A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers (2 page)

I remember well my first encounter. I went cruising immediately after I had rented a modern, furnished studio apartment, and had secured a job for myself. I met Jaime early in the evening, on the Paseo de la Reforma, a wide, elegant boulevard in the center of the city. He was a fairly tall guy, about my own age, with dark brown hair and eyes. Even though he looked more like a southern European than a Latino I liked him immediately, because of his open and frank smile, and cheerful expression.

We went to my place and chatted for a long while. Being able to converse with him in Spanish gave me an intellectual high. Eventually, seductively, he pulled me toward the bed. In Toronto, sex had been somber and purposeful; lovemaking in Mexico City was cheerful and light-hearted. When I had sex in Toronto, I considered myself a wayward officer of the court. In Mexico I was just plain José, the new cruising persona I had assumed.

When we were done, Jaime addressed me solemnly. I did not understand everything he said. What came through clearly was that his father, mother, and elder brother were in terrible
apuros
. These
apuros
—tribulations—could be overcome with God's help, which was paramount, and, to a much lesser extent, with money. The lesser help, that of money, would be my contribution to solving the
apuros
of Jaime's family.

I was confused. I had read and heard that homosexuals were often subject to blackmail. I was certain that Jaime was not blackmailing me. Well, then, he was asking me to
pay
for sex. He was a male prostitute!

"How much do you...," here I mentally replaced "want" with "need."

Jaime came up with a sum of money that was almost equivalent to the monthly rent for my studio. I looked blankly at him. He understood my expression. "How much can you help me with?" he asked.

I had not done all that well for myself in India with my Yoga studies. But to survive there, with very little money, I had learned some fancy haggling techniques. Now I put them to use. As an opening gambit, I offered Jaime one-twentieth of what he had asked for. Even this amount would almost have paid a day's wages of an ordinary employee. To my surprise, he was very happy with my first counteroffer. He assured me that it would go a long way to free his father, mother, and elder brother from their sundry
apuros
. I did not make another date with Jaime because I was disappointed that I had had to pay for sex, even though the money went for a good cause.

The second guy, whose name I have long forgotten, picked me up as soon as I sat on a bench at my neighborhood's
glorieta
. He was not as cute as Jaime but much darker, with sharp Aztec facial features that made him attractive to me. When we finished with sex, he addressed me with the same grave solemnity Jaime had employed two days earlier. His
apuros
were more limited. Only his mother was in the hospital but her situation was
muy grave
. Primarily, he beseeched the Almighty for help, as he always did in such situations, and, secondarily, he fervently hoped that I would offer some assistance as well. Could I help him with. . . and he asked for an amount smaller than what I had offered Jaime a few days earlier. To be fair, I gave him the same amount I had given Jaime.

The third person, Javier, I saw twice before he made his move. Javier studied English after school and we communicated quite well with each other. Javier's plan for me, which he disclosed at the end of the second session, was to underwrite his studies, seeing that I was five years older, wealthier, and also, according to him, wiser. I still had no desire to pay for sex. I did not take him up on his offer to sponsor his studies even though we had had a very good time. I gave him what I had given to the two other guys and dismissed him from my life.

Analyzing all this with the gift of hindsight, the three guys I saw in about ten days, and most of the many others I saw later on throughout Mexico, were opportunistic rather than professional hustlers. They were doing their cruising, and, if they met an enormously rich person like myself, they would ask him to help out with the various
apuros
of their families.
²

²
. For a fuller discussion of the opportunistic-hustler phenomenon see
De Onda: A Gay Guide to Mexico and Its People
, Joseph Itiel (San Francisco: International Wavelength, 1991), pp. 49-50.

That I was very rich became obvious to my companions once they were in my studio apartment. It was modern, had a kitchenette and bathroom, and was located in a good neighborhood. But, above all, I lived by myself. In those days (and even today) having the luxury of living alone made one unique. Years later, I rented a two-room flat in a fairly large building catering to the middle class. I was the
only
tenant who had that much private space. All other apartments were occupied by families with children.

