Masculinity and the Occupational Experience of Male Independent Escorts Who Seek Male Clients

Navin Kumar, John Scott and Victor Minichiello
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Navin Kumar: Department of Sociology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
John Scott: School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane QLD 4000, Australia
Victor Minichiello: Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health, and Society; School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane QLD 4000, Australia

Social Sciences, 2017, vol. 6, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: While male sex work (MSW) is a highly gendered practice involving the commodification of the male body, masculinity has rarely been examined to understand this new occupational environment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty male independent internet-based escorts in Brisbane, Australia. Masculinity was used as a conceptual tool to understand the nuances of the escorting experience, resulting in two themes: Endurance and Technical Skill. These themes were aligned with hegemonic expressions of masculinity, a system that orders masculinity into a hierarchy and potentially marginalises escorts. Participants thus used features of a system that subordinated them to attain primacy in the same framework, avoiding stigma. These themes described were far removed from dialogues of deviance oft-repeated by past sex work research, and instead bolster the view that male escorting is moving toward a paradigm of normalisation. We thus argue that masculinity is a critical conceptual tool in understanding the contemporary dynamics of the male escorting experience as it becomes increasingly normalised.

Keywords: male escorting; sex work; masculinity; occupation; legitimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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