Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and HIV/AIDS.

Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and HIV/AIDS. Edited by Peter Aggleton. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999, 282 + xix pages. Cloth, $59.95; Paper, $24.95. Lila's House: Male Prostitution in Latin America. By Jacobo Schifter. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1998, 132 + xi pages. Cloth, $29.95; Paper, $12.95.

Reviewed by Manuel Fernandez-Alemany, Ph.D., University of California at San Diego, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0522; e-mail: [e-mail].

Two important works have recently made their appearance in the vastly unexplored area of cross-cultural studies in male prostitution and HIV/AIDS. They document male sex work in different parts of the world and raise relevant topics for the study of public health, culture, and sexuality.

One of these works is Peter Aggleton's Men Who Sell Sex, an edited volume that includes chapters dealing with sixteen countries around the world. The volume can be analyzed as composed of several recurrent themes.

The first theme, the need to escape the reductive view that sex work is only work for money, is present in the chapters on France, Canada, the U.S., Mexico City, Santo Domingo, Costa Rica, Brazil, Lima, Thailand, and the Philippines. The relations between workers and clients sometimes blur the imaginary borders between sex as work and sex as more intimate personal, emotional, or romantic relationships. Among certain sex workers, especially in more developed countries such as France, the desire to have sex with men makes, at times, the need for money become a secondary reason for prostitution. When relationships between a sex worker and a former client develop, and the client becomes a partner while still the provider, the project of classifying the relation between prostitute and client as merely sex work becomes evidently reductive, because relationships might evolve in much more complex and dynamic forms which escape the simplistic sex worker/client dichotomy, even though there may still be survival and money issues attached to the relationship.

For instance, in Canada there are young gay men who offer themselves in exchange for money as a way to explore their sexual desires, and in Costa Rica "love" blurs the border between gay and straight. Also, in Peruvian fleteo the borders between emotional relationships and money transaction become fuzzy. In Lima, male prostitution is seen by some as an occasion when people from different socioeconomic statuses and ages can interact in more intimate ways.

Another border-blurring force is AIDS, at least in Costa Rica, where the sexual practices between cacheros and clients have become somewhat homogenized. The active/passive dichotomy in anal and oral sex becomes less clear because many clients avoid playing the passive role, which is more risky for contracting HIV. AIDS has also created a higher demand for monogamy, and many clients lure cacheros into a more permanent type of relationship which destabilizes the cachero/client, work/love, and heterosexual/homosexual dichotomies.

A symbolic, nonmaterialist explanation for sex work is provided for Brazil, where supposedly "For many males the act of `prostitution' may actually be more akin to a ritualized form of sexual transgression than the kind of sex-for-money transaction that occurs commonly among female and transvestite sex workers" (p. 168). There is no reason, however, to think that female and transvestite sex work is less complex than the sex work referred to in this passage. Moreover, prostitution among masculine men is dubiously more transgressive than other forms of prostitution, especially transgendered prostitution. Yet a nonmaterialist explanation for sex work is important, especially because it places ideas about male prostitution at the opposite side of a continuum that starts with reductive assumptions of male sex work as merely based on economic need. It would have been desirable, however, for the chapter on Brazil to provide structural or ideological sources or concomitant factors for a need for transgression on the part of these Brazilian sex workers.

On the other side of the continuum, the chapter on the United States places the sources of male prostitution in structural material conditions that force men to sell sex, stressing the economic motivations for practicing sex work. Sex workers usually have low levels of formal education and their work choices are limited to unskilled labor, which pays them much less than the "easy money" provided by sex work. Also favoring the material base for prostitution is the chapter on Mexico City, where in one day masajistas (masculine men who give massage and also sell sex for a higher price in public baths) can earn the same amount of money they would make in a week of work elsewhere.

In the chapter about the U.S., sex workers are deterministically classified as a risk group for HIV. In many parts of the world, sex workers are evidently under great risk of contracting HIV, the most dramatic example being the cases reported in the chapter on India and Bangladesh. Several chapters, however, including the ones on Canada, Costa Rica, and Santo Domingo, show that sex workers may actually be better educated about safer sex and more effective in avoiding the risk of contracting HIV during sexual practices with their clients than other people. For example, in Santo Domingo, "Condom use is significantly higher among professional and occasional sex workers than among non-sex workers, possibly because paid relations imply a lesser emotional and affective bond between the partners" (p. 137).