Had I known how to get it, plenty of free sex was available. People in the know cruised specific straight bars where gays would meet. (There were no exclusively gay bars in those days.) The street cruisers were the least elegant members of the gay set.

Pretty soon it became clear to me that I would always have to pay for sex in Mexico. The sad stories of my partners would vary, but the bottom line would be the same.

Compared to Toronto, I was now in paradise. I picked up cute and
simpático
sex partners every single time I went cruising. I enjoyed the lighthearted sex and the chit-chat in Spanish, and did not experience neurotic anxieties. Many of my partners were not well educated. One was even illiterate. But I was improving my Spanish.

There was one problem in paradise. My role as the financial savior of my sexual partners was getting to be very expensive. In Toronto I had cruised, reluctantly and rarely, when I could not abide my sexual loneliness any longer. In Mexico City, I cruised often and joyfully, but it was costing me a pretty peso.

There was also a surcharge imposed by the infamous Mexican
mordida
system. Every so often, while cruising, I was stopped by a vice cop (more likely someone pretending to be a cop, though I did know that at the time) extorting a trivial amount of money. I took this in stride. After all, in Toronto I could have been arrested, tried, and jailed. In Mexico, I was squeezed sometimes for just walking and looking, but it could be taken care of with a small handout.

I worked as a full-time teacher at a private school and did a lot of tutoring on the side. By local standards, I was pretty well off financially, especially since I had only myself to support. I was free four or five evenings a week. I would have loved to cruise every one of these evenings, but I simply did not make enough money to indulge my whim.

I decided to draw up a budget for my sexual expenses. That meant that I had to know ahead of time how much I would spend on each encounter before bringing anyone home with me. Therefore, I would tell all my prospective companions how many pesos I could spend to help them with whatever tribulations they and their families faced.

This approach was decidedly un-Mexican. Their standard obligatory reply was always the same: "But I do not dedicate myself to that" (meaning prostitution). With a great deal of diplomacy, we would agree on a reasonable remuneration, after many assurances on my part that the money was a contribution toward their families' welfare, not a fee for sex.

It was quite a struggle for me stick to my budget. But it worked because it saved me from worrying that I was spending too much money on hustlers. I budgeted by the month. If my monthly budget was 300 pesos then, on the tenth of the month, only 100 pesos should have been used up. This way I knew that if I did not have the funds on a given evening, a few days hence there would be enough money in the kitty to go cruising.

It took a number of trips to Mexico before I understood fully the alpha and omega of Mexican homosexuality:
penetration
. In Mexico, penetration has a symbolic significance that transcends the physical aspect of the act itself. Apparently, because my partners expected me to pay for sex with them, they did not impose the Mexican sexual code on me. On my first trip to Mexico, I got away without screwing or being screwed, which, for a number of reasons, I did not want to do then. Merrily, I climaxed by dry humping my partners. (This practice is also known as frottage.)

My partners climaxed the same way, or allowed me to blow them. (In those days, they would never have blown me. They considered this practice a foreign barbarity. Many Mexicans still do.) It is absolutely inconceivable that, had I been Mexican, I would have been allowed to neither screw nor be screwed!

* * *

I had been working in Mexico illegally for five months. My papers could have been arranged but with a horrendous bribe. My legal status was precarious, compromising the school. I had to return to Toronto. I felt as Adam must have felt just before the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

In Toronto I found a job as the special events coordinator at a community center. I imagined myself to be in the public eye, and felt that I needed to be very circumspect. My cruising anxieties returned. I was as unsuccessful as I had always been there. Whereas in Mexico I had always found partners whom I liked physically, in Toronto I again had to make do with men I did not care for particularly. I assume that many of these men did not care much for me either. The inevitable result was always just a better-than-nothing encounter.

