"Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard: jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning �" America at night fusing her darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness." �" John Rechy
The August 25 federal raid on Rentboy.com has already been widely condemned in the mainstream press. As a New York Times editorial notes, "It's somewhat baffling that taking down a website that operated in plain sight for nearly two decades suddenly became an investigative priority for the Department of Homeland Security and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn."
Some have even suggested that the takedown was instigated by politically connected clients afraid of exposure. As an ex-client myself, however, the last risk I'd want to take would involve my name ending up with the feds. (If I were richer, I'd hire others to cruise online). So why now? My guess? Follow the money (and vile ambition) �" the lust for an open seat as U.S. attorney (just vacated by Loretta Lynch when she became U.S. attorney general). A dirty business, indeed ...
Meanwhile, numerous similar sites remain online �" with room now for one more, perhaps best named "Pander Express." These are real exercises in harm-reduction: keeping hookers off the street, out of harm's way, with options to assess clients beforehand, and even to indicate whether their practice is (HIV) "safe." Exploitation? Hardly, when the price of an ad capitalizes a full-fledged entrepreneur charging $300 per hour, $1,000 overnight.
Indeed, raids like this (and outlawing prostitution itself) are so stupid that they threaten to preclude any rational discussion about the cultural and ethical ramifications of so-called sex work.
Obviously sex can be work; a more important question is whether it should be. In that regard, there's a revealing old adage among hookers �" that the real challenge isn't getting in the door; it's getting out.
Thus, the proverbial pudgy 55-year-old, lonely and looking for love (cited in an Atlantic piece justifying the "profession"), will be sorely disappointed by what gets out the door �" if closeted, paying to cover his hypocrisy.
Conversely, the sex worker �" who stakes his survival on providing a performance �" a mere simulacrum of affection for his love-starved client �" is compromising his own integrity. Moreover, by reducing his own sexuality to the provision of entertainment, he's discounting his own spontaneous propensity for the real thing. If all this is driven by necessity or prior trauma, it's all-the-more sad.
Meanwhile, the "queerer than thou" contingent is bewailing the Rentboy raid as a logical outcome of marriage equality �" symptomatic of the horrors of so-called assimilationism. I once shared such a view �" considering same-sex marriage preposterous �" a kludge, an attempt to mimic a heteronormative social structure.
I now realize that we've merely added a new option, for some, an opportunity to reshape what might otherwise be a life of loneliness, of "trade," of commercialized or furtive sex. In the process, the affectations of "queer" ghetto culture might lose their centrality �" but as alternatives (witness Folsom Street!) they're no more threatened than so-called traditional marriage.
In any event, one can deplore prostitution without invoking the law or the apparatus of the state.
Sex panic? The real objection here is not to sex, but to the commodification of affection and the colonization of intimacy. After all, prostitution is to sexuality what fast food is to food.
Why bother pontificating? Now 65, a lifelong activist, I was once that "pudgy 55-year-old" �" an over-age adolescent, never a closet case. I've striven mightily not to be a Larry Kramer-style curmudgeon �" instead, upholding an ideal of polymorphous sexuality �" only to conclude (after a few years' dalliance with some tantalizing rentboys) that Kramer's right about the need to grow up �" about the complex commitments and sustained care this involves �" in a world where we may not all share the same romantic vision.
Meanwhile, issues of class, real (or even perceived) disparities of wealth and power, corrupt and distort the emotional and spiritual components entwined with sexuality. Unfortunately, although many sex workers may be honest entertainers, or even skilled sex therapists, the necessary packaging, the inevitable pitch (as per Rentboy's appeal, "Pimp Yourself Now"), merely compounds the problem.
Any worthwhile dialogue must be nuanced. That's hard when passion (quite literally) is involved, especially when alarming numbers of people (who formerly might have been middle class) struggle to survive in a warped economy, like destitute islanders waiting for a cruise ship to dock. This is no inspiring vision for our youth. It sure ain't Woodstock; it isn't even your (gay fore-) fathers' disco era.
I merely hope (after all) to impart a glimmer of wisdom on a subject that seethes with sloganeering and hypocrisy on all sides. In that regard, if the ideal of an erotic community is at stake, it's worth noting that prostitution is neither free, nor is it love (and in many ways, is the opposite of both).
As for what remains of any utopian dreams? As any hooker might upbraid me, heading out the door: What did I expect?
At this point, I'm trying to stay healthy and clear-headed. I've adopted a kitten (real affection, all night, for 50 cents' worth of cat food!). For others, the winning pitch remains the same: "I won't take less than your love." Am I out in the nick of time?
Mitchell Halberstadt is an Oakland resident.