Not sex work in itself, but the social stigmatization of sex work should be seen as the greatest risk for sex workers. Unfortunately, classifying sex workers as a risk group not only does not protect them against HIV but also actually puts them at greater risk (not of contracting HIV but of being morally hurt), Which might eventually result in higher levels of risk for HIV. Interestingly, among several of the Filipino male sex workers interviewed, becoming gay was seen as a risk more serious than AIDS, perhaps changing their priorities while taking care of their health.

In the conclusions of the U.S. chapter it is suggested that rather than teaching safer sex to male sex workers, energies should be spent to train them in money-earning skills different than prostitution, and in helping them to find these jobs, so sex workers can stop "engaging in HIV-related risk behaviour" (p. 98). It would have been useful if the authors of this chapter had made clearer the fact that sex work and unsafe sex belong to two very different categories, and that the attempt to map a political economy of prostitution should also include non-economic-based factors that motivate men to sell sex, as shown in most of the book's chapters. In Lima, just to mention one, "Being paid for sex is acquiring increasing legitimacy among men" (p. 180).

Sex work has been stereotyped as a lucrative endeavor, when in fact, as shown in the chapter on the Philippines, it is not always so for every sex worker. Instead, the possibility of social mobility that many young men of lower socioeconomic status perceive in sex work might be a more important reason for becoming involved in sex work. Here one might wonder to what extent upward social mobility is not economics after all; however, in many parts of the world, including most of Latin America and the Philippines, social mobility means much more than a higher wage.

Yet among many, commercial sex work is a survival strategy that cannot easily be changed in depressed economies even in circumstances of an extreme need to do so, such as when child abuse and risk to HIV infection are high. The chapter on India and Bangladesh makes it clear that many times sex work is a survival strategy.

The fact that sex work is only for money, however, might be stressed by some sex workers as a way to escape the stigmatization that sex work carries to different degrees in different cultures. For example, in the Philippines, "Male sex work [is] degrading because it reduces one to the status of women" (p. 251). Therefore, sex work is justified among Filipino sex workers as trabaho (work), an activity done strictly for survival. Seen as trabaho, sex work is desexualized and rationalized as temporary.

A need to differentiate and to find similarities among sex workers on the basis of gender, age, class, type and place of sex work, and client targeted is expressed more or less directly in the chapters on France, Canada, the U.S., Mexico City, Santo Domingo, Costa Rica, Lima, India and Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. These different aspects of sex work are all interrelated and intersect in multiple combinations, making the lives of men who sell sex complex and not easily understood.

In regards to gender, the need to differentiate between transvestite and nontransvestite sex workers was expressed in several chapters. For example, in the chapter on France, the author focused on male sex workers who were not transvestites, because travestis and garcons are "two very distinct categories of sex worker" (p. 41). They differ in gender identity (more feminine and more masculine, respectively), "places where they practice sex work, in the way they do it, in their clientele, and in the ways in which payment for sexual services takes place" (pp. 41-42). The chapter on Canada also left transgendered sex workers out of the study, claiming that their issues with HIV were different from other groups. Although one may agree with the fact that transgendered and nontransgendered male sex workers need to be distinguished, assuming great differences in the praxis of commercial sex work just because of different gender presentation seems extreme. For instance, in the chapter on Mexico City it is effectively shown that there is not a great difference between the sexual services that a transgender and a nontransgender sex worker provide.

Male sex workers in the U.S. move across different categories of male sex worker throughout their careers, "occupying one or several during any given period of time" (p. 84). These categories are street hustler, bar hustler or dancer, kept boy, and escort or call boy.

The author of the chapter on Sri Lanka identified three types of male sex work today: transvestites, child sex workers, and men who sell sex to women. However, many of these men also sell sex to men, so the distinction might not necessarily target a different population of male sex workers. In the U.S., 80% of male sex workers report having sex both with men and women, but their sex with women is out of the sex work scene.

