The use of the Internet by gay and bisexual male escorts: sex workers as sex educators

Abstract

While prior studies have targeted street-based male sex workers as potential vectors of disease transmission, the number of men who work independently through Internet chat-rooms and other online endeavors has steadily increased. It is likely that these men differ substantially from their street-based counterparts in terms of sexual risk behaviors with their clients. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which the Internet has impacted the work of male escorts and their sexual practices with clients. Semi-structured qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys were administered to 46 such men. Less than half the men reported unprotected anal sex with clients. The qualitative data lend support to this finding, in that the majority talked about refusing any unsafe sex with clients, and many reported taking the extra step of educating their clients about the dangers of risky sex. Some of the escorts described the methods used to incorporate safer sex practices into sessions with their clients. Internet-based male escorts can play an important role as potential sex educators on the front lines of the fight against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Sexual behaviors in male sex workers in Spain: Modulating factors

“…Nevertheless, after analyzing multiple variables associated with men engaged in sex work, different authors have concluded that the group of MSWs is very heterogeneous. As a consequence, generalizing results is difficult (West & de Villiers, 1993;; Parsons et al, 2004) and our knowledge of sexual behaviors or HIV transmission among MSWs is still insufficient (De Cai et al, 2009). In fact, considering the relevance of some social-cognitive theoretical models, more information about the personal and professional ofile is needed to explore their sexual behavior.…”

What’s on Sale? A Discourse Analysis of Four Distinctive Online Escort Advertisement Websites

“…Despite this narrow research focus, such studies have documented substantial differences between heterosexual female and gay online escorts' marketing patterns. Parsons et al (2004) noted within their study, that gay male escorts were more likely than female escorts to include their preferred sexual activities and physical assets in their biographical profiles. Agresti (2009) also noted that male to male advertisements focused, at times, explicitly on the specifics of the size, shape and description of the escort's genitals, as well as on how male escorts frequently make reference to their role in intercourse within their biographical sketches (i.e.…”

“…As others have documented, the appeal of the Internet is seemingly obvious for sex workers; providing them with the anonymity, convenience, and discretion to target and advertise to a particular type of clientele (Milrod and Martin 2012;Parsons et al 2004;Sanders 2005;Walby 2012). Online escort advertisement websites have allowed escorts the opportunity to attract and match with clients who otherwise would not have patronised sex workers on the street (Cunningham and Kendall 2009;Ashford 2009), particularly female clients seeking either male or female sex workers (Burghart 2015).…”

“…The handful of studies which have attempted to examine either online female or gay male escort online advertisements (Castle and Lee 2008;Parsons et al 2004;Pruitt and Krull 2010) or both female and gay male escorts' online advertisements (Agresti 2009) have so far been limited to a quantitative contextual analysis and the counting of words, rather than interpreting their discourses. In this respect they rarely consider online escort markets in relation to the escort's gender and the sexual orientation of their services.…”

Flyers and Advertisements of sexual services in Madrid

“…clients and masculine escorts (Parsons et al, 2004); to analyze the contents of sex sales on the Internet (Lee and Castle,2006;Veena, 2007;Castle & Lee, 2008;Pruitt & Krul, 2011;Blackwell & Dziegielewski, 2013); the discussion between clients about feminine prostitutes about health and sexual unprotection (Langanke & Ross, 2009); information masculine escorts provide to their clients (Lee-Gonyea, 2009); language used on the Internet by prostitution clients ( Blevins, & Holt, 2009); about services offered and the health status in brothels (Chin et al 2009); sexual preferences of clients paying sexual services (Milrod & Monto, 2012); unprotection of sexual practices requested by clients (Adriaenssens & Jef Hendrickx, 2012); characteristics of communication in the contact between sellers and purchasers of sex (Jonsson et al 2014); the new risks of contact between purchasers and sellers of sex on the Internet (Jones 2015); normalization of masculine prostitution thanks to Internet (MacPhail et al, 2015); analysis of commercialization of sex on the web of three European cities (Pajnik et al, 2016). But all these studies refer to advertisements on websites, to the chat between clients and masculine/feminine prostiutes, and in very few cases to advertisements in newspapers and magazines (Chivers & Blanchard, 1996), and none of them to advertisements of flyers (Rúa et al, 2016), because perhaps their distribution is not allowed in many countries (France and Portugal, frontier countries forbid it).…”