Hooville and Homohistory

[Will]

Every now and then I wonder what effect this website has had on what some like to call the escort "industry" (which strikes me as a particularly unhappy designation, but that's beside the point of this thread). I first came across M4M in the autumn of 1999, by which time it was already up and running. Since then, I have been a regular contributor, watching both clients and escorts come and go.

 

Before I found M4M, however, I had virtually no previous experience of sex-with-men-for-pay, although it obviously had a long and vigorous life before the internet floated us all onto the open playground of cyberspace. Thus, I'd be interested to learn how men with longer experience than mine would assess the impact of M4M on this particular way of men negotiating sex with each other. It's my impression that there are more escorts and more clients than there were four years ago. It's also my impression that M4M has provided a forum where various conventions of behavior are being worked out for a type of activity that was previously private, secret, and therefore isolated from any kind of conversation in which common objectives and ways of reaching them could be discussed.

 

From all this, I conclude that M4M has been a strong and positive force in this particular area of contemporary gay culture. I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

[Will]

Every now and then I wonder what effect this website has had on what some like to call the escort "industry" (which strikes me as a particularly unhappy designation, but that's beside the point of this thread). I first came across M4M in the autumn of 1999, by which time it was already up and running. Since then, I have been a regular contributor, watching both clients and escorts come and go.

 

Before I found M4M, however, I had virtually no previous experience of sex-with-men-for-pay, although it obviously had a long and vigorous life before the internet floated us all onto the open playground of cyberspace. Thus, I'd be interested to learn how men with longer experience than mine would assess the impact of M4M on this particular way of men negotiating sex with each other. It's my impression that there are more escorts and more clients than there were four years ago. It's also my impression that M4M has provided a forum where various conventions of behavior are being worked out for a type of activity that was previously private, secret, and therefore isolated from any kind of conversation in which common objectives and ways of reaching them could be discussed.

 

From all this, I conclude that M4M has been a strong and positive force in this particular area of contemporary gay culture. I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

[+ Charlie]

This site certainly has changed whom I hire and the way I hire. For twenty years before I discovered this site in 1999, I had hired escorts from advertisements in publications like the Advocate, tiny ads with very little information other than a few stats, a brief characterization (e.g., "dom top 4 u"), and possibly a black and white photo. Appointments were made spontaneously, by phone and sometimes only an hour beforehand. Now I read reviews, visit the escort's website, and confirm appointments days or weeks in advance by email.

 

The most important difference, however, is that I never shared my experiences with anyone else. If an escort turned out to be great or disastrous, even dangerous, I had no way to tell anyone else who might be interested in hiring him. I didn't have anyone else's experience to guide me, either: I had to make decisions about hiring based on my own instinct from very little information, at most the wording of the ad and a short phone conversation.

 

There are great advantages to this new pattern, but also a few drawbacks. I rarely take real chances anymore with someone totally unknown, because there are so many desirable escorts who have been pre-tested; that eliminates fear, but it also removes some of the excitement of arriving at an appointment not knowing exactly what to expect. When one has already seen multiple photos of the escort in various poses, one can't get the pleasant tingle of surprise to discover what he really looks like (though that tingle wasn't always so pleasant--the self-advertised "handsome, muscular" escort sometimes wasn't). Often, when I make an appointment far in advance, by the time it arrives I am in a different mood than I was when I made it--maybe I have scheduled a top, but now I want to be the top. The loss of spontaneity in the whole process has diminished some of the pleasure.

 

Until I discovered this website, I had almost no idea how many other men hired escorts, or who they were, and it has been very enjoyable to learn about my peers in the escort-hiring process, and even to meet a few of them. After every experience with an escort since 1978, I have written up a complete description of it, as part of my private journal. Since 1999, I have finally been able to share those descriptions, which is very satisfying for me (a compulsive narrator), and I hope useful for others.

[+ Charlie]

This site certainly has changed whom I hire and the way I hire. For twenty years before I discovered this site in 1999, I had hired escorts from advertisements in publications like the Advocate, tiny ads with very little information other than a few stats, a brief characterization (e.g., "dom top 4 u"), and possibly a black and white photo. Appointments were made spontaneously, by phone and sometimes only an hour beforehand. Now I read reviews, visit the escort's website, and confirm appointments days or weeks in advance by email.

