HAS OUR INDUSTRY REACHED AN ALL TIME LOW NOW???

[Michael Wayne]

I haven't posted a new thread in a while which I know makes the Mikey haters out there very happy. However, I have received numerous private messages from forum members who are my fans and followers asking for my opinion on the current sorry state of the escort biz so I decided to post. Remember, I have been in this industry since my twink days in 1993 before there ever was a rentboy website so my perspective is a long and a broad one. As I evolved into a twunk and then into a REAL man I saw the biz evolve and grow and then EXPLODE thanks to rentboy.com. I never imagined it would get as big or as popular as it did . I did , however, forecast and predict that the bubble would burst. Old school rules such as DISCRETION and NEVER CONTACTING A CLIENT without being contacted were out the door. Rentboy recklessly pushed themselves out there for ALL to see and DHS saw and now we see the results. I sent an email to rentboy one year ago warning them that their hookie awards were a damn disgrace and that their recklessness was endangering the biz. I got a very nice and personal response essentially saying: " Thanks old man...we respect you and who u r with 20 years plus in the biz......BUT....we know what we are doing." I also voiced my concern to fellow pros . My clients cringed when they saw how brazenly rentboy operated.............So now here we are. We are basicly back to 1993 all over again. Rentmen is a wonderful site that almost NO ONE knows even exists. Men 4 rent now is a customer service nightmare that does produce some clients but now WE CAN'T EVEN LIST OUR RATES on a site called men 4 RENT!!! How absolutely absurd and asinine is that??? 90 percent of inquires are now "Hi. what are your rates?" I say 200 an hour and they about have a cow!!! Like I said it is 1993. They all want it for 100 an hour. Rentboy is down...the clients KNOW this and now they are all colluding to drive down the market price. I understand the market, free enterprise and competition as I have made well in excess of a million bucks escorting. I wish I still had it!!! I could write more but I won't. I will close with this: a good friend of mine who has , arguably, some of the BEST reviews in the history of Daddys reviews, recently told me this regarding something I said about all of the fools, flakes, fakes and frauds we escorts have to deal with on a daily basis (not the good ones who book....but the 90 percent who are gameplayers and outright liars). He said this, and anyone who is currently still escorting knows it is true: "Mikey, it is so bad now that I actually miss the fools, flakes, frauds and fakes." Even most of them are staying away. it is 1993................. anyway I and a few good ones are still in biz @ www.rentmen.com/mikeyusatop

[mike carey]

Mikey, thanks for posting that. I never used Rentboy as a serious way of hiring, but I did read it as a way that I would hire when I got to the US. That won't happen now (Rentboy hiring, not getting to the US). We all need to work out how we will interact and that is more difficult now that Rentboy has gone. There are some good guys still in the biz, and I hope to meet some of them!

[BaronArtz]

Well said, Mikey! Wish you all the best!

[Tuffpie]

As a newbie to hiring but an old timer in the tech field...

 

Technology disrupts, always. It breaks down the old and brings in the new, whatever the new might be; but that change is bought about by the people using that technology and there needs to be a critical mass of users, a tipping point that brings a change of attitudes. Rentboy was the confluence of technology and hubris, and so you got something less than disruption and more like simple ignorance. There was no critical mass of users; the laws remained the same and the attitudes toward sex work remained the same. It was irrational exuberance. But, while Rentboy is gone, the technology remains, the demand for sex workers remains, and America's liberalizing views on sex (fueled by the younger demographic) continues. The long term view for the industry is good, I think, but the next few years will be bumpy.

[MiamiLooker]

Mikey, are you sure it was Rentboy? As I recall from other posts throughout the years, the Rentboy staff was always polite and professional and actively investigated and acted upon alerts by clients of scammers and advertisers using fake pics. Among their main concerns were client safety and to keep clients from being scammed, not just collecting the money from their advertisers. Or, do I have their priorities backwards?

[BaronArtz]

Mikey, are you sure it was Rentboy? As I recall from other posts throughout the years, the Rentboy staff was always polite and professional and actively investigated and acted upon alerts by clients of scammers and advertisers using fake pics. Among their main concerns were client safety and to keep clients from being scammed, not just collecting the money from their advertisers. Or, do I have their priorities backwards?

