering his genitals. The Snoopy ears cheerfully flap as he lies on his back thrusting his groin skyward to the tune “Snoopy and the Red Baron.” The women love it. Every bump says “I’m available,” and it’s driving them wild. They squeal as he tenderly takes one woman on the floor, her blouse now totally open. Squeezing baby oil onto her hands, he helps her run them over his body. The cheers are good-natured, but envious. She’s actually touching those perfect shoulders, caressing those arms … ones so much stronger and more sensual than the ones waiting at home. My God, he let’s her move down his chest toward his Snoopy treasure … then he stops.
Joy digs into her purse, giggling. “Think I should?” she whispers to Debby. Her sister urges her on. For what? They look surprised. Doesn’t everyone know that, after the show, some of those gorgeous male creatures on the floor can be yours? If only for an hour, you might get your own personal floor show. The real nitty-gritty. Of course, it’ll cost you.
We’re not talking sixty-year-old Park Avenue dowagers being serviced by a gigolo in exchange for two months in Palm Beach. These are respectable middle-class citizens. And more than one of them is thinking of paying loot for lust. Cash on the line. No strings attached. Just as generations of their fathers and brothers might have done.
Male prostitution. Straight men for straight women. A rarity until now, but the laws of supply and demand are creating a new market. Experts in the field like Dr. Ronald Moglia, head of New York University’s Department of Human Sexuality, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer, narrator of a New York City call-in radio show called “Sexually Speaking,” find themselves a little stunned at the phenomenon, agreeing that it’s an unexplored area.
Though sex without love has always been a man’s option, most average women, brought up on romantic sexual fantasies, find the thought of buying a man repugnant. Others, however, choose to use prostitutes for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with “not being able to get it.” After all, in 1982, it’s not all that hard to “get it” with someone. But over the past ten years, women have altered their views not only of themselves but also of their own sexuality. And in increasing numbers, they’re earning the kind of salaries that would enable them to pay for a man, if they feel the urge. Some are amazed that women do feel that kind of urge at all.
But look around. Vast female audiences eagerly read Playgirl and view nude men draped over everything from hot tubs to other women to each other. Vogue and Bazaar elegantly display female models twirling their delicate Halstons while defiantly stepping on a naked man’s back, patting his shiny rear, or allowing themselves to be waited on by the compliant “hunk” while they languorously perch on chaises, much like modern-day Caesars ordering about nubile young maidens. Even sweet little Olivia Newton-John strutted through her TV special “Physical” crooning about her hunger for a baffled Adonis-executive. She proceeded to strip him of his pinstripes, drag the poor fellow around the set, fondle his body, and then finish the verse by throwing him behind bars as she sashayed off to another diversion. Like it or not, women are presenting a much more aggressive sexual stance. Romance isn’t forgotten, but now the media seem to be announcing that women don’t all think that sex has to be combined with feelings.
“Some healthy women can definitely enjoy sex without commitment, violins, and flowers,” Dr. Westheimer pointed out. “It’s a sociological phenomenon that everyone thinks they can’t just want it for pure enjoyment. Ideally, every woman and man should be emotionally involved with another person, but pleasure can be had without it.”
Many women, of course, can’t fathom male prostitution and find the choice too impersonal and risky, as do many men. Even an expert like Madame Claude, former owner of a first-rank Paris brothel, commented that she saw no growing need for males for hire since “women are so much more sentimental. The reactions, you see, of men and women are not the same.” “It sounds so dirty,” a pretty young secretary agreed. “It’s probably a helluva lot more fun than buying a blouse,” her girl friend injected. “I don’t think I would, but if someone who looks like Lauren Hutton in American Gigolo could, why not me?”
One pony-tailed twenty-three-year-old art student who occasionally uses her favorite sex-outcall service sees these men as a nice adjunct to her regular sex life. “With a real man, a boyfriend, you can’t just order them to touch you here, touch you there. You can’t say, ‘Come!’ on command. It’s unfair. With a paid man, he expects that. Don’t tell me that a lot of women, if they knew there were places they could trust, wouldn’t go and have a good time.”
Question is, where does a “nice” girl go for a “place like that”? Hamburg, Amsterdam, Munich, and Reno are reputed to have famous stud stables, and that was once the extent of it. Heather Watts, a reporter for a national sex newspaper, researched the subject eight years ago. She was disappointed. “I had believed the hetero-stud industry didn’t exist except as a myth,” she wrote. “In fact, in the long-dead days when I was a raving feminist, I was feministically pissed off about the supposed lack of paid sexual options for women. I wanted the option my male counterparts would have … when I was old and gray.”
