A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers (15 page)

I did not dismiss Woodrow because, at that particular time, nobody I knew could have pleased me sexually as much as he did. I am reasonably certain that
sexually
Woodrow felt the same about me. This type of arrangement could not have gone on forever, because the general antipathy would win over the sexual connectedness.

The matter was resolved by my four-week trip out of town. Woodrow found another, better-heeled client, and I was forced to seek a replacement. It took well over a year before I found someone with whom I was as compatible sexually as I had been with crotchety Woodrow.

I have written all of this to make the point that
lustful
energy is not
loving
energy. (Of course, it is much better for both parties if the lustful energy is exchanged between partners who like each other.) The hustler who provides the lustful energy is not expected to perform a bogus love ritual. Clients must not confuse the hustler's genuine lust with love.

* * *

As I have already discussed, hustlers do their work for many reasons. They overrule their own physical preferences to get it on with clients by using psychological tricks to psych themselves. But, in addition to mind games, there may also be another stimulus that facilitates their work.

When I had sex with Jack, pretending to myself that I was a hustler, I had decided beforehand that I would please
anyone
who wanted me to do so. I was willing to subjugate my own preferences to those of any sexual partner. Alas, I would have made a poor hustler. A month later, I could not repeat this act of subjugation.

I know for a fact that there are men who
enjoy
doing just that sort of thing on a regular basis. In the olden days at the baths—before AIDS—some guys would wait in the orgy room to be screwed by anybody who was so inclined; others would blow anyone who would allow them to do it. It was the complete lack of control and the indiscriminate sex that turned them on. For a hustler, having some desire to please all men with his body is a useful trait.
⁴

⁴
. Being sexually available to all takers is not unique to gay baths and sex clubs. It was a cultic female and male practice in many ancient cultures. "The Hebrew term
qedeshah
, translated as... 'temple prostitute,' actually means 'a consecrated woman' and was understood to refer to a woman who literally made herself available to all comers in places of pagan worship." See
The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible
, Jonathan Kitsch (New York, Ballantine Books, 1997), pp. 131-132.

This little sexual mind trip has no connection whatsoever to life outside the bed. The majority of hustlers are not particularly interested in pleasing others, including their clients, in a nonsexual context.

Chapter 9

Principles of Hustler Management

Originally, I was going to name this book
Principles of Hustler Management
. I did not do so because I did not want to give the impression of a strong client managing a weak hustler. I trust that by now the reader knows that hustlers and models are not inevitably weak vis-à-vis their clients. In any case, it is not about who the weaker party is. Rather, it is about how to conduct a relationship with an independent professional—always a complicated undertaking—and why, in the end, the client needs to take overall charge.

In general, the working relationship between clients and professionals is more complex than that between employer and employee because it is much more ambiguous. For instance, even though the patient employs the physician, the latter usually is more powerful than the former. The client retains the lawyer, but it is the latter who usually dictates what the former should do.

Clients and their hustlers are in a similarly ambiguous relationship. It requires collaboration and coordination between both parties to have a successful sexual encounter. A client who tells the hustler, "I want you to screw me," bestows upon him enormous real and symbolic power. Even when the situation is reversed, most clients would want the hustler to be a cooperative and enthusiastic bottom, not a mannequin with an orifice.

Almost always, when the client interacts with the professional, the latter makes more of an impression on the former than vice versa. Your appendectomy scheduled for tomorrow at noon will be the only one in your entire life, but may be the fifth that day for the surgeon. Your investment in XYZ shares, recommended by your broker, may put at risk your life's savings, but is only one of scores of transactions that morning for him. You have fantasized for months about your 5 p.m. appointment with a model (which you can barely afford) but you are his second client of the day, and he has a dinner date with a prospective new boyfriend at 6:30 p.m.

In the end, the client who foots the bill can assert his ultimate power and withdraw further business from the professional. However, this does not make up for a lousy sex session with a model.

Given this ambiguous relationship between client and hustler, it is vital to achieve synergy between both parties. A client and his
regular
hustler (as opposed to a quickie pickup) define and redefine the working relationship between them constantly. There is no precedent to guide them, no script that they can follow.
¹
Because the relationship is so amorphous one party needs to manage it, albeit by some form of agreement.

¹
. For example, masseurs who confine themselves to a "release" massage follow, by and large, the protocol of legitimate massage workers. For instance, the length of their session will be around one hour because most straight massage workers do it this way. When the focus shifts from massage-plus-release to hanky-panky and release with a token massage, the session will be shorter because the masseur will make the release happen earlier. There is no protocol for sexual massages, because there are no protocols for sex workers.

This and the following chapter are about creating a harmonious rather than adversarial relationship between clients and hustlers, under the management of the former.

* * *

Almost always, I have been very successful in my dealings with hustlers and models. My luck is due, in no small measure, to the fact that I started associating with them in my middle twenties. As a young man I felt fortunate that, accidentally, I had stumbled upon a practical solution to finding suitable sex partners when I needed and wanted them. Making my endless, mostly unproductive, rounds at the baths, I fantasized that one day I would be rich enough to engage hustlers 365 times a year!

As I grew older, I kept gaining more experience relating to hustlers (of late, mostly models), and my sex life improved with the years. When I listen to gay men many years my junior complaining how poorly they are doing sexually because of their age, I feel privileged that I regularly meet with the models of my choice, and have great sex with them.

