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In this inter-disciplinary volume, Male Sex Work and Society,
Victor Minichiello and John Scott gather together seventeen articles
organised around four broad themes: 1. examining male sex work across
socio-historic contexts; 2. unpacking the representations that surround
the marketing of male sex work; 3. shedding light on social issues and
(sub)cultures in male sex work and 4. locating male sex work within the
contemporary context of a global capitalist framework. In general, this
informative and comprehensive collection adds to a nascent but growing
scholarship striving to fill a lacuna on the sexual objectification and
consumption of male bodies.
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The editors begin by establishing that male sex workers, by virtue of
their job and 'deviant' sexual practices, are doubly stigmatised in
society. They then proceed to trace the contours of male sex work across
time (from the past to the present), cultures (including but not
limited to western ones) and on a variety of scales (from the global to
the local). By drawing on a 'polymorphous paradigm' (p. 264) of sexual
labour, the editors and authors demonstrate that a range of occupational
arrangements can be made for the commodification of sexual services,
which is likely to be conducted for a variety of reasons (financial
remuneration, self-determination, the realisation of one's sexual
identity etcetera). In a bid to (re)conceptualise sexual encounters
beyond the private sphere as well as to rethink sex work as being solely
that of women's work, the editors have skilfully synthesised a large
amount of material from diverse fields such as anthropology,
criminology, public health, history and psychology.
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Consonant with what is now a well-developed literature on female
prostitution, the editors and authors place much emphasis on
problematising the pervasive tropes of male sex workers as victims and
vectors of disease. More specifically, by disrupting the
pseduo-dichotomies between oppression-liberation, structure-agency,
pain-pleasure, heterosexuality-homosexuality, among others, they have
complicated an overly simplistic social script pertaining to men, sex
and work. They have also captured the 'erotic and physical nature of
[the] subject matter' (p. ix) to some degree by including imageries of
men selling sex in material and virtual space (p. xix). Notably, these
(hyper)sexualised and racialised men are differently positioned in a
hierarchy of attractive bodies (at the top are those who are muscular,
lean and hirsute, see p. 115).
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Plugged into a broader scholarship on emotional and affective labour,
contributors such as Mary Laing and Justin Gaffney (p. 262) posited that
within such sexual economies, there is a continuum between counterfeit
intimacies and the cultivation of more authentic romantic feelings (see
also pp. 169 and 299). But to what extent are male sex workers adept at
nurturing a client's sense of emotional dependency on themselves in
order to encourage repeat visits? For this reason, the authors could
have extended their discussion on the competencies of sex workers in
manipulating their own emotions and that of others and in so doing, defy
stereotypical views of men as 'invulnerable and unemotional' beings (p.
xxi).
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Additionally an examination of male sex workers who are bisexual or 'gay
for pay' challenges neat demarcations between the
homosexual-heterosexual divide as their patrons may include gay men,
straight men and women. More specifically, it has been reported that men
form the majority of their clientele and these workers may have sex
with men without necessarily identifying as homosexual. Such
considerations open up opportunities for a more complex analysis of sex
work beyond a binary logic undergirded by heteronormativity and
homonormativity. Certainly, the editors have acknowledged that an
exchange between two men does not make male sex work inherently less
exploitative than female sex work (p. xvi). In this regard, traditional
gender theories of prostitution have fallen short in the situation where
the buyer and seller of sex are of the same gender (p. xv).
Consequently, this intellectual project could have benefitted from a
more sustained engagement with a queer epistemological approach striving
to subvert stable, monolithic and reductionist accounts of
(non)normative sexualities (see p. 71).[1]
Moreover, whereas transgender sex work has been mentioned by a few
authors, this is done almost as an afterthought, often in a perfunctory
manner (for example see p. 367). Typically, the chapters lack an
in-depth discussion on how the erotic subjectivities of transgenders
may be similar or different from that of their cis-gender counterparts.[2]
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Sex work has been construed as a 'feminised practice' (p. 43) Yet,
surprisingly little has been said about how these men negotiate such
forms of feminised labour that would require them to not just present a
façade of servility but to also willingly yield themselves to being
sodomised on the job. What are some of the concrete ways in which the
boundaries between hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities are
blurred? This could have been more explicitly foregrounded in the
empirical material. Further, whereas the authors have expounded on the
selective performance of machismo that would allegedly appeal to
potential clients, more can be said about the practices that these sex
workers may have adopted so as to retain not just a semblance of a
masculine self but also a sense of empowerment.
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In the concluding chapter, the editors presented a brief outline of at
least three possible areas for future research. First, they call for an
attendance to how age intersects with other identitarian categories to
influence the experiences of sex workers and their clients. Second, from
a public health perspective, there is a pressing need to more fully
comprehend the motivations for unprotected sex and whether these
motivations are driven by culturally specific notions of masculinity (p.
464). Lastly, while efforts have been made to humanise male sex workers
and for them to 'speak' through the text, the editors recognise that
the clients of these sex workers have been glossed over, particularly
female ones (p. 465). What would the power dynamics between a (perhaps
younger) male sex worker and (perhaps older) female client be like
through the theoretical lenses of post-feminism?
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Overall, despite its limitations, this book has provided timely insights
on an emerging phenomenon which has definitely contributed to a more
nuanced understanding of male sex work beyond its current mould. It
would serve as an invaluable resource to academics and (under)graduate
students interested in gender, sexuality and the political economy of
prostitution.
Notes
[1] See also Mary Laing, Katy Pilcher
and Nicola Smith (eds), Queer Sex Work, London: Routledge, 2015; Peter
Aggleton and Richard Parker, Men Who Sell Sex: Global Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2015.
[2] See Jarrett Davis and Glenn Miles, 'More than gender: Looking at the vulnerabilities and resiliencies of transgender sex workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014, Paper 4, online: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/humtrafcon6/4 (accessed 28 August 2015).
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