Today, she acknowledges, times have definitely changed. Escort service ads and personal columns trumpeting mentor-hire sprinkle most local papers. “Ladies Only” strip shows have come to be known as likely hunting grounds for straight men “in the business.” Free-lancers apparently have no problem using the grapevine to connect with prospective customers.
Reactions vary, but even women who are psychologically opposed to the idea maintain a kind of “What’s good for the goose…” attitude. As poet and play-wright Sandra Hochman put it, “In an ideal healthy society men and women would be fulfilled and there would be no need. Really, prostitution, whether it’s selling out your mind or your genitals, in a humiliating way — it’s pathetic. But it might not have to be so. I don’t see any difference between men and women using them.”
Since that “ideal healthy society” seems a couple of years in the offing, there are classically “respectable” women finding male prostitutes to fill a certain void. Those that admitted to indulging were anywhere from twenty to fifty and certainly all were attractive enough not to have to pay. Some were married. Some had boyfriends. All were hesitant to talk at first. When they did, it became evident that sixty-year-old dowagers in ermine were not the only consumers in the marketplace of the world’s oldest profession.
Some had very practical reasons. Women in the work force are faced with many of the same problems men have always faced on business trips. A need for companionship. A need to make a good impression on those out-of-town clients. Escort services catering mostly to business people can be an expensive proposition, as CBS-TV’s Meredith Viera discovered on a recent investigation. The “blue-chip commodity” dates started from $125 and went upward. The number of male escorts available was small, but agencies did admit that with the number of women executives increasing, their demand for straight male dates was on the upswing.
Simply, the need for a suitable escort for business functions initially prompted one thirty-five-year-old redheaded marketing-research executive to pay for the company of a man. As Sharon discovered, most men working for the legit escort services will not only accompany you through the night but sometimes well into the night. For a little extra. She professes that sex wasn’t why she hired a date. After her first encounter, she surprised even herself.
Sharon: “Ten years ago I never would’ve thought it possible for me, a Catholic ex-cheerleader, to buy a man in any way, shape, or form. I was married then and raising my daughter. When my husband talked about a friend paying a woman to go to a business dinner and then ‘something extra,’ I thought, ‘How sad.’ For me sex and companionship equaled marriage and that was that. I had the typical, happy package deal. Except for the small fact that when I had sex with my husband, I never came. It didn’t seem to matter a lot to my husband, and I thought, ‘Well, as long as he’s happy.’
“And then I got divorced. At first I dated. I was always unsure and naive about making love. Listen, I’d jump ten feet when a man touched my breast. Then, when I wanted to go further, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. There were often sexual complications that I hadn’t the vaguest notion of how to solve. Maybe it was women’s lib or something, but guys were going limp at the magic moment or coming too soon. I felt like they needed lessons in how to be a good date and good lover, and I wasn’t about to teach them. Still, I never thought of resorting to a male prostitute. It seemed crude.
“But then a great job had me traveling a lot. Now, when you go to a new town, you’re there to make an impression. You have to feel totally in control, night and day. I was faced with a problem. If I went out for dinner by myself, I stood the chance of running into a business associate. Married or not, they’d always ‘come on.’ An attractive single woman alone in a strange town? Ripe for the picking. No matter how politely you said no, they got pissed off, and it could ruin a deal the next day. Attending business dinners was the same problem.
“Finally, in Denver for a convention, I was invited to a high-powered dinner party. I had to have all the ammunition I could muster because everyone knows lots of deals are made over casual drinks. Maybe it was an ego thing, but I knew I’d feel better if I wasn’t alone. All the men would have dates. It gave them confidence to be with an attractive companion, just a little extra to make a tough business sell in a smooth way. Don’t let anyone tell you sex isn’t part of business — it is. So I checked the convention newsletter and, sure enough, there was an escort service. I was nervous, but if I was a woman in a basically man’s world, I felt I’d be stupid not to use the same ‘crutches’ they did. I was immediately impressed, because the service I called took Master Charge, and they insisted on checking my credit rating before they let me book someone. They made it clear that the ‘good-looking, executive model’ I requested could ‘include’ sex in the $100 tab, but it wasn’t necessary. Tips were optional.
