The Advocate

[Samai139]

The latest edition of The Advocate has a cover story about a Dallas, Texas man who lost a primary election after his past as a temporary escort was revealed. The article sent "mixed messages" to me. Anyone else read it and have any opinions? Maybe I should put this question into the Ask An Escort area as well??

[Guest]

What's a temporary escort?

[Guest skrubber]

I read it. It was quite interesting. It's strange that people can forgive so many things but not sexual employment.

[Samai139]

I wasn't sure how to describe the escorting the fellow did. The article quoted him as saying that while a student in NYC he was introduced to escorting because of financial need. He "fled" to LA to get away from it but some of his clients followed him and he resumed. Then he moved to Dallas and quit escorting and according to him has had the same partner for the last three years.

Maybe part-time would have been a better description??

In reading the article I wasn't sure if he was being totally candid, trying to rationalize some past sexual activity or what--hence the posting.

[BgMstr4u]

Fled to LA to escape the escorting scene? Of all the places in the world to stop escorting by changing your environment, LA might not perhaps be at the top of the list....

[Boston Guy]

No, probably not.

 

But this story is interesting on a number of levels. He's apparently a bright young guy who wants to make something of his life. That's going to be made more difficult by these revelations -- maybe. You never know the surprises and opportunities that life tosses our way.

 

But his story should give pause to any person here who hires young guys who are escorting on a part-time basis. Offering someone a great deal of money for a very short amount of time may not be the best service one could offer the young man. Worse, trying to convince someone to keep escorting after they have decided to stop may well be a serious disservice. The lure of the money is a powerful one, as powerful as the lure of the escort himself for the client. Some escorts clearly would like to stop but can't and others stop and then start again, sometimes repeatedly. We've seen examples of really bright young men self-destruct.

 

Escorting in this age of the Internet is different than it was 20 or 30 years and I'd argue there is a qualitative difference. More guys are doing it, more are being open with their friends about it, guys develop nationwide reputations and people travel long distances to see them. This is a long way from picking up a guy cruising the sidewalk by the bus terminal.

 

I'd say the returns aren't even starting to come in yet on how this kind of escorting will affect these guy's lives later on. Like the young man in question, many will find it difficult or impossible to hide their past. There is simply too much information out there, including on this site.

 

Anyone who claims to care about these guys -- these kids -- should want to give at least a passing thought or two about what this might be doing to the escorts. Not in terms of supporting them and their lifestyles or college careers right now but later, as they start to walk through life as an adult.

 

BG

[+ Lucky]

"Anyone who claims to care about these guys -- these kids -- should want to give at least a passing thought or two about what this might be doing to the escorts. Not in terms of supporting them and their lifestyles or college careers right now but later, as they start to walk through life as an adult."

 

Okay, I gave it a passing thought. Now what? Do I tell one to stop escorting and another just to cut back? Is it full throttle ahead for the third one? Do I stop hiring just in case one of the guys I hire might regret his job some years down the road? What is it you expect us to do about this?

 

Maybe we should just live in the present, take responsibility for our own actions, and let others do the same. Sure, I would not keep hiring someone I thought was suffering for it, but that is not the scenario you want us to think about. Or is it? Maybe I missed your point.

[Boston Guy]

>What is it you expect us to do about this?

>

 

Well, frankly, I don't expect anything in particular. I don't even know how I feel about this myself or how or if I should alter my behavior.

 

But I've known for a long time that there is a kind of tension -- that's a bit polite; it's really a moral hypocrisy -- between my actions in hiring young escorts and the advice I would give my nephew if I knew he was thinking about embarking on escorting.

 

To him, I'd give cautionary advice. I'd suggest strongly that he think in terms of the effect on his life, what would happen if his mother found out or his friends or perhaps his future wife or what might happen if he were to be caught in a police sting. I'd try to warn him about the dangers -- and there are dangers; to deny that is folly.

 

But I happily hire guys who are already escorts and have known some of them for years. I think in one case I'm the only client the guy has left and he has moved forward in other directions.

 

But one of the responsibilities of one generation to the next or the one after that is to act in a cultural way, passing on wisdom and knowledge that is often earned and learned best through a long life, the kind of things you'd expect a grandma or grandpa to tell the grandkids as they are growing up. It's precisely this sharing of cultural knowledge that makes us human.

 

When I was a kid, not one adult in my small town would have admitted to paying a young man for sex. Had there been someone like that in town, he might have been run out of town. I don't know. But in our small town in the 1950s, all adults had a certain responsibility to all the kids and you didn't talk back to any one of them, even adults you didn't know. It was the "it takes a village" thing in real life.

 

So how do I take this belief that each generation should try to guide and be a good model for the ones that follow it, this sense that adults owe young people wisdom and a helping hand and then combine it with delight I take in getting together with escorts and make any kind of moral sense of it?