The need to escape the reductive view of sex work as only a career is another important theme in the book, which is developed in the chapters on France, Brazil, Lima, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. For instance, in Brazil professional and amateur hustlers constitute different groups, where the latter usually do not identify as hustlers. The same occurs with the mostacero or heterosexually identified men who sell sex to homosexually identified men in Lima. Like the amateur hustlers in Brazil, the mostacero develops friendships with his clients and does not consider himself a sex worker. Sex workers might also engage in multiple jobs and therefore not necessarily develop identities as sex workers, such as in cases reported for Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Moreover, in the Philippines, as well as in other parts of the world, it is difficult to map the career of a sex worker, as male sex work evolves rapidly. The terminology, rules, cruising areas, establishments, and sex workers themselves tend to change. Instead of thinking of a single career, it might be more useful to think of multiple, synchronous careers, as shown in the chapter on the Philippines.

Perceived or real, economically- and culturally-based risk of HIV is another important theme of the book, which is developed to different degrees in the chapters on France, the U.S., Lima, India and Bangladesh, and the Philippines. A recurrent problem is that sex workers tend to protect themselves from HIV only in their sex work, practicing unsafe sex with people they do not consider their clients. The situation worsens by the fact that learning that a sex worker is seropositive makes him less competitive in the sex work market, so talking about AIDS among sex workers becomes taboo, as in the case of France. In Costa Rica and Lima, hustlers don't use condoms consistently with their girlfriends, or with women in general.

An important factor in the negotiation of less risky practices during sex work is money. For instance, the fact that in the Philippines supply outstrips demand hinders the ability of sex workers to negotiate safer sex because they might easily lose a client to other sex workers if they do not comply with the client's demands. Thus, unsafe practices might become acceptable if the price is right.

A big asset of the book is the inclusion of sex workers' narratives. These are fascinating yet sad and crude, as in the case of the chapter on India and Bangladesh; rich, as in the case of Mexico City; or varying and complex, as in the case of Costa Rica. There is also a degree of voyeurism in the way some of these narratives are presented (see the chapters on Mexico City and Costa Rica), which makes the chapters entertaining and sexy yet postcolonially problematic, as the book is commercialized in Anglophone, more developed countries.

The chapter on male prostitution in Costa Rica is indeed part of a much larger study by Jacobo Schifter, which was published as Lila's House: Male Prostitution in Latin America.

Lila's House is highly original in the kind of data it presents. The researcher was able to collect narratives about the most intimate sexual fantasies and desires of 25 masculine and heterosexually identified men ages 13 to 27, who sold sex to men in a brothel in San Jose, Costa Rica. Lila, an older, homosexually identified man who owned and managed the brothel, was also interviewed. Not only is the book rich in new and exciting data, but it is also the byproduct of a larger HIV/AIDS prevention project carried out by The Latin American Health and Prevention Institute (ILPES) in Costa Rica, which resulted in the creation of a special bar for cacheros in San Jose, a place where they can be educated about safer sex issues.

In a rather voyeuristic fashion, the book inspects the sexual fantasies of cacheros, or masculine-identified sex workers, and with indulging pleasure relates their sexual intimacies in great detail. We are told that "The common denominator of ... cacheros is that they are men who lead heterosexual lives, but who occasionally have sex with other men, be it for pleasure or for money" (p. 4). The first half of the book succeeds in making us believe that cacheros are extremely masculine and only interested in sex with other men if money is involved, are unable to be aroused by other men unless they watch heterosexual pornography or fantasize about women, and are extremely sexualized. However, this representation of cacherismo is later seen to be the result of a purposeful and rhetorically-strategized lack of self-consciousness on the part of the author to make us believe what predominant ideologies of gender and sexuality in Costa Rica state about cacherismo. When the reader is almost convinced that ideology and practice matches, at least in this San Jose brothel, the text gradually unravels the "truth" about cacherismo and reveals our naivete by disclosing a more real face of cacherismo: we learn that cacherismo has too many exceptions and that cacheros are actually not as heterosexual as they are represented in San Jose's popular culture.