“I waited in an elegant bar, and this handsome Wall Street type introduced himself as my date. I couldn’t have done better myself, believe me. The whole thing was quite professional. I paid up front. No games. I liked him. He was an artist and needed extra cash. I thought, ‘This is some emotionally tough way to make extra money,’ but he was over twenty-one and who was I to make judgments? We were both helping each other out. I felt immediately in control at this dinner. My escort was attentive and congenial. He warded off any unwanted ‘come-ons’ and gave me that little extra confidence that comes with having someone attractive by your side. He made an impression and so did I. It was worth it, just for that.
“Now, I don’t know whether I’d ever call up a man just to fuck, but I’d already spent a nice evening with this person, and I thought, ‘Well, I am paying for the works.’ When he took me back to my hotel, I figured, ‘Let’s see where this leads.’ And it was wonderful. Knowing I was paying him and that he owed me, I felt more uninhibited and relaxed about sexually allowing him to take care of me, from everything to undressing to making the first move. And best of all, no worries that he wouldn’t be able to ‘get it up.’ Just as he’d catered to me at dinner, he catered to me in sex. I didn’t worry about pleasing him. He was being paid to please me. And I came twice! Now, maybe because he was a stranger, I let my inhibitions down. I could tell him where to touch me and how long. At that time I certainly wouldn’t have been so aggressive and relaxed with a date. When I did come, I felt free enough even to shout and groan. The whole works. I would have been embarrassed with someone I really knew. Now I’m not embarrassed even with men I know.
“I continue to use escort services on business trips. I found my first New York one in Cue magazine, for God’s sake. It’s convenient. Say I have a dinner with foreign clients. I can call the service and request a multilingual date. It impresses people, and that’s the name of the game in my line of work. The men I’ve met are almost always bright and are using this as a means to an end. But then so am I. And the sex is usually good. It’s an up-front evening. I’m assured my date will be flattering, respectful, and, if I want it, seductive and sexually proficient. I’m not saying this replaces normal dating, but every so often it’s a relief. They act the way men used to act. I like that. Maybe I’m just an old-fashioned girl.”
Of course it’s never been uncommon for women on vacation to indulge in a paid sultry afternoon’s dalliance with a gorgeous, tanned local. Resorts from Barbados to Biarritz are crowded with handsome young men strutting their stuff for lonely lady tourists. “Fuckee, fuckee,” the Trinidadian boys would croon, remembers one fifty-year-old woman who rested there after her divorce. “I thought it was crass, but I was feeling abandoned and unattractive and I wanted someone to make me feel good. Even for an hour. I picked the handsomest guy and for twenty-five dollars I felt exotic and uplifted after a terrible time.” She smiled. “Of course, I couldn’t imagine doing it when I got back to Westchester.”
“Because he was a stranger, I let my inhibitions down. I could tell him where to touch me. I felt free even to shout and groan …. I would have been embarrassed with someone I knew.”
Even Denise Fuge, head of New York’s chapter of the National Organization for Women, though not condoning impersonal sex, admits: “I can see that for a woman traveling, a male prostitute might be great. What consenting adults do is their own affair. We shouldn’t make a distinction between male and female prostitution as long as it’s not exploiting innocent children or teenagers. If it’s done in a responsible manner between adults, then who am I to say no? It’s sad, of course, that many women aren’t looking for intimacy even when they’re at home, but women are frustrated by the way relationships with men are going.”
There’s no doubt that a backlash has resulted from the double winds of sexual and women’s liberation. One woman bemoans the “staggering number of gay, asexual, or can’t-make-up-their-minds men.” Singles bars and parties may be packed with eagle-eyed hopefuls, but many feel they’ve been burned too many times. “Men and women should help each other,” Denise continued, “but it’s not happening. I can’t condemn a woman who thinks it’s too much of a hassle to tackle another relationship. And in that case, a male prostitute sounds logical.” There are some women who have found men so disappointing that they’ve gone to the extreme of avoiding any relationships. They cut off those emotional needs for protection, but the physical needs are still there. For them, male prostitutes provide a real service.
Gina has the brooding attractiveness of an older Nastassia Kinski. Her gamine, blond good looks and slim-hipped figure belie her forty-five years. It’s hard to believe that this healthy lady, until last April, had been celibate for five years. “It wasn’t something I wanted,” she states, “but the choices, the kinds of men I met in the U.S., and what being involved with them meant … that was more painful. Of course, I knew what my ex-husband would’ve done, but I thought those kind of men for women would be low-life unless they were gigolos, and who has that kind of cash? I wish I could assure women that it’s okay, but most like me would be too scared or turned off. Until they tried it.”