 

LOL .... that's hilarious!

[Rudynate]

In 1993, the only venues that existed were word-of-mouth, cruising on the street and classified ads in the back pages of publications like the Advocate and the Bay Area Reporter. The Rentboy bust left a big hole in the market for sure, but the remaining options are way better than available in 1993. The escort market started reconfiguring itself within a day or two of the RB bust, and continues to. I have made hires from Daddy's, CL and M4RN, but never RB.

 

Mikey, the RB bust happened two months ago, yet you haven't edited your signature block to omit the link to RB. Wouldn't that be a good first step to changing your marketing focus?

[adriano46]

On a number of occasions in the past I wrote directly to the RB staff when I discovered false ads (or more often than not, phony or stolen photos). Their response was ... nothing. A few times I went further and contacted an escort directly who I knew had contact with RB's offices in NYC, and received "occasionally" a more positive response, but there was also more frustration as more and more fake ads kept flooding their site, especially in major cities.

 

I discovered RM about the time they started up and the customer care is 100% more positive. If you flag an ad as questionable, they investigate immediately, and generally the ad is "gone" within 24 hours unless the escort/person behind the ad can prove otherwise. I also like some of the bonuses they have added including making gifts to an escort, communicating with them more directly (if you have a premium membership), and getting more of an idea of the guy though photos, videos and interviews.

 

I am very sympathetic to the difficulties faced by the Rentboy7 now, and I am not about to condemn them with a "karma bites back" response, but I also hesitate to help them because of the way they cavalierly treated clients. Over the years I have generously supported and assisted various escorts who came on difficult times, as a way of acknowledging the joy and happiness they provided to me.

 

One last ting about RB - I must say.. about their HOOKIES awards that IMHO I felt these were fixed and biased. It was more like crowning "Queen for the Day," in the most recent years.

[MiamiLooker]

Over the years I have generously supported and assisted various escorts who came on difficult times, as a way of acknowledging the joy and happiness they provided to me.

+1

[bigvalboy]

Over the years I have generously supported and assisted various escorts who came on difficult times, as a way of acknowledging the joy and happiness they provided to me.

 

+1

 

+2

[SteelFan]

I do not think things are going back to 1993. Other websites will fill whatever void rentboy left behind.

[jimboivyo]

chicken little the sky is not falling

 

endure, adapt, move on. that's the nature of life. waving your hands in this case is just a waste of energy. there's no fire

[+ WilliamM]

endure, adapt, move on. that's the nature of life. waving your hands in this case is just a waste of energy. there's no fire

 

I realize I am changing the subject. When TLA video closed its video rental stores in 2011 in Philadelphia it was understandable. TLA was originally a theater that showed vintage films like "Casablanca." I saw a Igmar Bergman film there in 1968 when visiting Philadelpia. When the stores closed, TLA maintained it's business on-line, and does to this day.

 

But, TLA's store closing led to the end of the the annual film festival, which featured dozen of gay and lesbian films during an annual two-week marathon. More recently, Giovanni's Room closed, one of the last gay & lesbian book stores still open in the U.S. I can survive it all. But, damn it, I really miss the film festival.

[rocky]

Mikey and thanks for expressing many thoughts that I think we all have. But there are some that I personally have to comment on. I'm from upstate NY, where little options for opportunities for getting together exists. However I did enjoy "rentboy's" openness and, in my opinion, trying to bring back the gay times of yesteryears. Well ain't going to happen. I hope that someday an openness like Rentboy, or other sites will be available. Sorry, I don't get much help here, or M4Rentnow, or other sites available. I think some of you need to remember we're not all in cities where we can go to bars, or have hundreds of names show up under grindr or growrl. there are some of us that still need to find companionship and cuddle elsewhere..

