MALE SEX WORK AND SOCIETY
Edited by
Victor Minichiello, PhD
John Scott, PhD
Approx 512 pages, including glossary and index
33 full color illustrations
4 black & white illustrations
24 figures & graphs
Cloth, $120 ISBN: 978-1-939594-00-6
Paperback, $50 ISBN: 978-1-939594-01-3
Travis S. K. Kong
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.17312/harringtonparkpress/2014.09.msws.013
Travis Kong’s observations remind us that the stigma associated with male sex work is not only produced by mainstream cultures. Indeed, tongzhi, or gay-identified men, also actively participate in the marginalization of male sex workers. It might be said that so-called money boys, through their inferior status, help to define what is valued and considered normal among homosexual men in China. Kong’s description of the status of money boys reminds us of Gayle Rubin’s influential 1984 essay, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Rubin’s essay proposed that sexual practices and identities are organized by a sex hierarchy that is created and reproduced by a variety of discourses and institutions. Married, heterosexual, and monogamous couples who have sex in the privacy of their own homes for (at least officially) reproductive purposes hold pride of place at the top of the hierarchy. Their behavior is rewarded with legal endorsement and privilege, the stamp of mental health and normality, the approval of mainstream churches, and general legitimation as a mature and proper sexual form. Below the married couple in the sex hierarchy, other sexualities are organized in descending order of respectability and legal authorization, ranging from the “good sex” exemplified by the married couple and the “bad sex” at the bottom of the hierarchy, exemplified by “perversions.”
Kong has highlighted how, in the rapidly industrializing Chinese landscape, young men from rural communities have moved to the city and found an opportunity to earn an income. China in fact now hosts one of the largest listings of male escorts on rentboy.com, which indicates that, for many men and women, economic incentives are an important drawing card for entering into sex work. Money boys represent an aspirational occupational group in the market economy of reform China. As with other chapters in this book, current research on male sex work in China acknowledges the agency of sex workers and moves away from earlier presentations of male sex workers as pathological or vulnerable victims of circumstances beyond their control.