Divorced twelve years, Gina had moved to New York, where she found opportunities in every area except one. Used to the facile but polished charm of Europeans, Gina was at first delighted by the no-nonsense quality of American men. However, she shudders as she remembers a series of “horrible, really horrible” affairs. The men she dated had all the trappings of wealth, but “underneath,” she says, “they were peasants. They took you to gorgeous dinners, name-dropped, and showed you expensive paintings and fur-covered beds. Inside they were coarse and rude. No class. Phonies. Men who turned out to be married or emotional cripples who wanted to be babied. Five years ago I stopped. Fini. What to do?” she concludes with a Gallic shrug. The answer came where Gina least expected it.
Gina: “Men were always around that one could pay, but they were vulgar. One sail — or came up to me at a New York beach and whispered, ‘For a little bread I could use my tongue all over you.’ I snapped back, ‘So what? I could get that free. What’s the big deal?’ I thought all bought men would be that revolting.
“Then I visited a friend in California and was staying at the Saddle Back Inn. I speak four languages, and at the pool one hot, boring day I overheard two older German women discussing this great man they had both bought at the hotel! They’d come expressly there to buy a man. You just had to go to the bar, use the password to the bartender — something silly like ‘I want a Guacamole Special’ — and voila! Maybe it was just being away from home and having a little extra cash that made me ready to be adventurous, but I was. I went through the whole rigmarole at the bar, and in ten minutes this handsome, clean-cut California beach boy sat down at my table. We talked. He was around twenty-five and very polite. Finally he mentioned that his fee was fifty dollars, which seemed reasonable, and we went to my room.
“Opening the door was the last thing he let me do. He was open and sweet and did everything to relax me, from giving me a joint to telling me a joke. Slowly he undid my blouse and started to massage me. Now this boy was direct, but had style. He was the first American man who was really responsive to how I was turned on. He got hard on cue, and it was the best sex I’d had since I left Paris twelve years earlier. We both came, to my surprise. I mean, I wondered, ‘How often a day does he do this?’ But that was his problem, not mine. Afterwards, in an hour or so, he left me with a few joints as a gift. He must have liked me, non? But it didn’t matter, because physically and emotionally I felt uplifted. With other men, I’d wake up in the morning and feel like a stray dog. They’d ignore me. I’d feel dirty, cheap, let down. Here, there was no let-down, no disappointment, because there was no expectation. I felt in control. I could see him again, if I wanted to … not wait for a phone call. I didn’t ever see him, because I was leaving, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to chance not having the second time be as good as the first! In New York I don’t date. I’m scared of closeness — I admit it. I keep turning those feelings off. I wish some service would open up here. They’d rake it in. Women pay eighty dollars to a shrink for one hour, and I can tell you this is relaxing, less expensive, and a helluva lot more fun.”
“Women who use paid men are using money to maintain a barrier to achieving any closeness with someone else,” maintains Lynn Ramsey, author of Gigolos — The World’s Best Kept Men. “They’re a sad lot.” Gina, of course, would be the first to admit she doesn’t want closeness at this point in her life. Going to the extremes that she has does indicate, however, that she’s running a lot faster than the situation might dictate.
Many women, however, aren’t alone, like Gina. They have husbands or boyfriends and still seek out prostitutes, but in their cases it’s for supplemental sex, that they can’t get at home. Some are indeed running from basically unsatisfactory lives. Several male prostitutes reported that much of their clientele are married women in their thirties and forties who are frustrated but are afraid to ask their husbands to meet their sexual needs; or in many cases the husbands, when asked, simply refuse. They often seek oral sex from the prostitutes since their husbands consider that practice taboo, even though they expect the same courtesy performed for them. “Buying a man finally fulfills me sexually,” one married Jerseyite confessed, “and I’m too scared to get rid of the secure, although disappointing, marriage I have.”
But disappointment need not be the only reason why a married woman would hire a man. Dr. Ruth Westheimer, an associate professor at Cornell and herself a happily married fifty-five-year-old, feels it is conceivable that married women could use male prostitutes and still have healthy relationships at home.
“After all, what about variety?” she says with just a touch of an Austrian accent in her cheery voice. “Sex with your mate can be wonderful, and still a woman might want another man over the period of years. And what’s so wrong? Haven’t we ever thought it’s all right not to want filet mignon every night? Or what if your partner doesn’t want filet mignon at the same time you do? I wouldn’t advocate infidelity or promiscuity, but physiologically, from my point of expertise in the field of sexuality, it could be very enjoyable and healthy for a woman to hire someone to give her pure enjoyment without it being an avoidance of reality. I, for one, think in some cases that male prostitutes could be of tremendous service.”