 

I haven't posted a new thread in a while which I know makes the Mikey haters out there very happy. However, I have received numerous private messages from forum members who are my fans and followers asking for my opinion on the current sorry state of the escort biz so I decided to post. Remember, I have been in this industry since my twink days in 1993 before there ever was a rentboy website so my perspective is a long and a broad one. As I evolved into a twunk and then into a REAL man I saw the biz evolve and grow and then EXPLODE thanks to rentboy.com. I never imagined it would get as big or as popular as it did . I did , however, forecast and predict that the bubble would burst. Old school rules such as DISCRETION and NEVER CONTACTING A CLIENT without being contacted were out the door. Rentboy recklessly pushed themselves out there for ALL to see and DHS saw and now we see the results. I sent an email to rentboy one year ago warning them that their hookie awards were a damn disgrace and that their recklessness was endangering the biz. I got a very nice and personal response essentially saying: " Thanks old man...we respect you and who u r with 20 years plus in the biz......BUT....we know what we are doing." I also voiced my concern to fellow pros . My clients cringed when they saw how brazenly rentboy operated.............So now here we are. We are basicly back to 1993 all over again. Rentmen is a wonderful site that almost NO ONE knows even exists. Men 4 rent now is a customer service nightmare that does produce some clients but now WE CAN'T EVEN LIST OUR RATES on a site called men 4 RENT!!! How absolutely absurd and asinine is that??? 90 percent of inquires are now "Hi. what are your rates?" I say 200 an hour and they about have a cow!!! Like I said it is 1993. They all want it for 100 an hour. Rentboy is down...the clients KNOW this and now they are all colluding to drive down the market price. I understand the market, free enterprise and competition as I have made well in excess of a million bucks escorting. I wish I still had it!!! I could write more but I won't. I will close with this: a good friend of mine who has , arguably, some of the BEST reviews in the history of Daddys reviews, recently told me this regarding something I said about all of the fools, flakes, fakes and frauds we escorts have to deal with on a daily basis (not the good ones who book....but the 90 percent who are gameplayers and outright liars). He said this, and anyone who is currently still escorting knows it is true: "Mikey, it is so bad now that I actually miss the fools, flakes, frauds and fakes." Even most of them are staying away. it is 1993................. anyway I and a few good ones are still in biz @ www.rentmen.com/mikeyusatop

[+ stevenkesslar]

I will close with this: a good friend of mine who has , arguably, some of the BEST reviews in the history of Daddys reviews, recently told me this ... and anyone who is currently still escorting knows it is true: "Mikey, it is so bad now that I actually miss the fools, flakes, frauds and fakes." Even most of them are staying away. it is 1993.................

 

Wow. I think I also have some of the best reviews in the history of Daddy's reviews. It shows reality is a complicated thing.

 

I'd actually argue the opposite. I think times have almost never been better. Even including the Rentboy bust.

 

I've been in total VD (verbal diarrhea) mode again, so I'll try to keep this one to relatively succinct bullet points. (Yeah, right!)

 

1. It is not 1993. The huge disrupter in many fields, including this one, is the internet. It made my career as an escort possible. The internet has not gone away, and it is not going away. One website has been shut down, which this thread documents was less than perfect. (Two if you count Redbook). If and when more websites are shut down, and it becomes evident that a serious and multi-faceted federal campaign to really drive female or male escorting off the internet is underway, the reaction against Big Brother will only intensify and grow.

 

2. If this environment makes other escort websites think twice about what they are doing, that's good, whether that means better customer service or better safeguards to prevent what most if not all of us would likely agree is "bad stuff" (scams, trafficking, escorting by 16 year olds, although much of that stuff applies primarily to female escort websites).

 

3. If this makes escorts and clients think twice about the risk of getting busted, or endangering each other in any other way, that is a good thing.

 

4. For years I've heard a lot of clients talk about "the good old days" and the edgy fun of cruising parks for hookers or picking up hitch hikers or whatever. Of course, people can still do that, if they wish. But if you just focus on one stereotype - the movie "Cruising" - and the huge negative reaction it caused in its day - does anybody really think that driving escorting back to 1993 - back alleyways, dark bars, seedy hotel rooms - really makes sense? (Cruising was actually 1980, and about S & M rather than escorting, but it evoked the pre-Internet edginess of clandestine Gay sex, not to mention murder.) The anecdote I just described in a different thread - my escort buddy who was hired off the Web by a hot 20-something professional client who is from a conservative family and trying to come out - suggests we are moving forward, not backward. Like 1993, there is still a role for escorts. Unlike 1993, this kid will now be able to legally meet the man of his dreams eventually, and marry him. These are "the good old days."