This study of cacherismo was framed around three questions: (a) "What is the sexual discourse of men who are masculine, who are attracted to women, and who sell themselves to other men?"; (b) "Are there factors that lead to contradictions between discourse and sexual practice?"; and (c) "What type of sexual culture emerges as a result of these contradictions?" (p. 5). The reader learns that differences between what cacheros say and do have to do with what Schifter calls compartmentalization; that is, cacheros ignore or deny important facts about their behavior because of the insurmountable cultural pressures related to being a man in Costa Rica.

According to the book, the two interviewers (whose identities are not disclosed even though their gay sexualities are) were unable to interview the clients who attended the brothel, so they were not able to consider "What attracts them to prostitutes and why they take risks with cacheros" (p. 20). On several occasions, however, the book includes narratives from clients, and two clients are even mentioned by name ("Jose" and "Pedro," p. 75). The reader cannot help but wonder whether these clients were personal acquaintances of the interviewers or author and/or if there actually was some informal interviewing going on between researchers and clients. Therefore, a clearer stance in respect to the role that clients played in the study is needed. This is particularly true in the cases where clients from the U.S. are mentioned. This piece of data, which was neglected for further consideration by the author, is actually quite important, especially in light of the globalization of sex work, sex tourism, and the political economy of prostitution, which reflects clear power inequalities that are not merely based on class but also on nationality.

It would have been useful to see this work engaging more critically with cachero discourse. The authors seem to buy into the cacheros'justifications for selling sex to other men, even in cases when cacheros justify their "unpleasant" work with simplistic arguments, such as their need of money to buy cigarettes or beer (p. 101). Rather than accepting these explanations, it would have been interesting to see when cacheros allude to economic need, and when they do not. Such an analysis would allow us to learn more about their ideologies of masculinity. For instance, are cacheros more likely to mention economic need when admitting to giving blowjobs or being penetrated than when they admit to having received blowjobs or having penetrated someone else, and how does this articulate with prevalent ideologies of masculinity?

Lila's House effectively challenges the stereotype that prostitution promotes drug use, but the fact that most cacheros had serious problems of drug use is also undeniable. The reader may wonder to what extent the illegality and marginality of the context in which male prostitution takes place in Costa Rica would make cacherismo more attractive to youngsters who want to move away from restrictive social norms. After all, Lila's house is a place of licentiousness, where forbidden sex (but also sex with one's girlfriend) and drugs are allowed. Lila's house represents a space of freedom and alternative experiences. It is left to the future to see if cacherismo and houses like Lila's will exert the same appeal over these young men once prostitution becomes regularized and homosexuality less of a taboo in Costa Rica.

One of the best contributions of the book is its section on fantasies and pleasure. In this section it becomes evident that not only economic need or greed but also pure pleasure seems to draw cacheros into (or at least keep them in) sex work, as in the case of oral sex. Some cacheros' desires change after being exposed to pornography. Orgies where they have sex with both men and women become attractive, blurring the line between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Fantasy affects practice and practice affects fantasy (p. 87). Oral sex with clients becomes one of the cacheros' favorite practices.

Cacheros say that to keep an erection when they are having anal sex with clients, they imagine that they are with a woman they like. Would, perhaps, at least some cacheros say this because it is the appropriate thing to say so they are not thought of as being homosexual? The answer is partially answered when cacheros themselves confess to surrender to the pleasure of oral sex provided by clients. According to Lila, it is the very pleasure of receiving oral sex that keeps many cacheros in the business and will eventually lead them to do "everything" (p. 84). In the homosexualization of cacheros, it is interesting to note that even their fantasies change, where, for example, women become masculinized.

The book mentions eight aspects of unsafe sex among cacheros. These are unsafe sex related to economic need, the use of drugs or alcohol, being in love, being a father, competition for clients, age, watching unsafe pornography, and AIDS campaigns and compartmentalization.

In sum, both works reviewed here are original and important contributions to a nascent area of study. As such, they will constitute an enlightening reading for health and sex educators and a welcome addition to the literature on sexuality and gender.