Most of all, I resented the time I spent on unproductive cruising. I had a busy schedule at work. I continued my Spanish studies, took prerequisite courses for my master's degree, and held a part-time job. The long cruising sessions annoyed and frustrated me. Even then, I considered time a more precious commodity than money.

In Mexico, all my contacts turned out to be hustlers. In Toronto, I had never encountered one. I assumed that they hung out at certain locations but I did not know where these were.

I had lots of compensatory time off at work and used it twice a year for vacations in Mexico. With my newly acquired Spanish, I also traveled to Puerto Rico and Spain. In these places too I met hustlers easily.

This feast abroad and famine in Toronto went on for a number of years. Then I obtained a position in San Francisco, applied for a visa to the USA, and resigned from my job in Toronto. Now I felt myself free from the imaginary limelight that had engulfed me at work. Free at last, I asked a fellow cruiser at Queen's Park where one could meet hustlers. Disdainfully, he told me the location.

It was a street corner not far from Queen's Park. There, hustlers would congregate around the clock, though there was more choice at night. To my delight, ethnic minorities had some representatives on this corner. The third or fourth guy 1 met there became my "regular." His name was Albert. He was nineteen years old, skinny, and short. His blood was a cocktail of many ethnic groups, but the First Nation (Indian) predominated. He was very shy and also extremely passionate. I suspect he had a drinking problem, which he tried to hide.

As with my Mexican sex partners, I looked forward to seeing Albert: not to get off and get it over with, but to be with someone I
enjoyed
looking at and having sex with.

We saw each other every few days. Sometimes, he stood me up. Maybe he was drunk on these occasions. When that happened, I would go to the hustlers' corner and pick up someone else I liked. Albert and I always had a good time. I liked his shyness, and he was happy that someone was ready to listen to him and take him seriously. I had just acquired my first TV set. Albert stayed at my place until late in the evening watching programs he enjoyed, while I did my Spanish homework at the other end of the room. I took him out for dinner a few times. None of his other clients had done this.

Fraternizing with hustlers—above and beyond what is necessary for sex—is considered by many as a sign of loneliness. In retrospect, was it loneliness that prompted me to befriend Albert, in a limited fashion, in addition to having sex with him? For close to three years I had coordinated public events, from dance festivals to political forums, and was not the least bit starved for social intercourse. It was physical intimacy that I was sorely missing! I wanted to unite these intimacies—something I had never managed to achieve until meeting Albert.

I resigned my job at the community center expecting to leave for San Francisco within a few Weeks. But the paperwork for my visa did not go through for half a year. Finally freed from my high-profile job, I could do as I pleased in Toronto. Now I allowed myself to cruise Queen's Park regularly. I even met sex partners fairly frequently. But because they were only very marginally my type, I was not particularly interested in their company after the mediocre sex session was over. They, too, after the lukewarm session, were not eager for my company.

With Albert it was different. We always had good sex, and, aesthetically, I enjoyed being in his company after we were done. Most of the time, he watched TV. While I was doing my own work, I was pleased that such an appealing guy was in the same room with me. For his part, my place was more cheerful than his own shared accommodations, and I did not argue with him about which program he could watch.

I liked Albert as a person, and was happy to add a social component to the sex act. I certainly did not buy his time. I did not have the wherewithal to do that. Albert must have had a pretty good idea of my financial circumstances. After all, I lived in a furnished studio apartment.

After seeing Albert regularly for a month or so, I fell in love madly with someone I had met socially. His name was Joel. He was a few years younger than I, and, to my surprise, of fair complexion. As a matter of fact, he could have passed for my younger brother. Joel was a music student—an aspiring violinist.

For some three weeks we saw each other as often as possible. It wasn't only that we had good sex. We went out of town together for a weekend, and took in two concerts and a few movies. Joel spent so much time at my place that I assumed he would move in with me. I started toying with the idea of giving up on moving to San Francisco.