the DN’s headline ”We need to provide support for men who sell sex to other men” throws me back to the summer a few years ago when I was in the job, spent my nights at the Malmskillnadsgatan with the men and women who sold sex. The sex trade law that came in 1999 had made the supply of customers is significantly thinner, said the girls on the street, and more dangerous.
” the Sooner we could pick and choose among the customers for they are so many. You could choose a fresh fellow who seemed accurate and reliable. Now they are just the most dangerous that will. Those who don’t care if they get caught. There are many who are sick and violent. And who want to run without a rubber and pay the extra for it, said a woman on the street as I came near the summer.
There, on the strip between John’s church and Oxtorgsgatan, I learned to know a young man, we can call him Leon, who sold themselves to men.
Read more: ”We’re not talking about the male sex trade.”
who had moved to Stockholm from the countryside to look for love. But his dream was soon crushed. In gayvärlden nattklubbsliv he was sexually abused. Dude after dude who was just looking for a one night stand. No one was looking after him, really, that told me Leon for me with his bright, innocent voice.
– Then I decided to take matters into their own hands. I promised myself that I would never let myself be exploited. Now it was I who would control and take over the helm.
– As a prostitute, I can control over the sex. It is I who govern. I have the power. It is me they seek out and ask for permission and it is I who gets the money, ” he says.
He said he felt like a winner after each customer. A thousand to one thousand five hundred dollars richer. And he ruled everything.
– At the pub, it is instead I who gets abused and wasted. Where do I give away my body for free.
He is cute. And smart. On the days he works in the healthcare field. He is one of the most well-liked at his job. First, at nine, ten o’clock in the evening, he takes the subway to Malmskillnadsgatan.
Then begins the wait. The male customers are not so many.
” I have a man who is married who usually come to me. He is my regulars, ” he says proudly.
it’s a feather in the cap of the on the street. Now he can be in talking with those who worked longer. They all have their regulars as they talk about during the wait between the customers during the long nights. There will be a lot of talk on the street and many smoked cigarettes. Customers will sparsely this summer.
”Going slow tonight” (It goes slow in the evening), ” says Leon always to me and others and laughing.
Read more: ”All who sell sex need more support and help”
Onelinern ”Going slow tonight” belongs to Laura San Giacomos character of Kit de Luca (Julia Roberts prostitute friend) in the blockbuster film Pretty Woman from 1990.
Pretty Woman – where the american actress Julia Roberts plays the prostitute Vivian – is Leon’s favorite movie. He almost worships it.
I will ask Leon if he is aware that he probably loses more money by standing down there for hours and wait on customers who might never come. It costs him more in lost income than what they earn on their sex work.
But he does not care about it – that he would be a loser.
” I was just thinking about how it felt last time after I had that money in hand. How good it felt. It is it that controls me. I go down here every evening. That feeling. To get the fish to bite. Profit. The customer can come in at the last second. Then I have something to tell the other the next time.
I was just thinking about how it felt last time after I had that money in hand. How good it felt. It is it that controls me.
regularly that summer. We will be friends.
”What are you doing tonight?”, I write on the text,
”Down there and fish,” he replies with an emoji that depicts a fishing rod with a cheerful polluted fish in the catch.
He has become part of a world. Context. Scored a place. An identity.
It was not the dream or the life he desired. But there is something in all cases. He is special. He is a male prostitute.
”please Write about me, ” he says. I want to be in a film.”
“Yes I do,” says Leon with a smile. I would meet the right one, I would stop immediately. I want to live in the couple and being faithful to my partner.
Footnote: Leon really called something else.