 

5. At least in theory, the Rentboy bust gives Gay men and escorts a very good reason to unify with female escorts, who have been the traditional drivers of debates about decriminalization and improving how the industry works. The bust happened just weeks after Amnesty International announced plans to push a decriminalization agenda. I think over the long run there's a good chance the Rentboy bust will end up providing a lot of oxygen for that debate.

 

At the peak of my career, one of the luxuries I could afford was seeing a Gay therapist for a few years in San Francisco, Tiger Devore (I don't think I have to worry about naming him, since I was his client). I viewed him as much as a "life coach" as a therapist, and if I had to boil down what I paid him money for to one word, I would use this word: integration.

 

The Rentboy bust has been like the same sex marriage campaign to me, only it goes deeper in integrating different elements of my life. I really believe that the first 15-20 years of my adult life were driven by Paul Wellstone, who was really the guy that turned me into an organizer at college. I abandoned that in 2000, when I became an escort, and now I am kind of right back to Square One, in that Paul and his wife were as much as anyone the forces behind the TVPA. That federal law was not used to bust Rentboy (the Travel Act was), but it is the most recent federal law used to combat the worst elements of prostitution.

 

My life experience suggests that Ronald Reagan's joke - that politics is the second oldest profession in the world, and it's a lot like the first - is in fact true. What's actually felt empowering about this to me is that it takes two completely different elements of my life, that pretty much account for my entire adult life - politics and prostitution - and integrates them in an interesting way. So this is probably a selfish reaction, but for me it is the best of times. And what makes it particularly good for me is it's not about the money, in particular - its about the sense that there is something bigger and better to unify and work for. Even if it has the disadvantage of the label "prostitution," which sure is a different label than "marriage."

[Nvr2Thick]

...As I evolved into a twunk and then into a REAL man I saw the biz evolve and grow and then EXPLODE thanks to rentboy.com. I never imagined it would get as big or as popular as it did . I did , however, forecast and predict that the bubble would burst...

 

I'm glad you see it as a bubble. In many industries, however, a bubble indicates a negative -- an artificial inflation of the market. You seem to be saying that the Internet and largely Rentboy's effect on the escort industry was an artificial increase that you yourself recognized, and that you predicted its return to normal. I know, I'm being somewhat selective with my interpretation of your rant.

 

I lamented the passing of the pre-Rentboy days. Escorts were simply men who believed that they were good looking and thought they had sufficient assets and skills to provide this service. When I hired a guy I got a glimpse into the world of a handsome, hung man who had a life outside of escorting, usually thinly disguised by a false first name. It's been a few decades, but when I saw the first Internet-based escorts creating their personas it seemed absurd; false in an annoying way. Of course, this was happening all over the Internet, so now we take for granted that everyone everywhere has a persona, an avatar, and a portrayed image. Back then and even now I usually gravitate toward the regular guys with normal fake names, posting non-professional pictures that show off their appeal as normal men with above-average assets.

 

I don't think that things are reverting to 1993. I equate what's going on now to what goes on in the music industry: what once was simple and homegrown became corporate and image dominated, followed by a DIY rebellion. This has happened at least twice in my lifetime. In the world of escorting we've watched as the Internet elevated escorts from simple classified ads to wide-reaching larger than life personality promotion. Now we're seeing that wide-reaching medium facilitate a deconstruction of the larger than life; instead making the "simply men" I've mentioned above accessible in a more immediate fashion. I think this is happening because Internet accessibility has gone from something we did when we took time away from our lives to surf the web to something that is woven into our lives with social media and smart phones.

 

I'm starting to find that the best guys to meet are quietly promoting on A4A, Backpage, and Craigslist. And like the good old days of Advocate Classifieds and Frontiers Magazine, many of them are not trying to make a 20 year career out of it. They're just hot guys supplementing their income for a few years.

[BSR]

What puzzles me about the Rentboy shutdown is that I expected Rentmen to take over that niche of the market almost overnight, but that hasn't really materialized yet. I can understand why Men4RentNow didn't fill the gap because not that many clients used the site and a lot of escorts hated their customer service. The search function of Rentmen differs from the old Rentboy, but by rough estimate, 250+ escorts pop up for all of New York City whereas a Rentboy search of the five boroughs used to yield closer to 500 escort ads. And this is how many months after the Feds shut down Rentboy? A Las Vegas Rentboy search used to show about 80 escorts; the Rentmen search I just did yielded about 50 ads.

