Sexual History of a Sample of Male Sex Workers in Spain.

Sexual History of a Sample of Male Sex Workers in Spain, Rafael Ballester, Universitat Jaume I., Spain; Dolores Gil, Universitat de Valencia, Spain 

We aimed to contribute to the knowledge of men who engage in prostitution by studying their sexual history. A descriptive study was carried out with a Spanish sample of 40 male sex workers who advertised their services in the press (ages 20-29). They were individually given the Questionnaire on Male Prostitution by Ballester and Gil. Half of the sex workers started to masturbate at 12-13 and 40% had their first experience of sexual relations at 14-15. In 75% of the cases, this first experience was with a man, and for 85% of the subjects it was a satisfactory experience. Over half (60%) of the sex workers considered themselves to be bisexual and 35% homosexual, in spite of the fact that 90% stated that they sometimes had heterosexual fantasies. Sexual relations with a member of their family were reported by 35% of the subjects (in all cases this member of the family was either a male or female cousin, with the exception of 5% of cases where the member was a brother or sister). Almost half of the sex workers reported that they had been victims of an act of sexual violence, while 35% had suffered sexual abuse in their childhood or adolescence. 10% of the subjects admitted to forcing someone to have sex with them at some point. Some commonly-held ideas about sex workers, such as earlier commencement of sexual relations, were not confirmed by our study. Nonetheless, we found evidence of a significant presence of sexual violence and sexual abuse in the sexual history of these young men.