Marlene, a young black housewife, feels the same way. Sitting in a Connecticut Burger King, she looks like any other wife and mother. She doesn’t work, although photography is an avid hobby. She describes her husband, a navy man, as gentle, sweet, and lovable — all the things Marlene thought she’d never find in her early years. Even so, Marlene found herself with fantasies her husband couldn’t understand and couldn’t satisfy. It was starting to affect her home life, and rather than wreck her marriage Marlene decided to do something about her “private daydreams.”
Marlene: “My husband is a wonderful man, and sexually he can satisfy me, but I get horny. I’m only twenty-eight and my husband’s thirty-eight. If he doesn’t want it as often or the way I’d like, it’s okay. I love him. But my sexual needs are important, and truthfully, I think they overwhelm him. He’d oblige me if I got too cranky, but that’s no fun for either of us. So I’d just get frustrated, start snapping at him over nothing, and I didn’t like myself very much for that kind of behavior. I started to think and I realized that no one can be everything to another person, even if they love them. My husband accepted my thing up to a certain point. A male point. He’d be really happy to have a threesome, but it has to be another woman and us. If I wanted him and another man … no way.
“I also like men that are bigger and more muscular than he is. Real sportsmen. Jocks. And to tell you the truth, I fantasized about men with bigger cocks. Now I wanted to keep my husband and my life, but I wanted to be good to myself without getting emotionally involved with someone else and certainly without letting the neighbors know. It may sound awful but I thought paying a man would do the trick. The only thing that’s really awful is being unhappy with yourself. That’s more important than what society keeps telling us.”
“What way could I do it? Well, I figured the way my brothers did it: a hooker. So a couple of years ago, when my husband was away, I thought, ‘Girl, now’s the time to do something about this. No one else is going to do it for you!’ I took my camera and visited some friends in New York City. In the afternoon I strolled down to the West Fourth Street basketball courts. I saw this gleaming hunk who was a great basketball player and we both came on to each other. He was very nice and nonthreatening, but he lived at home and didn’t have any money. I knew he wanted to be paid, so I suggested we rent a hotel room. I was shocked that I could be so bold, but it was now or never.”
“The sex was dynamite. For one thing, he really loved going down on me. Now I’m really into that. But I feel my husband, when and if he does it, does it just ‘cause he thinks it’s his obligation. It’s not his fault. He just doesn’t like it. This man was really into it. I also like anal sex sometimes, which my husband refuses to participate in. This man and others after him all seemed to be game, and I loved it.”
“When the hour or so was over, he wanted to give me the first time for free, but I insisted on paying him. Paying distances you, which is important in my case. The money thing also gives you the feeling you can take charge if you want to and not worry about damaging someone’s masculine ego. Lots of black women are too docile. Our men are sometimes too proud to unbend sexually, and we don’t want to hurt them. With a prostitute, I don’t have to worry. There’s no phony chatter. No exchange of phone numbers, like what might happen if you pick up a guy at a bar. It’s my treat to me, and that’s why I do it with different men every other month or so. If I was with one more than a couple of times it might get heavy, and I don’t want that. Of course, I wouldn’t want to pick up anyone that was too young, but I figure if a guy is over eighteen, he’s big enough to decide where he wants to put what he’s got. I’m religious, but I think the only sin for me might be the sin of lust. If God is going to strike me down for that, then I’ll have to take my chances. This way my husband, child, and I are happy. And that’s no sin.”
Marlene’s sexual appetite might seem a little more voracious than that of most women. Yet the lack of success in mending the sexual gap with her husband mirrors a deeper gap that many women feel. “I’m frustrated by the way men aren’t keeping up with women,” said one well-known soap opera actress. “I myself would never pay, because it seems so clinical, but I can’t say it’s wrong. Men and women on a personal and sexual basis are talking a different language these days. One night I told my ex-boyfriend that I’d like to be the one to seduce and undress him and he was scared shitless!”
A sexual smorgasbord with one man takes a lot of work, imagination, and understanding. Some people are perfectly happy with tried-and-true sexual scenarios. Marlene’s mate obviously wouldn’t re-arrange his sexual menu, but there are certainly men as adventurous as their women. In some cases, male prostitutes can serve for women working out fantasies with their loved ones. These paid “third parties” seem to provide a non-threatening accomplice. “All in good fun and all for the best” is how Linda, a thirty-year-old legal secretary, summed up the time she suggested to her boyfriend that together they buy a man.
