Introduction
I was waiting for an appearance on a current affairs television programme, when the host, Vincent Browne, came to greet me. After the briefest of pleasantries, Browne told me that he thought that men who bought sex from women were clearly pathological. This was, ‘not in dispute’ I was told. It was an ominous start. I had been asked on the programme to discuss a proposal put forward by a parliamentary sub-committee that would criminalise the purchase of sex. However, a discussion of the proposal did not happen. The debate, with the chief executive of an organisation that supports the exit of women from prostitution , 1 settled into a familiar routine. I spoke of the complexity within sex work and the absence of any carceral, magic bullet solution that could address the structural inequalities of those lives. I was told, in line with a neo-abolitionist approach to prostitution (Barry 1995; O’Connor and Healy 2006), that trafficking and violence were indistinguishable from sex work . Consent was deemed irrelevant, men who buy sex were pathological and those that sold sex were statistically irrelevant.
Men who sell sex are not irrelevant though. I had interviewed male sex workers since 2009, and there was an existing body of research that had explored their experiences for over twenty years. I knew the circumstances of their consent were important and that their removal from public debate, while convenient politics, may have a detrimental outcome on the targeted provision of services that addressed their health and safety. Male or trans sex workers represented 9% of all commercial sex transactions in Ireland (Maginn and Ellison 2014). The research I undertook for this book suggested that the impact of migration and the use of new digital cultures had transformed male sex work . My interviews with eighteen Brazilian and Venezuelan men engaged in commercial sex while living in Dublin revealed the extent of that transformation, through innovative ways in which they have harnessed their micro-celebrity on new social media to broadcast monetised content on video sharing platforms. These men curate different digital selves that are tailored for specific audiences on apps like Grindr, Instagram , Twitter and Tinder . In this book, I concentrate on Grindr and Instagram . Both offer an insight into two digital lives; one transitory and opportunistic (Grindr ), the other a more intimate and permanent biography (Instagram ). Their involvement in sex work remains ambiguous across both platforms. My interviewees speak about what they do, not about who they are. They are not sex work rights activists. However, they also seek no rescue, redemption or exit promised by NGOs committed to the abolition of prostitution . Some men strongly dislike sex work . Others are actively shaping a range of online sex work practices that best suit the circumstances of their lives. There are no happy hooker tropes here. They are charting a way through the discourses of coercion and rights. They are reluctant to advertise sexual services on exclusively escort sites, like rentboy.com and later rentmen.eu. 2 Rather their potential clients read and decipher photos, emoji and text on Grindr or join thousands of other followers on Instagram , where they are invited to interact and proceed to access monetised content or arrange face-to-face meetings. 3 It was clear from the outset of this book that the lived realities and experiences of men in sex work bore little resemblance to the legal and political discourses that framed the debate.
Five developments have encouraged the movement of male sex work further within the digital cultures of new social media. These are important to understand the structure and stories within this book.
- 1.The Normalisation of the Sex IndustryThis study was undertaken within a context of the ongoing normalisation of the sex industry . This development has a number of facets. There has been a documented increased visibility of adult entertainment industries throughout cities in Europe, driven by local governance laws and sex-related tourism (Hubbard et al. 2008: 376). This tourism, combined with a growth in the leisure industry, technology and changing consumer patterns has contributed to this increased visibility of sexual commerce, blurring the boundaries between mainstream industries (Brents and Sanders 2010: 376; Sanders et al. 2018: 2). This normalisation is particularly evident in relation to male sex work . Later in this chapter, I discuss how the social meanings attached to male prostitution have changed over history, where it was the association with homosexuality and class transgression that located the practice within a deviancy perspective (MacPhail et al. 2015: 485). The aspirations of the post decriminalisation gay movement were forged under unique economic circumstances that saw Ireland emerge as the clearest example of small country liberalism in Europe (Ó Riain 2014: 9). Pro-market reforms combined with a leaner government and a ‘privatized economy’ could now coexist with a politics of identity and equality. In Ireland and other liberal economies, issue of care and social reproduction continued to be privatised or to be deemed the personal responsibility of families or wider civil society. Under such a framework, I argue that liberalism needed to ‘create’ new families to share the burden of this redistribution of social costs leading to broad political support for gay marriage, successfully passed by referendum in 2015. Male sex work has been a beneficiary of this legislative success, where men have been afforded greater agency and respectability for their sexual entrepreneurship, in sharp contrast to the exclusively coercive portrayal of female workers. Male sex work has benefited from the technological revolution that has dramatically reduced the existence of street work, increasing the number of middle-class workers attracted by greater privacy, safety and flexibility from working at home (McLean 2013). In Chapter 3, I argue that it is within this technology, like the dating app Grindr that male sex work has become the most visible, blurring boundaries between economic and physical capital in sex, dating and relationships . In this reimagining of intimate relationships, distinguishing between those who possess agency and power with coercion and victimhood becomes a more nuanced endeavour.
- 2.The Rise of New Social Media ApplicationsNew social media has become an important site where individuals construct, reimagine and perform identities to audiences in late modern societies . While previously associated with social networking sites like Facebook , where the impetus was to connect to other users (Van Dijck 2013), a visual turn in society and social media specifically, has created platforms less about sharing content, and more about performing identities through consumption (Walsh and Baker 2017). Social media users communicate taste, cultural capital and self-discipline through their consumption to an increasingly diverse group of followers that is maintained and grown through the judicious use of hashtags (Page 2012). Instagram , the photo and video sharing app founded in 2010 is leading the way in this visual turn, reporting 1 billion monthly users in 2018. 4 I argue that material, especially self-photography or selfies , uploaded on Instagram and Grindr are the raw material of digital identities and have become an exchange currency of both the validation and domination of others who fail to meet benchmarks of popularity, fitness, travel or friendship. They become a currency that can be traded and converted. It is a currency that can open new economic opportunities as the self itself becomes a commodity for online advertising. Social media followers are directed to Instagram through the use of hashtags and links from apps like Grindr . In Chapter...