My success with hustlers is also due to the fact that I enjoy being around them. Until a few years ago, I did not fully realize how much at home I was with hustlers. An incident in San Juan, Puerto Rico, opened my eyes. The gay hotel I used to stay at there is located in a cul-de-sac where many hustlers hang out day and night. I got to know most of them by name. The hustlers were a friendly and gabby bunch and I enjoyed talking to them. We had long conversations about this, that, and the other. I was challenged by the staccato Puerto Rican Spanish, which was quite difficult for me to follow. The hustlers were amused by my quaint, acquired Mexican Spanish, which sounded stilted to them. They were surprised that a much older hotel guest was interested in them in a nonsexual way.

One afternoon, I was shooting the breeze with a gaggle of them, and then walked into the hotel lobby to pick up my key. A fellow guest remarked contemptuously and loudly to the desk clerk, "Some guests at this hotel sure have weird friends." It was at that moment that I realized I was hanging out with the hustlers not merely to practice Puerto Rican Spanish, but because I genuinely liked my "weird friends." I found them much more interesting and colorful than the mainland moneyed elegant queens who were my fellow guests at the hotel.

My attitude toward hustlers and models has made it easy for me to create a
social
setting when we meet for sex. Some clients create an intense sexual ambiance for models. They offer alcohol, drugs, and porno to simultaneously relax and excite them. If host and model talk at all, it is, in the words of one hustler, about dick. Paradoxically, the charged atmosphere becomes intense and solemn rather than lighthearted.
²

²
. A sexually charged ambiance is solemn. The pre-AIDS bathhouse orgy rooms were as solemn as a church. Except for the sounds created by various sexual activities, the packed rooms were eerily quiet. On the rare occasions when patrons needed to speak to each other ("Do you want to come to my room?") they whispered.

There is nothing wrong in creating such an atmosphere, but it makes sex the only item on the agenda. It allows for very little social talk before sex and, once sex is taken care of, the scene comes to an abrupt end and the parties go their separate ways. I have always tried to make my sexual encounters with hustlers into social occasions during which sex takes place. I believe that many hustlers prefer it this way. It must be very monotonous for them to talk about dick day in, day out. This does not mean the client is entitled to hog the hustler's time. Typically, these social occasions will become longer and more numerous as hustler and client get to know each other.

Chapter Nine of gay reporter Michelangelo Signorile's book
Life Outside
is titled "The Death of the Lonely Old Queen."
³
Signorile describes vividly the loneliness and self-loathing of some older gay men, versus the satisfaction of gay seniors who mentor the younger generation.

³
.
Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles, and the Passages of Life
, Michelangelo Signorile (New York: Harper Collins, 1997).

I did not start seeing hustlers in my twenties in order to become their mentor in my sixties. But it has worked out this way. Hustlers whom I see on a regular basis have often became my friends and protégés. (As is expected with people one cares about, I have also had lots of serious disagreements and fallings-out with some of them.) The secret has always been the sharing, to a limited extent, of our lives. Thus, there is one model in my life with whom I have sex a few times a year, but who comes by often to solve my computer problems. In return, I write his ads for him, since his English is shaky.

Every now and then, former hustlers drop by for social calls. I do not wonder whether I could have sex with them, and fantasize what sort of experience this would be. We already have had sex with each other! I do not have the gnawing sexual hunger of Signorile's Lonely Old Queen.

* * *

Full disclosure and ample communication are vital
before
bringing a hustler or model home or going to his place. Misstatements, by either party, are almost guaranteed to create unpleasant situations.

In Chapter 8,I wrote about my encounter with Peter, who all but date raped me. This was his little game. But, during our phone interview, he had gone out of his way to make sure that whatever he would do to me, once I came over, would be agreeable to me. He did not have real surprises for me, even though our entire encounter was a wild fantasy trip.

Similarly, while keeping up the illusion of spontaneity, the hustler should not be confronted by surprises such as the client demanding that he perform or acquiesce to acts that have not been contracted. In this respect, nothing should be left to the imagination, because understanding what and why hustlers do or refuse to do certain things is arcane stuff. Experience has taught me that hustlers view specific sex acts on three different levels.

The first level is how the world at large regards such sex acts. Screwing or being screwed are major events, compared to most other sexual activities. Obviously, a hustler must be told in advance that he will be asked to be a top or a bottom. He will feel entitled to charge his highest rate for "real sex."

The second level is how a hustler feels personally about certain sexual acts. I have run into quite a few hustlers who did not mind getting screwed but did not want to French kiss. This does not make much sense to me, but, since I like kissing more than screwing, I negotiate the kissing beforehand. I do not assume that because a hustler does not mind getting screwed he won't object to being kissed.

The third level is symbolic, that is, what the act represents to the hustler. Half the hustlers I know blow clients as a matter of course. The other half do not want to blow anyone except their boyfriends or significant others, or sometimes not anyone. On my birthday, one of my regular hustlers put a condom on me, and blew me for the first and only time, as a special treat.

A hustler told me the story of an angry client kicking him out in mid-scene. A few minutes after the hustler arrived at the client's home, the latter tenderly took off the hustler's shoes and socks and started licking his toes and feet. "Joseph," the hustler told me, "it tickled so much that it drove me crazy. I laughed and squirmed and the customer got real mad at me."

As he told me this, he started giggling hysterically, and then broke out into uncontrolled laughter. I could imagine how furious the client must have been. When someone laughs at your way of having sex, especially your favorite act, it deflates you completely. Had the client told the hustler beforehand, "I want to suck your toes," the hustler would probably have said, "OK, but I am ticklish. It will make me laugh." Both parties would have been forewarned, and it would probably not have become such a big issue.