Linda: “Sex with one person can sometimes get to be predictable. That’s a reality. And I wouldn’t trade my boyfriend, Joe, a lawyer, for anyone. But both of us were getting a little bored. One night we felt a little kinky and I finally admitted I’d thought about us trying a threesome, just for a change. Thank God, he told me he’d thought about it too. Of course, neither of us knew or dared to ask anyone to participate. So I said, ‘Let’s hire a third.’ Only trouble was, Joe wanted a woman and I wanted a man. We compromised. We bought a transsexual.
“This boy was direct but had style. He was the first American man who was really responsive to how I was turned on. He got hard on cue, and it was the best sex I’d had since I left Paris.”
“Both of us went to this Atlanta bar famous for their girls and we picked out a gorgeous blonde, Francesca. I felt totally out of my league in this setting, but Joe did the negotiations. Already, we were feeling excited and more together as a couple. Like two kids sharing a naughty adventure. Being a supposedly liberated woman, I insisted on paying half. I guess you could say that for fifty bucks I got the bottom and Joe got the top.
“Back at my house Francesca took us right in hand, as it were, orchestrating this whole triple-decker. Francesca was fucking me and Joe was nibbling away at her tits, then vice-versa, and so forth. The experience was more unusual than it was satisfying. Both of us got the feeling that Francesca was obviously more into the money and herself than either of us. Funnily, after she left, Joe and I made love and it was better than it had been in months. Daring to share the unknown changed the scenery. Now, I don’t understand why a woman would use one and refuse a good real man, but if all she wants is sex, why bother with a hit-or-miss thing, picking up a guy at a party? If you have the money, you might as well go to a professional. Consequence-free sex should be available to anyone. Both men and women prostitutes should be legalized and checked regularly by the Health Department. After all, we’ve finally recognized that sex is a need for everyone and what’s the positive choice for a woman when she’s sixty and single and can’t find a man? It’s either masturbation or turn to religion. God, what an awful thought!”
As an alternative to “taking the veil” or stocking up on Duracell batteries for the twilight years, male prostitutes look promising, but naturally those two dire paths aren’t the only ones available for older women. But is “consequence-free sex” possible for the hitherto-thought-of softer, more romantic sex? “I myself can’t understand being able to indulge in that,” author Lynn Ramsey stated. “If you’re in a bad marriage, it’s one thing. That’s an excuse that’s understandable. But to choose a man who’s public property? It just isn’t something I think women could do. It’s in confusion with women’s basic feelings and principles.”
Dr. Westheimer doesn’t agree that’s true for all women. “I can well imagine there are some women who could be satisfied with a good lover whom they actually went out and bought simply for the pleasure of a purely self-oriented experience,” she concluded.
Indeed, several women with active professional and personal lives professed the need for a prostitute not because they were frustrated, bored, or lonely but simply because they wanted a set time when they could be pampered and taken care of. In every way. Prostitute as male geisha. That’s the reason that Susan, a blond New York attorney, gave, adding that more women would buy men as “geishas” if they just “gave it a shot.” This pretty all-American, native. Californian certainly could’ve gotten any number of dates or one-night stands, judging from the glances that followed her as she crossed a Wall Street bar. “But why should I take a chance on amateur sex if that’s all I want for a night?” she said matter-of-factly. Susan feels she’s something of an expert on the subject since three years ago, while still living in L.A., she hired her first male hooker. An admitted romantic, she reminisces about the days when women knew no better than to lie at home and be coddled. She wouldn’t trade her attache case for a duster, but she remembers finding that the independence afforded her as a woman of the 1980s sometimes left her longing for a respite of pure self-indulgence.
Sexual liberation, too, had left her more than a little baffled. “Today everyone assumes that women, if they’re over twenty-one and single, are supposed to be sexual Ph.D.s. Well, I’d like to know who’s supposed to be the professor. Most men don’t help a woman learn sexually. Like work, it’s all left up to you.”
Two years ago, Susan felt the pressure had peaked. She catered to clients’ needs during the day and to the needs of a steady relationship with her boyfriend at night. “When can I be taken care of? I asked myself,” Susan said. “I was feeling put upon and I couldn’t let on. Neither my work nor my boyfriend were expected to let me be totally selfish.” A facial at Elizabeth Arden might do the trick for some women, but Susan found that for her a more complete solution was called for.