 

Rentmen didn't have anywhere nearly the cachet (for lack of a better word) that Rentboy did amongst clients, but shouldn't that have changed almost immediately once Rentboy, the former "gold standard" of escorting websites, was gone for good? I can understand why an escort would choose to lay low for a while until the dust cleared from the Rentboy raid, but hasn't more than enough time passed? Did part-time escorts stop advertising altogether and just relied on their regulars and word-of-mouth? Please don't tell me that a good chunk of the escort population chose to go down the Backpage path (eek!).

 

Earlier today I came across yet another horrible case of sex slavery, one of the countless cases in America. This one was particularly tragic: a 14-year-old girl was being pimped out by a group of four men. That is what really has me so angry about the whole Rentboy debacle. I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but why in God's name is the US Attorney's office wasting their time, energy, and resources on an operation like Rentboy (arguably illegal, but all amongst consenting adults) while thousands (tens of thousands?) of women and underage girls are currently trapped in sex slavery in America??

[Mocha]

What puzzles me about the Rentboy shutdown is that I expected Rentmen to take over that niche of the market almost overnight. The search function of Rentmen differs from the old Rentboy, but by rough estimate, 250+ escorts pop up for all of New York City whereas a Rentboy search of the five boroughs used to yield closer to 500 escort ads. And this is how many months after the Feds shut down Rentboy? A Las Vegas Rentboy search used to show about 80 escorts; the Rentmen search I just did yielded about 50 ads.

 

Please don't tell me that a good chunk of the escort population chose to go down the Backpage path (eek!).

 

I honestly wouldn't get too puzzled about it. IMO, I believe most rentboy ads were counterfeit. Fake. Phony. Artificial. Why?

 

Because it didn't make sense. I'm not dissing rentboy, I'm dissing some of the ads and numbers you seen. I seen in my own area, and even other small towns. Almost overnight, I seen rentboy ads pop up like nothing...but the weird thing was, they rarely said they were in town, and the ads would seem to not stay up long.

 

It's just like Grindr. Grindr has a bunch of fake, bullshit ads of beautiful ripped guys. I been chatting with one, he occasionally hits me up to meet...yet this guy only texts b won't call me, doesn't answer his phone when I call, and voicemail has no name to it. Just a generic "you've reach the voice mailbox of:" He may be real, but I'm done with the games. Today we planned to meet at a specific time. He changes it up, makes some excuse and just gave me the run around.

 

I really don't know what kind of games these clowns be playing, but not every man that glistens is gold. And above all...as me and other escorts have said, rentboy took too long to bring clients. Personally, after 6 years, I don't feel the business is at an all time low. But I do feel nowadays, you just can't stay in 1 place. You have to keep moving. And it varies from city to city. Day to day. And for the most part, openly out gay men probably make up less than half of 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of our clients. It's the bi, married and curious nowadays. There's too many (quality questionable) options out there nowadays for many sexually active gay men. Even the older guys are finding guys who are without a place to live to provide them companionship. But, I always here the stories of drama that follow, by allowing unstable people into their lives, and it's kinda sad. Them hoes aren't loyal.

 

Backpage is dead. They killed it. They choked it out, stomped it out, and buried it, then set the casket on fire (kind of what I wanted to do to majority of the people who contacted me from there) The site is dead, dead, dead. For a short while, it used to be reliable in some areas, but now it's just a bunch of bullshit and buffoons

[+ stevenkesslar]

I can understand why an escort would choose to lay low for a while until the dust cleared from the Rentboy raid, but hasn't more than enough time passed?

 

That's a no brainer. No. It's early days. I have escort friends that are still worried that the info seized in the Rentboy bust is going to be used to come after them. We have no idea where the Rentboy case will go, or whether it is just #2 in a list of busts (Redbook being #1).

