photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gay_Pride_Taiwan_2009.jpg
Part 2 /Jason is gay and formally unemployed. He lost his job a year and a half ago and, as hard as he tried, his applications got rejected. Now he uses a dating app to sell his lovemaking skills.
Jason agrees to meet us in a café not far from where he lives. He’s a trim, extremely tall man in his thirties and he could easily pass for a male model.
“One of my clients once asked me if I wanted to do some modeling but being too much under the spotlight has never been my thing”.
He’s a male prostitute, but you won’t see his ad on the window of a local shop or on the Internet because he’s active on a gay dating app, popular among those who like ‘NSA’ or ‘no strings attached’ affairs.
“Basically it means that we establish a quick conversation and we agree to meet somewhere for sex” Jason explains.
The app is free and users are randomly matched with partners and they decide to chat and exchange photos. Is it lucrative? “Well, I don’t ask for money but for ‘flowers’. In other terms when someone chooses me they know they will have to pay a certain amount of money to spend time with me. I give them the security of not catching any STDs for example, or not getting beaten up to death by total strangers. And there are many weirdos around”.
As a matter of fact, according to Galop Crime Report, during 2013 there have been over 1000 homophobic crimes recorded by police in London.
“I give them the certainty that I’m reliable, clean and properly checked”.
He makes £150 per client “but I don’t care about how much time they spend at my place. They can stay 10 minutes or 3 hours for the same price. I enjoy company and I like having men around the house”.
During his “past life” Jason was a blue collar. “Didn’t really like the job and many of my colleagues were mean and aggressive to me simply because I was gay”. Now things have changed. “I make more than what they could get in a year salary and I do what I like”.
Is it more of a need or does he really enjoy selling his body? “That’s not the point” he replies, “I like meeting new people and most of my clients are really fun to hang around with. They always have something interesting to say, a nice thought to share”. But bad experiences are part of the profession.
“It happened once. A man, I can still remember his face, wanted his money back because he was not ‘satisfied’. He grabbed my laptop and smashed it on my nose.
I lost consciousness for a bit and by the time I’d woken up my savings were gone and so was my laptop”.
While sipping his coffee he puts together a sentence in a perfect Italian.
“I had an Italian boyfriend once. He was the man of my dreams but I must confess he was a drug addict. I started to do drugs as well – cocaine, methamphetamine and so forth but that crap was eating me alive. I came clean two years ago and now I get tested every month to make sure I’m not a risk for anybody. And especially for myself”.
During the whole length of the interview, Jason’s eyes kept on drifting two tables away where a guy in his thirties was pretending to read a newspaper.
“I still believe I will find the man of my dreams” he confesses.
Could that guy be the one?
“I’m going to find out right now”. He quickly lands two tables away and sits with the stranger. But he’s not going to charge him £150: you can sell your body but you can’t buy love.
*Max Paradiso
Names have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees
