A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers (3 page)

A few days into this affair, Albert called me for a date. I had all but forgotten about him. I informed him that I was dating someone and that his services would no longer be required. I almost told him, "See, I can get it on, for
free
, with a guy I like even better than you."

It was just as well that I had not told Albert that. From the very beginning, Joel behaved strangely, as if he had mental problems. I chose to ignore it. One evening Joel came by and, in a very agitated frame of mind, told me, "I am seeing the world from the wrong end of the telescope. We have to stop doing what we have been doing!"

"But what's wrong, Joel?"

"I haven't told you. I am a patient at the Toronto Forensic Clinic. My therapist would have a fit if he knew that we are having sex!"

"What is the Forensic Clinic?"

"It is a clinic for sex offenders who go there by court order. But they also take voluntary patients with sexual disorders."

"What is
your
disorder?"

"The same as yours. We are homosexuals. My therapist says that we are all really sociopaths." A few minutes later, Joel was out of my house and my life.

I was heartbroken. Now some of Joel's oddities made sense to me. For instance, he had not given me his address or phone number. I had no way of getting in touch with him. But I did not really understand what had happened—how overnight, without apparent reason, our affair ended so abruptly. The Joel incident was the harbinger of the many misadventures I would experience in my non-hustler relationships, including therapists alienating my companions, constant kaleidoscopic affairs and, above all, inexplicably odd behavior by my partners.

Eventually, I sought out Albert and resumed our paid-for relationship. I could have afforded to see Albert more often, but I forced myself to spend one evening a week cruising. I did not want to have to pay for sex always.

Sex for money was an easier proposition in Mexico. There was no question in my mind that in Mexico I was economically much better situated than all of my partners. Not only were they poor, but they really had to help support their huge families. It was a charitable act to help them out.

In Toronto, when I still had my job, I drew an average salary, commensurate with my position. Albert, just like me, could have found a job and supported himself. I was still brainwashed by the social mores that condemned paying for sex, especially if both parties enjoyed the experience. It took me many years to formulate correctly the question I should have asked myself in Toronto: "Am I satisfied with Albert's services?" rather than "What is Albert's justification for hustling?"

At that time, the first exclusively gay bathhouse opened in Toronto. It was called The Roman Baths. I would go there once a week, and usually hate every moment of it. Nobody I liked wanted to have anything to do with me. As always, the few men who desired me did not interest me at all. Now that I saw Albert and other hustlers, searching for free sex made even less sense to me.

* * *

I took to San Francisco right away. Ever so slowly, I started coming out of the closet, and for the first time in my life had gay friends. I was also much more successful sexually in this city than I had been in Toronto. I found more ethnic variety here, and was more attractive to other gays. But I still preferred the ease of meeting hustlers.

When I arrived in San Francisco at the end of 1964, it was still safe to cruise at Union Square. In the evenings, time permitting, I would go to the park and cruise for a while. Then, if I had not found a suitable partner, I would go across the street, where Geary intersects Powell, at the south side of the St. Francis Hotel. The better- class hustlers would hang out there, to the great chagrin of the hotel's management. (The corner of Market and Mason Streets was reserved for the less classy hustlers.) I would find a suitable hustler and take him home. My goal was to end each of my cruising sessions with a companion in tow—free if possible, paid for if necessary!

After a few weeks I had a small pool of favorite hustlers to choose from. The hustlers and I became friendly with each other. As I had learned to do in Mexico, I made up a sex budget and stuck to it.

Without the constraints of a budget, I probably would have dispensed with cruising altogether and picked up only hustlers. These hustlers were usually more physically appealing, and often socially even more enjoyable than the people I met at the square.

My Union Square days were numbered. Within two years it became too dangerous to cruise the square. Hippies started dealing drugs there, attracting hoods and unwanted police attention. Going to bars on a regular basis was not my thing. Alcohol has always made me groggy and cranky rather than merry, and I could not stand the loud music and the smoke. I started doing my cruising at the many gay bathhouses that used to exist in San Francisco. Unfortunately, it was logistically and financially impossible to exercise the Union Square option of seeing a hustler the same evening if things did not work out in the bathhouse. Once again, I was involved in lengthy and frequently frustrating cruising.

At the San Francisco baths I made out better than in Toronto because there were more men I liked in them and, mysteriously, I myself had become more popular. (Maybe my bathhouse-cruising techniques had improved.) But the results were
always
unpredictable. Too often, after many hours, I would return home without scoring. On a rare good night, I would have sex with several guys I liked. As a point of fact, I met my first lover at a bathhouse.

What disturbed me most—and still does—was the emotional roller coaster of gay life. The sexual partners at the baths, with whom I had had such passionate sex, and with whom I had exchanged phone numbers, would often show no interest in future meetings when I called them afterward. Sometimes even the phone numbers they gave me were phony.

Of course, not all of my experiences with hustlers were without problems. But there was a difference between hustler problems and potential-boyfriend disappointments. The former could be replaced with newer and better versions. The latter—like the flakes at the baths with their phony telephone numbers—were not so easily dismissed. For a very long time, I blamed myself for failing to get to the dating stage with the passionate lovers I kept meeting at the baths. It was difficult for me to understand how the guys I had such passionate sex with at the baths would lose all interest in me as soon as they encountered the next trick.

Until the San Francisco baths closed in the early 1980s, due to the AIDS crisis, I would visit them about once a week, to prove to myself that I could get it for free. Of course, it was not entirely free. Admission to the baths, with a private room, was fairly costly.

I had learned to apply different standards to bathhouse patrons than to hustlers. A youthful and cute (not necessarily handsome) face, with a decent body and, ideally, a cheerful personality, was what I required of my hustlers. At the baths, I kept lowering these standards as the night grew longer, the search more tedious, and the rejections more numerous. The result was that the "free" bathhouse sexual partners were, frequently, not the least bit my type.

Eventually, the street-hustling scene became too dangerous for me.
³
I stopped picking up street hustlers and started choosing them through ads in gay publications. Once I liked a particular hustler, I would work out a financial arrangement, and see him regularly. (One hustler I saw, off and on, over a period of ten years.)

³
. When the AIDS epidemic hit in the 1980s, street hustlers lost many of their clients. Not only the ones who died, but also the ones who were too afraid to pick them up. (Of course, many hustlers died too. However, in San Francisco there has always been an unlimited supply of newcomers.) As a result, many hustlers combined their sex work with drug dealing. The street
itself
became a dangerous place for both hustlers and their clients.

To this day, I still do my "duty." I try to connect with partners who do not charge. These days I do it through personal ads in gay and semi-gay publications. I have had my share of luck in these endeavors—though free is not always really free—but I am still
much
happier with the predictability and physical appearance of hustlers.

In retrospect, I feel good about the many thousand dollars I have spent on hustlers. I have derived a great deal of pleasure from being with them. I do regret the countless hours I have wasted cruising the parks and baths in Toronto, San Francisco, and elsewhere.

Gay life is not all about sex. I have made a lot of very close nonsexual gay friends in many countries, and these friendships have enhanced my life tremendously. However, sex is inextricably intertwined with being homosexual. Had it not been for hustlers, my gay life would have been an incessant whine about not having enough good sex. I know many gays, young and old, handsome and homely, who feel shortchanged at the bars, baths, and clubs. Thanks to hustlers, I have done very well for myself in my sexual pursuits. I salute the many hustlers who have helped make my gay existence a joyful one.

* * *

Before I close this chapter, I want to explain how I have come to know so much about hustlers. Many gay men avail themselves of hustlers but they keep this to themselves. Some older gay men were themselves hustlers in their younger days, but it is their big secret. Because I have been very open about my own experiences with hustlers, quite a few former hustlers have told me about their pasts. Friends and acquaintances who avail themselves of hustlers clandestinely have confided in me as well. Thus, for example, I know a fair amount about bodybuilders who are hustlers, as well as about their clients, though I myself have never been intimate with one.

Late in life, I have taken up writing gay-travel guidebooks. This has given me insight I would not have gleaned from personal experience. For instance, in my capacity as a writer, I was allowed with my camera into the dormitory of a group of transvestite hustlers in San Jose, Costa Rica. I would never have picked up any of them, nor, had I been their client, would they have answered my very personal questions. I feel privileged that they shared with me very intimate information and permitted me to tell their stories.
⁴

⁴
.
Pura Vida: Gay and Lesbian Costa Rica
, Joseph Itiel (San Francisco: Orchid House, 1993), Chapter 13, "An Interview with Ms. Universe," pp. 93-100.

* * *

A few months ago I received a phone call from a man who had read my Mexico guidebook. He told me that he was grateful for the information about the puzzling hustler scene in that country. "Your book explained to me," he said, "why guys always asked me for handouts and gifts. This used to bother me a lot. Thanks to your book I now understand how the system works. On my last trip, I made friends with a man I met in Acapulco. He says he is straight, but we have good sex together. He expects me to help him with his endless series of crises. I don't care. I have the money and I am out there to enjoy myself, not to prove a point."

"Prove what point?" I asked.

"That I can get it for free. Sure, there's free sex at most steam baths in Mexico. But they are really dirty places. And, in any case, I want to get it on with guys who turn me on, not with some ugly man I happen to meet at the baths. I never cared about the money. As a matter of principle I did not want to pay. Now I know better."

I am happy that I have helped change at least one man's perception about obtaining good sex.

Chapter 2

The Hustler as an Independent Contractor

I planned on spending a few hours reading the hustler ads in a number of gay publications, and then selecting a few of them to make a point. It turns out that the first two columns of "model" ads (model is a euphemism for hustler), in the first gay publication, supplied all the information I needed.

Here are seven samples, from a local gay publication, listed under Models/Escorts (names and phone numbers deleted):
¹

¹
.
Bay Area Reporter
(San Francisco), March 6, 1997, p. 65.

1.
Extremely Handsome College Student

Masculine, clean cut & yes versatile

French/Italian, thick dk, full lips

Very hot! Hung & tight. Out only

2.
Oral Slave

Hot Mouth, Deep Throat

Gdlooking, 5'11", 155#, 36, $75

Available Wknites & Wkends

3.
Affectionate Warm

Youthful 5'8", 140 lbs, clean cut

Smooth. For a hot session call me

4.
Piss On You

Nasty Italian Top $125

5.
Slaves Trained

38 yo 6'1", 210# porn magazine model

Call Master ...

6. To Serve Or Be Served?

What Is Your Pleasure

Hungry, Affectionate, 22, out

7. Hot Masculine Guy, 30 Big Bone

KICKS BACK FOR ORAL SERVICE

$60 IN Days OK

These ads are enough to destroy all stereotypes regarding hustlers. If you have thought of hustlers as run-of-the-mill sex workers, be forewarned: each one has a unique style. For instance, if you confuse the phone number of worker 3 with that of number 4, you will literally be pissed on instead of cuddled!