Susan: “I needed someone. To pamper me. And also to help me be sexually more secure. To help me not be so passive in asking for what I wanted, help in finding out what it was I wanted to begin with! My boyfriend couldn’t help, because I was too shy to ask. Hiring a man seemed so clinical, but the message that it wasn’t such a bad thing seemed all around — movies, the male strip clubs … I just never thought nice women could buy nice men.”
“Then, for a kick, a few of us went to Chippendales, the L.A. male strip club for women. There were 100 ladies screaming and the place was so sexed up it would have turned on a corpse. You couldn’t help but feel that “anything goes.” At the bar after the show, one of these spectacularly built dancers smiled at me and we started talking. He was an ex-school-teacher. I even knew the grammar school he used to teach in. Finally I got up my courage and asked, ‘How long do you have to stay here?’ He stared me straight in the eye and said, ‘Till someone offers me a hundred bucks to leave.’ Well, I must have been crazy, but I nodded. It wasn’t like I was hiring someone completely unknown by that time. He was nice, and what was refreshing was that he was openly sexual. I didn’t have to make an effort to flirt, or wonder what would happen. I knew. No games. No confusion.”
“He took me home and from there on it was his show. I was nervous, but he was constantly helping me to relax … even undressing me and drawing me a bubble bath. I felt soft and feminine, and pretty soon I was on the bed and he was massaging me with cream. It seemed natural and nice to fuck him after that. And making love was whole new thing. Just like a kid at a brothel for his first time! He encouraged me to talk about my fantasies, but not like most men who expect you to take charge and have them follow. I even discovered that, done the right way, I might like to be tied up. Any fantasy was okay, and he was great in showing me what a man would like.”
“Soon after I moved to New York, I started the relationship I now have. It’s good, but this is a hard city. My deal with my fiance is fifty-fifty, and that’s why it’s good. But I found that after a tough day of giving my all, sometimes I don’t want to listen to what kind of day my guy had or tell him about my day, for that matter. I just sometimes needed to be taken care of physically. Maybe it’s selfish, but it would’ve been more unfair to ask him to cater to me whenever I felt like it. I was getting tenser and tenser. Struggling to be giving at work and with him. The blessing and curse of women’s lib.”
“My birthday came and he was away. Around ten at night the bell rang and I found this handsome, preppy guy at my door. He handed me a card which read, ‘Hi, I’m Mike. A present from Karen.’ My best friend had hired a man for me as a birthday gift! He even provided a manicure, a pedicure, and a leg waxing. Who needs Elizabeth Arden? He told me his specialty was oral sex and he wouldn’t have intercourse. I was a little surprised, but when he explained, it made sense. First, disease is a problem, and I respected him for recognizing that. Then he laughed and said he couldn’t ensure that four or five times a day, he’d be able to get it up for his clientele. Most important, he felt women having intercourse with men are trained to worry whether they’re pleasing the man and forget themselves to a degree. That defeated the purpose of total pleasure for his customers. It may have been a hype to make things easy on him, but I do know he’s right in one way. When I’m making love with my boyfriend, sure, I wonder if it’s going well for him. It applies to his feelings for me as well. Sex with a loved one isn’t just for your pleasure. It’s mutual. Not selfish. This was supposed to be selfish.”
“For an hour and a half his tongue was all over me. And it was tremendous. Today, even though I’m engaged, when I get down I still call this one man. It does no harm, and I thank him for helping me. With my fiance, I now take a more active role in lovemaking. I feel more secure and confident. That’s a help to both of us. I think this male prostitute is a great service. I even gave him as a birthday gift to another friend, for which I got a discount toward my next time! Now, she was turned off by the actual idea of it when it happened, which I can understand. It’s not for everyone. Sex without emotion, especially when you don’t have sex with emotion, is very hard to handle. Confidentially, even when I get married, I might still indulge myself occasionally. After all, it’s hard to give up your own personal, live vibrator.”
And — the bottom line — a human vibrator is what a male prostitute is to most of these women. They weren’t interested in having someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, although, traditionally, female prostitutes have often been portrayed as a sympathetic alternative to “the wife who doesn’t understand.” Women seem to want merely the purely sensual experience of having a man do anything they desire. With no complications. Sounds harmless enough.
As one pretty waitress remarked, “I think the fact that they’re available is great, but where are they — the good ones?” Her problem was one faced by other women. “I’d want it to be spontaneous,” she continued, “not something I’d have to go through all sorts of preparations to set up. Let’s face it, there are no brothels for women around, and there sure are plenty for men.”