 

The most important difference, however, is that I never shared my experiences with anyone else. If an escort turned out to be great or disastrous, even dangerous, I had no way to tell anyone else who might be interested in hiring him. I didn't have anyone else's experience to guide me, either: I had to make decisions about hiring based on my own instinct from very little information, at most the wording of the ad and a short phone conversation.

 

There are great advantages to this new pattern, but also a few drawbacks. I rarely take real chances anymore with someone totally unknown, because there are so many desirable escorts who have been pre-tested; that eliminates fear, but it also removes some of the excitement of arriving at an appointment not knowing exactly what to expect. When one has already seen multiple photos of the escort in various poses, one can't get the pleasant tingle of surprise to discover what he really looks like (though that tingle wasn't always so pleasant--the self-advertised "handsome, muscular" escort sometimes wasn't). Often, when I make an appointment far in advance, by the time it arrives I am in a different mood than I was when I made it--maybe I have scheduled a top, but now I want to be the top. The loss of spontaneity in the whole process has diminished some of the pleasure.

 

Until I discovered this website, I had almost no idea how many other men hired escorts, or who they were, and it has been very enjoyable to learn about my peers in the escort-hiring process, and even to meet a few of them. After every experience with an escort since 1978, I have written up a complete description of it, as part of my private journal. Since 1999, I have finally been able to share those descriptions, which is very satisfying for me (a compulsive narrator), and I hope useful for others.

[trilingual]

And this site has certainly promoted a mini-tourist/retirement boom in Brazil, to the point where a number of faithful readers have now bought homes there, found boyfriends there, and are planning on settling down there!

[trilingual]

And this site has certainly promoted a mini-tourist/retirement boom in Brazil, to the point where a number of faithful readers have now bought homes there, found boyfriends there, and are planning on settling down there!

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Gay For Pay

 

>Before I found M4M, however, I had virtually no previous

>experience of sex-with-men-for-pay, although it obviously had

>a long and vigorous life before the internet floated us all

>onto the open playground of cyberspace.

 

I would like to offer some opinions, not directly touching on your specific question, because I do not have the long standing experience that some clients have. Nonetheless, I believe the internet generally has made more information more accessible, including information about escorts. However, as Deej's comment in the "1978" thread indicate, there were men who were paying other men, both gay and straight, for sex, in a perhaps far more informal arrangement.

 

One thing which has happened in the last decade is that sex work has become more of an industry. When I escorted in the early 90s, in San Francisco, it was all newspaper classified or, at most, client referrals. Most escorts did not have cell phones and most escorts did not use photographs. Based on what I have seen and heard, in cities which did not permit escort advertising in the local gay publications, escorts had to work with an agency and the agency had the control. The only escorts who traveled were those whom a client imported or the very few well known porn stars, who mainly traveled where they could also strip and dance or were performing in a movie (i.e., coming to Los Angeles for Catalina or San Francisco for Falcon).

 

I would suspect that male escorts have existed for a long time, but as a very underground and far more informal institution. What this site has changed, at times, but not as often as we all might want, is the possibility that clients might get taken advantaged, the ability of escorts to maximize their earning capacity, and, I would like to believe, both the regard in which escorts hold clients and vice versa. I think more escorts have become genuine companions because of this site and other factors which have grown this industry.

 

> ...

 

>It's my impression that

>there are more escorts and more clients than there were four

>years ago.

 

My only other thought is that this has a lot to do with both men become more comfortable with exploring their sexuality and the ability of them to accept that an escort can help them explore this both safely and with minimal risks to ego, self-esteem, reputation and those other intangible factors. I also think that this growth of the internet has made sex work more acceptable, not just escorting, but adult films, web pay per view sites, dancing, modeling and the many other permutations. When the economy is impacting people negatively, I feel this has also had an effect on both supply and demand.

[Bilbo]

RE: a llittle speculation

 

I have long thought that in the future this site will be seen as having been one of the major influences eventually leading to the legalization of escorting.