 

We live in the present, as you suggest. We each must take responsibility for our own actions and I do. But I'm not sure that it is enough to simply say "that young escort has made his own decisions and choices and I'm not responsible for his actions." On a human level, we may owe them more than that.

 

Perhaps not. I haven't this through enough and I don't know where I'll come down on this issue. I'm not suggesting that any other person should take any particular point of view or set of actions or alter their behavior in any way.

 

But I do think that it's good to think in large terms, sometimes, to think of our place in the larger human society and what our responsibilities are to others and how our generation, our nation, our society fits into that large river of humanity that stretches forward over time. I wonder if we'll be proud of our actions looking back at the us of 2006 with, say, 2020 vision?

 

BG

[Samai139]

BostonGuy~~

Thank you for the articulate, thoughtful and mature reponse. While I was reading The Advocate article, I had many of the thoughts you were able to put into words. I'm still thinking about my own take on escorting and while I shall continue to enjoy the company of attractive young men, I'll certainly remember not only "the moment" but also "the meaning."

[Lookin]

In my opinion, the conflict arises because “society” is operating with a different set of values than I am, when it comes to voting for an individual with escorting in his past.

 

I wouldn’t withhold my vote from a candidate just because he was an escort. Nor would I give my vote to a candidate just because he had a more “morally acceptable” background. But society - particularly U.S. society - seems to correlate one’s sexual activities with one’s fitness to be in politics. I don’t buy it. There are way too many examples of “morally upright” politicians who have led their constituents toward war, greed, and isolation.

 

But these societal moral values do, in fact, exist and young people do need to be aware of them. I think that’s why a thinking person would want to make sure his nephew (or a favorite escort) was aware of the possible repercussions of violating society’s norms, if he might want to run for office one day. But that same thinking person does not necessarily have to agree with those societal norms, and may not make the same moral judgments about escorting that society does.

 

What to do about the “conflict”? I’ve spent a lot of time calibrating my moral compass, and expect to continue doing so as the years go by. I pay special attention to the areas where I come out in one place, and society comes out in another. If I think I have anything to add to the debate, I put it out there and discuss it with friends. I think that’s how societal norms get formed in the first place, slowly but surely. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll have a workin’ boy in the White House.

[Curitibano]

>Maybe one day we’ll have a workin’ boy in

>the White House.

 

 

It would be nice if someone in the White House did a little work.....

[Boston Guy]

Welcome to the Message Center!

 

I was curious about your avatar, so I clicked on your link. With the increased size, I was able to read "ORDEM E PROGRESSO" but didn't understand the exact translations. 30 seconds of googling later, I was sitting in my chair feeling stupid and embarrassed.

 

I've been to Brazil and enjoyed the country and its people very much. How could I not recognize its flag? <sigh>

 

I found several articles of interest, including this brief description:

 

[blockquote]Brazil's flag is a deep green banner with a yellow diamond enclosing a night-blue, star-studded Southern Hemisphere sky. The sky depicts 27 white, five-pointed stars (one for each state and the Federal District); the stars are arranged in the pattern of the night sky over Rio de Janeiro on November 15, 1889 (this is the date when the last Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, was deposed, and the republic was proclaimed). The stars in view include the constellations Southern Cross (also called Crux), Scorpius, Canis Major and others. A banner across the sky reads, "ORDEM E PROGRESSO," which means "order and progress" in Portuguese.

 

This flag was adopted on May 11, 1992 - it was an adaptation of an earlier Brazilian flag from November 15, 1889.

[/blockquote]

 

Also:

 

[blockquote]The Brazilian Flag has a large yellow-shaped diamond on a green background. The color green stands for the lush fields and forests of Brazil. The color yellow represents its wealth in gold. In the center of the yellow diamond there is a blue sphere, that symbolizes Brazil's blue sky with 27 stars, which stand for it's capital and 26 states. In the middle of the sphere there is a white banner with a legend: "Ordem e Progresso", which translates into "Order and Progress".

[/blockquote]

 

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/southamerica/brazil/flag/Flagbig.GIF

Thanks for helping me learn something I should have already known.

 

BG

[BigD]

B.G.

I am impressed with your sensitivity and ethical considerations

of escorts, who, for the most part, are from a younger generation.

I have thought about this in the past. It appears to me that

many more young gay men enter the escort business than in previous

times. We can see that the interenet has been responsible for

much of this increase. But it is a good question to ask: Is this

a healthy course for the next generation of gay men to pursue? And

those of us who hire and encourage escorting services help augment

the numbers. A local escort recently quit, again. He has a job

and met a partner and is trying to start a new life. He has

confided in me that the lure of the money is hard to turn down.

It is almost like an addiction. I am encouraging him to persevere,

but part of me wants to email him right now and make an offer.