 

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but why in God's name is the US Attorney's office wasting their time, energy, and resources on an operation like Rentboy (arguably illegal, but all amongst consenting adults) while thousands (tens of thousands?) of women and underage girls are currently trapped in sex slavery in America??

 

Thank you. I'll take what you said here an an opportunity to ramble on more about what I wrote above, and say it both personal terms, and political terms.

 

Part of what makes this particularly emotional and interesting for me is that I can personalize this down to a fairly well known and revered political figure I happened to know well: Paul Wellstone. He played a huge role in my life, and was as much as anyone the motivation behind what I did as a political activist and organizer all through my 20's and 30's. That's oversimplifying it, no one has just one mentor or just one motivator, but it's true enough. It's been over a decade since he died, and the only context I have for really putting him in a category with "prostitution" is also very personal. I went to a symposium on his life and accomplishments about a year after his death that was held at Carleton, my alma mater and where he taught. And the place is swarming with graduates who I went to school with and who knew me as a lefty college student and Wellstone groupie, like they were. Except now I've also got this long track record of accomplishments like taking on big banks and Fannie Mae and helping take down Enron, and all this other Wellstone-like stuff, just like a lot of graduates do, including friends of mine who are well know left-wing activists and bureaucrats and professors. We all made Paul proud. And we talk about that. But for me there is this other edge: it's about 2003 and I'm bulked up and muscular and wearing tight Armani clothes, not exactly looking like your nerdy left-wing college professor type. And that's of course because I'm not really an activist anymore. I'm an escort, running around the world with clients, and that's not something I really want to share with anyone there, including some of my closest friends from college. So it all felt a little weird, and of course it also all felt sad.

 

I knew some of this back then, and since the Rentboy bust I've researched a lot about it. Paul and his wife Sheila are credited with being leaders in the fight against modern sex slavery, and they were at the center of getting the most recent federal law dealing with prostitution and trafficking and sex slavery passed - the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. That law is based on a set of values that are classic Paul and Sheila, and that I feel are at the core of my conscience, which he as much as anyone helped developed. The word that sums it up to me is "decency." So it's been a helpful tool for reflection for me. On the one hand, if I wanted to, I could view myself as a bad guy, and a criminal, at the margin of this so-called "global criminal enterprise" that people like him fought, and that DHS is now going after. But of course I don't view it that way.

 

At the risk of sounding snobby, I am pretty sure I could get meetings with several current US Senators and House members or their staff based on my background with them, and my personal connections, to talk about this issue, and what the feds are doing on it. Depending on where this goes - like if it goes to a trial, and if a political coalition emerges beyond some initial public ranting - I'm just waiting for shoes to drop to decide how far I go and what I do. The political person I can't talk to that I would most like to is Paul. And it's bullshit to presume I know how he'd feel about this. But I remember going doorknocking for him back in 1982 when he was running for State Auditor in Minnesota, long before I admitted to myself I was Gay (he was actually one of the people that urged my ex-wife to marry me), and having this long and sad discussion at a door with a Gay man dying of AIDS who felt nobody gave a shit about Gay men. That they were dirt. And back then, if you were Gay and had AIDS, you were kind of dirt. I remember talking with Paul about that afterward, when we debriefed, and of course Paul was Paul. He was always for the disempowered, and he was passionate about Gay rights. He's one of the reasons I have a hard time feeling that many members of Congress would be particularly pleased that Obama's DHS or Obama's AG army is using the federal laws Congress passed to protect women and kids from sex slavery to instead target a website that caters to older Gay men who tend to be wealthy and college educated, and younger Gay men who used it to do things like pay for college or start their life. So all of this has brought some things together for me and helped me integrate chunks of my life and my belief system.

 

The other thing about Paul was that he had vision, and was a fighter. That's what led him to run for the Senate, win, and take up things like the TYPA. So to me it's a no brainer how I look at this: I can look at it through Paul's eyes, and through a prostitute's eyes. And without trying to explain it 100 % clearly in words, on an emotional level, it actually all kind of feels like the same thing. So I look at this as a multi-dimensional fight.

