Male Sex Work and Society Read Online Free PDF Page B

Indeed, for a brief time, the gay-identified prostitute came to represent the new spirit of gay liberation. Just as earlier writers used the figure of the prostitute male to illuminate aspects of “homosexuality” more generally, a new generation of gay writers took to the image of the hustler to rework the theme. For many in the newly emerging gay world, the gay prostitute symbolized a life option that embraced sexual pleasure and avoided any necessity for hiding one’s sexual identity. Pornographic collections of short stories, such as Stud (1996), My Brother the Hustler (1970a), and San Francisco Hustler (1970b), all by Samuel Steward [under the name Phil Andros], stood at the forefront of a shift in gay writing, transforming it from what has been called “a literature of guilt and apology” into one of “political defiance and celebration of sexual difference” (Hall, 1988).
    References
     
    Ackerly, J. R. (1968). My father and myself . New York: Coward-McCann.
    Andros, P. (1966). Stud . Boston: Alyson.
    Andros, P. (1970a). My brother, the hustler . San Francisco: Gay Parisian Press.
    Andros, P. (1970b). San Francisco hustler . San Francisco: Gay Parisian Press.
    Chauncey, G. (1994). Gay New York: Gender, urban culture, and the making of the gay world, 1890-1940 . New York: Harper Collins.
    Hall, R. (1988, June 19). Gay fiction comes home. New York Times . Available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html.res=940DE3D91330F93AA25755COA96E948260
    Hirschfeld, M. (2000). The homosexuality of men and women (M. Lombardi-Nash, Trans.). Amherst, NY: Promethius Books. (Original work published 1913)
    Hunt, M. (1977). Gay: What you should know about homosexuality . New York: Simon and Schuster.
    Leyland, W. (Ed.). (1978). Winston Leyland interviews John Rechy: Gay Sunshine interviews . San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press. Original work published in Gay Sunshine , November/December 1974.
    Rechy, J. (1963). City of night . New York: Grove Press.

What stands out for us in this chapter is the way the images, understandings, and explanations of male sex work through cinematic representations have changed dramatically over time. This evolution highlights the important point sociologists make that subjective definitions and perceptions of a phenomenon play a central role in shaping cultural images. This chapter demonstrates that the male hustler is essentially an outdated cultural image that is no longer relevant in understanding the often dynamic and complex encounters of the male sex worker’s world. While the representation of these encounters in modern films remains largely unaltered, the settings and the language have evolved to reflect the changing definitions of gender and sexualities. In the early films discussed in this chapter, the sex work encounter frequently took place in a public place, such as a restroom, cinema, or seedy motel. We find this ironic, as these are public places, but the phenomenon of male sex work was not yet part of the public discussion or chitchat .
    Viewing Midnight Cowboy (1969) was often a grim experience. Late 1960s New York, where the movie takes place, was an alienating and ruthless environment characterized by poverty and urban decay. Hustling is presented in this film as a demoralizing, sleazy, and violent practice. More recent films present a very different picture of male sex work. For example, in the romantic comedy Going Down in La-La Land (2012), a young man goes to Hollywood to act in gay porn movies and becomes an escort. Ultimately he falls in love with a closeted famous TV actor, who in turn falls in love with him. Who would have considered it possible that a romantic comedy about a male sex worker would emerge as a relatively successful popular movie? This contrasts sharply with some of the grim earlier films Russell Sheaffer discusses in this chapter .

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Representations of Male Sex Work in Film
RUSSELL SHEAFFER
     
    Histories of Male Hustlers
     
    In his 676-page History of