And that would be my addiction. I will be a better person if

I leave him along and hire another. I am rambing, saying nothing

rational here. So I will stop. But thanks for making me think.

Dennis/BigD

[Lookin]

Again, the issue is are you and/or the escort “wrong” for pursuing a hookup that benefits you both, or is society “wrong” for judging your actions? And who is making that decision?

 

Many of us grew up believing that males having sex with each other was wrong, and anyone having sex for money was going straight to hell. I spent years pretending I was interested in girls. I think that served a key interest of society, which is to have its males father and rear children, So I understand where that pressure came from.

 

But girls didn’t do it for me; guys did. And society has done just fine without my 2.3 offspring. Society and I are both OK. So why do I want to keep carrying that judgment around? I don’t.

 

I recognize the judgment is there, and has to be accounted for in our daily actions. But I don’t need to internalize it. I don’t need to believe there’s something morally wrong with me for hiring an escort, nor that there’s something morally wrong with the escort for being in the business.

 

And, if I were going to be an advocate for change, who would I want to change? Do I want to change my belief that it’s OK to have sex with another guy, and sometimes pay him for it? Do I want to change an escort’s belief that it’s OK to hook up with another guy, and take money for it? Or do I want to change society’s belief that sex with another guy, for money, is wrong; and makes a man unfit for elective office, among other things.

 

I don’t expect to reverse society’s views in my lifetime, but will be content to participate in a small shift. Look at the shifts we’ve seen in recent years. I hope we can keep them going.

[Boston Guy]

>Again, the issue is are you and/or the escort “wrong” for

>pursuing a hookup that benefits you both, or is society

>“wrong” for judging your actions?

 

Ummmm... I do appreciate your comments and thoughts but I think it's a bit unfair to claim to know or define exactly what "the" issue is. We each bring different things to this table and the issues we face may vary, too.

 

For example, one can pull a couple of questions out of the single declarative statement (copied above) by which you began your post:

 

1. You state as a matter of course that the hookup benefits "you both", meaning the client and the escort. But is this necessarily true. Do we both benefit? Always? Are we sure that the escort is benefiting from our relationship with him? Is providing young men with fast easy cash the same as providing them with a benefit? How certain are we of the answer and how can we know for sure until enough time has passed to really be able to judge how this kind of escorting affects escorts later in life?

 

2. Are we sure that we benefit from these relationships? We've discussed this here before and I think the answer is blurry at best. Some clients undoubtedly benefit. Others have a lot of fun but that fun has to be weighed against the opportunity cost of using the time and money for other things. Some guys who used to post here frequently have left M4M after finding steady relationships. They decided that hiring escorts wasn't the right thing for them. Perhaps that might be true for more of us as well? Certainly some clients bring a great deal of guilt into the escort situation. How does that affect them and the escort?

 

3. You ask if society is wrong for judging us. But is this the only judgment we are or should be concerned about? How about the judgment we bring to ourselves. How will the escort feel about himself ten or twenty years down the line? Should we care about this at all?

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative. But I think the question of what kind of ethics and morality we might want to bring to the table here is a lot more complex than you indicate. Society's judgment is no small part of it. But it is not the whole issue or the only one.

 

BG

[Boston Guy]

Dennis:

 

No, you weren't rambling. I appreciate your comments very much. You sound like a decent and thoughtful guy.

 

BG

[Lookin]

Boston Guy,

 

You're absolutely right. These aren't simple issues, and everyone has to sort them out for himself. It took me a long time to get to where I am today. Trying to put the results of years of thinking into a couple of posts on a message board probably wasn't the best way to go.

 

But you and the others here raised some very interesting issues, and I wanted to share some of my thinking. I always benefit from what others are thinking, and wanted to throw an idea or two into the discussion. I try to make clear that these are just my thoughts.

 

I guess I'll leave the big issues for in-person discussions, but will continue to enjoy your posts.

[CT Dick]

Boston Guy, there is another explanation of the Brazilian flag. The emperors Pedro I and II were of the House of Bragança (green) and Pedro I's wife, Maria Leopoldina, was a Habsburg (yellow). The imperial coat of arms is in the center. It is much like the Portuguese coat of arms with the crown of Pedro I and II above and branches of tobacco and coffee around. This was their family flag and the imperial flag of Brazil:

 

http://www.asbandeiras.hpg.ig.com.br/brasil/117imperiodobrasil18221889.JPG

 

Dick

[FinFangFoom]

I fucked him yeeeeeeeears ago. He was a total nutcase who kept begging for me to fuck him bareback. I later discovered he was a worker bee and about a year after that I saw him sitting behind Sarah Jessica Parker on an episode of "Sex and the City".

 

What a small world.

 

Nostalgically yours,

 

FFF