 

The most obvious part of that is that I don't like the Rentboy bust, and I'll do everything I can to fight it. Duh! One reason is that I actually do believe that at the 30,000 foot level, if the feds could shut down every escorting website (which they can't) it would actually make things a lot worse, by turning escorts on websites into prostitutes on street corners. That's actually why in an earlier set of posts I got into it with Anton about Amsterdam. I know next to nothing about Amsterdam, really, but my own two cents is I don't want to see cities in the US turned into Amsterdams, either because prostitution is decriminalized, and it is overridden by criminals, or because it is driven underground, and it goes back to the days of drug addicts and teens on Polk Street in San Francisco. The positive way of saying that is that I think of this just like I think Paul would: what coalition needs to be built, what set of interests need to be brought together, what group of the disempowered and the despised needs to be brought to the table so we can have a pragmatic discussion about how to make things better, not worse? Danny and Silas and several others are I think closest to the female and transgendered sex worker networks that know the most about this - like a street-level view of "prostitution" and trafficking - and have fought for a better sex worker industry for decades. They are exactly right that, to some degree, we need to learn from other sex worker/activists, and follow their lead, if this decriminalization thing really gets going.

 

In the mean time, I hope it takes a lot of time for the dust to settle with RentMen and other websites. And I hope everybody here is going to take this as an opportunity to unify, think, and make things better, not worse, in as many ways as we can think to do so. It may seem inconsistent that right now I am defending Rentboy and attacking RentMen:

 

http://www.companyofmen.org/threads/this-traveling-pack-has-me-concerned.108007/page-2#post-1009545

 

Sorry, but what I find callous is that there are people that are perfectly happy to use Rentboy to advertise or hire, until the day they are busted. Then we hear a laundry list of all the things they did wrong, and we say "Next!" The way this was stated the most clearly is this: "The game goes on. What is the BIG DEAL?" Sorry, but I think it is a BIG DEAL. And part of the BIG DEAL to me is the Paul inside me is saying that these websites should have a set of values, and they should provide decent customer service, and they should have a goal of fighting things like drug abuse and underage prostitution and trafficking, which I actually think Rentboy in their own way did. So if RentMen is running ads by scammers, which I think they are, and they provide less than perfect customer service, which I think they do, I don't think we should wait until they get busted, if they do, and then throw them under the bus, like some of you want to do with Rentboy now. I think we should focus on the present, and demand they do a good job meeting our needs now. And if the feds go after them, I think we should also be willing to fight to defend them.

 

I don't think I'm a dummy, and I do practice caveat emptor. But I also think that we're not just all in this on our own. The whole thing about Paul to me is he is a symbol for how unity and collective action can makes things better. My favorite organizing phrase comes from Saul Alinsky: the action is in the reaction. Dumb things that piss people off, like the Rentboy bust, can be opportunities in disguise, on lots and lots of levels.

[Michael Wayne]

Thanks for all the imput guys and a special big thanks to DADDY for updating my screename. I moved away from NOLA in 2011 and I just haven't gotten around to removing that reference to New Orleans, La. yet. Finally I did. Michael Wayne is my name...no secrets and nothing to hide. I am an out and proud gay man serving the gay and closeted (confused?) lol ...community since 1993. My review link was also confusing as it ended in ft Lauderdale. I was planning to move there BUT DC WON OUT and the District is now home and is complete with an IN CALL location.

[Michael Wayne]

One clarification from the OP (me!) lol........ What I meant by, "It is 1993 all over again," had to do with the RATES. The going rate in those days when Hotspots magazine and David magazine ruled the South Florida gay world was $100 as we advertised in the back in print as , "models," for $100 an hour. That was the top of the market except for a few porn stars. Those careers flamed out with A.I.D.S. and/ or cocaine. When I moved to San Antonio I advertised in the TWIT also in Houston and Dallas the rates were again $100. I branched out and discovered unzipped magazine at the same time I did my INCHES magazine and PLAYGIRL magazine shoots. I started getting overnights and people flew me around.. But even in the late 90s we were glad to get 300 for an overnight or 500 for a weekend. That was big money. That was almost what the few remaining pornstars were getting. That is when I retired................ then Rentboy was born and a revolution happened. When I got back in the biz in 2007 in NOLA after my sugar daddy went flat broke on me things had really changed. I started back in print cause I could not turn on a computer! I used Ambush magazine there with Rip and Marsha in the French Quarter. I took computer classes....got online and discovered Craigslist erotic services. My rate jumped to 150.....then I found Rentboy, M4Rn and eventually rentmen and the rate rose to 200. People did not bat an eye. Actually most were shocked it was so LOW. Even thenas I moved back to FLorida and aged I found a ready and very eager and willing market at 200 with 1,000 $ overnights aplenty. Only now (post RB) in 2015 have we reverted to 1993 rates. a select few (Killian it seems) are bucking this trend and I am very happy for the few like him! Congrats! But here in the REAL world where most of us hard working men dwell it is 1993. Yes the internet is here so the dynamics are different but the rates are regressing to 1993 levels. thst is undeniable. Now the question is : do we work for 100 an hour? I do not. I am well ahead financially and I escort for the fun of it out of a position of power. I post this because I feel bad for the 20 somethings..........................

