Explain Male Sex Workers' Activities with Sexual Scripts Theory. Money, Masculinity, and Love.

Despite the large and growing number of research on the topic, sex work and sex workers can still be labelled as an unresearched area of study; even more under-explored is the male side of this phenomenon. But sex work and sex workers cover many issues that go beyond the questions related to legislation, criminalisation, and feminists’ debates.

In this oral presentation, we present two studies carried out in Italy and Sweden about male sex workers who sell sex to other men both online and in public venues (such as porn cinemas and cruising areas).

Since selling sex and sexual services is perceived as a stigmatised activity, especially for those men who self-identify as heterosexuals, men who engage in these behaviours need to find a way to justify their presence in the market. At the same time, as recent research highlighted, it is possible to observe the growing presence of self-identified homosexuals in sex work.

Our theoretical framework is based on the so-called sexual scripts theory of J. H. Gagnon and W. Simon, as presented in their seminal work “Sexual Conduct: The social sources of human sexuality”, published in 1973 by Aldine. Indeed, despite the years and criticisms, this theory continues to shape research and researchers in every corner of the planet in describing human sexual behaviours. And even in our two studies, we applied sexual scripts theory to understand how male sex workers behave with their clients around three key concepts: money, masculinity, and love. We will present how the relationship between escorts and clients cannot be simply explained under the rule of money but also how masculinity and love can shape and even better explain the decision behind the choice to start a career in the sex work market.