The fact is, the practice of women paying men for sex is probably too recent to yet be truly organized. The idea has, however, been tried before. A Village Voice reporter revealed that ten years ago a female friend opened a luxurious “health spa” for lady executives. It was equipped with every convenience and a stable of handsome “masseurs.” Only trouble was that in those days the women were too shy to ask for anything after the massage. The guys, disappointed by the lack of tips for “something extra,” quit. The place folded. Even today, some see other barriers may stand in the way of establishing safe, accessible brothels for women. “It’s a tough act to get going,” Dr. Moglia stated. “It sounds like a great idea, but the city is run by men, and they’d go crazy about this. The male power structure might be too threatened by the thought of women like their wives needing to go elsewhere for pleasure.”
Even with the lack of established “houses,” some women can be very ingenious and enthusiastic when it comes to finding men for hire — in several cases, perhaps a little too enthusiastic. One twenty-year-old student calmly related how she answers sex ads in the N.Y. papers and how she herself places ads for men. Two young sisters from Massachusetts giggled as they remembered one night when “out of curiosity” they wedged their way into a gay bar, picked out the man with “the cutest ass,” invited him home for drinks, and then offered to pay him $100 to make love to them, just to see if a gay man could. Now, he did, but there’s no way that any of these women could have known that who they allowed into their homes wouldn’t turn out to be an updated Mr. Goodbar, or at the very least the carrier of a little something to remember them by — VD.
“Ideally I’d like to see women with loved ones,” Dr. Westheimer remarked, “but if they buy someone they should do it with responsibility and maturity. That’s the key word. And that’s what I’m afraid some of these women don’t have. Still, I can see the practice growing,” she concluded.
Denise Fuge of NOW agrees. “Until men and women get a better understanding, there’s going to be a growing number of women who say, ‘I don’t want to be bothered if closeness with a real man is so much trouble.’ Men had better take male prostitutes as a warning. More women will be off and away and getting their immediate needs taken care of in other ways than a relationship. I know,” she admitted. “I’ve been divorced twice.”
Back at the Brooklyn club, these concerns are less abstract, and the floor show is driving to a climax.
“The Doctor” finishes his act, sliding between the tables of dewy-eyed, breathless ladies who fall all over each other to get the chance, the treat, of slipping stiff dollar bills into the warm region of his Snoopy sock. Already other male dancers are in street clothes, appearing center stage at the bar amidst clusters of star-struck admirers. Women eye them. It’s hard to tell which men are there for a drink, which for a freebie, and which might demand cold cash in exchange for a private performance.
Joy bites her lip as the dancer slithers toward her, closer and closer. Their eyes meet. Joy is melting. Shyly, she stuffs a dollar bill in his crotch. He dances away, out of reach. “I can’t do it. I’m chicken,” she wails to her sister. “For now,” Debby laughs as “The Doctor” takes a backward look.
Besides, they have to stay with Mom. Tonight’s a special night. A birthday cake, its candles burning into waxy puddles, sits in front of the plump matriarch as an off-key “Happy Birthday” is sung underneath the disco music. But Debby’s and Joy’s mom isn’t noticing her cake. Her attention is riveted on the undulating man as he collects tokens of appreciation from. the other side of the room.
“Make a wish Ma … Ma?!” Debby calls insistently. The older woman grins. With a heave of her pouter-pigeon chest she blows out all sixty candles.
“Whaddya wish … c’mon, tell!” Joy shouts. Mom’s grin spreads as her eyes follow a blond dancer half her age. With a last, easy grind, he winks at her and disappears backstage.
Honestly the very first introductory sentence in this male prostitution exploration had us laughing out loud, as the optimism of Reagan’s America shines brightly if nothing else. Despite women having “achieved equal rights and equal pay” forty years ago this month, not many people would reasonably believe that true – then or now. You can read lots of scholarly articles on this fact, including one in good ol’ business.org from this very year. All you really have to do, though, would be … ask a woman how she feels about the topic. … Remember too that in 1984 the right to seek an abortion was a national law, so it does not appear like things have gotten better for those born without a penis. On the other hand, we do seem to have made some progress with the philosophy that maybe, perhaps, y’know, in rare instances, women might actually enjoy sex simply for the physical act itself, in which case paying for excellence makes a lot of sense. We go to fancy steak houses for quality meat, maybe now we do not shame women nearly so much for wanting other kinds of quality meat too. … Y’know, maybe.
For all the men out there who would like to get a jump on the competition, remember this.