[Nvr2Thick]

One clarification from the OP (me!) lol........ What I meant by, "It is 1993 all over again," had to do with the RATES. The going rate in those days when Hotspots magazine and David magazine ruled the South Florida gay world was $100 as we advertised in the back in print as , "models," for $100 an hour. ...

Yes the internet is here so the dynamics are different but the rates are regressing to 1993 levels. thst is undeniable. Now the question is : do we work for 100 an hour? I do not. I am well ahead financially and I escort for the fun of it out of a position of power. I post this because I feel bad for the 20 somethings..........................

 

With all due respect, I believe that you're experiencing a decline in rates because the $100/hr you might draw in 2015 as a 39 year-old is not quite the same as the $100/hr you drew in 1993 as a 17 year-old.

[rvwnsd]

One clarification from the OP (me!) lol........ What I meant by, "It is 1993 all over again," had to do with the RATES. The going rate in those days when Hotspots magazine and David magazine ruled the South Florida gay world was $100 as we advertised in the back in print as , "models," for $100 an hour. ... Only now (post RB) in 2015 have we reverted to 1993 rates. a select few (Killian it seems) are bucking this trend and I am very happy for the few like him! Congrats! But here in the REAL world where most of us hard working men dwell it is 1993. Yes the internet is here so the dynamics are different but the rates are regressing to 1993 levels. thst is undeniable. Now the question is : do we work for 100 an hour? I do not. I am well ahead financially and I escort for the fun of it out of a position of power. I post this because I feel bad for the 20 somethings..........................

 

I don't know what market you are using to conduct your analysis, but rates in the three markets I most often shop (Southern California, Arizona, and Chicago ) are in the $200 - $300 range. I don't doubt you have clients who want to pay $100/hour, but I would like to pay $0.99 per gallon for gas and that isn't happening, either.

[bigvalboy]

But here in the REAL world where most of us hard working men dwell it is 1993. Yes the internet is here so the dynamics are different but the rates are regressing to 1993 levels. thst is undeniable. Now the question is : do we work for 100 an hour? I do not. I am well ahead financially and I escort for the fun of it out of a position of power. I post this because I feel bad for the 20 somethings..........................

 

I think Michael that the decline in rates are due in part because of sites like CL and BP. I have friends who routinely hire off those sites, and many of the guys are getting around $100-150 dollars. Guys advertising there have flooded the market. We can argue the merits of CL or BP all day, but the fact remains that many clients have turned to that venue looking for guys to hire at reduced rates. Many guys that hire you are also now baby boomers, and are now starting to retire in large numbers. While some of those baby boomers are well off financially, many more are on a fixed income, and unwilling to shell out the kind of money for an escort that they once did. You mentioned this dilemma once when you had returned to Florida, and I think you are at least partially correct.

 

Life changes, and it is not always easy to adapt. Who would have guessed the CL, BP and grindr would have become such a phenomenon.

[marylander1940]

chicken little the sky is not falling

 

endure, adapt, move on. that's the nature of life. waving your hands in this case is just a waste of energy. there's no fire

 

Brilliant!

 

The market will fix itself sooner or later but the guys from RentMen could be a little bit more proactive and promote their site, the could inspire themselves in the example of the Cleveland massacre.

 

http://www.americanhistoryusa.com/cleveland-massacre-standard-oil-makes-first-attack/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller