The organization has published a book, Sex Without Boundaries, about the ups and downs of eight young people working as MSWs. Their motto is, "Whoring to a Better Future, Paying for a More Sensuous Life". At times, staff at Midnight Blue launch outreaching visits to night clubs and saunas to advocate a safer environment for MSWs. Midnight Blue, set up in 2005, aims to promote safe sex among gays and provide legal support for MSWs. "A small number of them set up one-man brothels." "Not every money boy is a masseuse, but they ought to learn this skill if they look for more opportunities," said Wai. First, there are individual online encounters second, online agents and third, saunas and massage establishments. And I have learned a lot from them."Īt present, MSWs usually seek their customers in three ways. Plus, I get to know many people, some of them are rich and smart, through this job. I cannot get back to typical office work.
"I love the free time that the job allows me. He is gay and boasts dozens of customers.ĭaniel is now self-employed. "Husbands bring their wives along to go whoring due to the fact that it's exciting or husbands realize they cannot fulfill their wives' sexual needs so they hire MSWs to do the job," said a local sex worker named Wai. Nonetheless, an odd phenomenon is emerging nowadays that married couples visit male prostitutes to spice up their sexual lives. "It's a great challenge for them to expose themselves to strangers in a strange environment." Worse still, women do it at risk of getting pregnant," Yiu commented. "People believe men take advantage of women when having sex regardless whether they're forced to do so or they initiate it. The entrenched Chinese morality and psychological pressures prohibit women from seeking sex partners, said Leo Yiu, chief executive for Midnight Blue, a local support network for MSWs. "Female customers may just need someone to talk to, not necessarily sex." On rare occasions, females come to him for threesomes with their boyfriends.
"More than 90 percent of my customers are males," Daniel said. "My parents don't know about my work, or anything else about my sex life but they suspected that I was gay."Ĭontrary to common belief, the MSWs, who are usually labeled as "money boys", serve mainly males rather than females. His parents are teachers and living comfortably in his home town. However, I have always been concerned about how this (being a sex worker) may affect my family," Daniel said frankly. "I do not have a moral problem with having sex for money, as long as it's safe. "Some of them do it because they want to make more money, though." But as far as I know, no one has done this against their will or owing to their financial backgrounds," Daniel said. "I think men turn to prostitution for many reasons. Most male sex workers (MSWs), like Daniel, have chosen their vocation voluntarily. He lost his appeal and was banned from Hong Kong for the next two years. He continued working as a prostitute during his visits. He appealed and continued to come to Hong Kong while his appeal was underway. Daniel was charged with breaching the condition of his stay, when he was caught working on his tourist visa. He earns as much as 30,000 yuan in a month in Singapore. Sometimes he takes his customers to his hostel, where he pays HK$150 a day.ĭaniel now spends about three quarters a year in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
Daniel is pleased that he can earn a living in Hong Kong without a working visa. He attends up to five clients charging HK$600-800 each time. Daniel arrives periodically on a 7-day permit. He had already chatted with some potential customers on instant messaging services before setting out. In 2006, Daniel arrived in Hong Kong seeking to ply his trade. He was paid 1,000 yuan, a fair amount at that time. He uploaded his photograph to a compensated-dating website.
After about two years of nine-to-five office work in Shanghai, Daniel was bored. Soon he found some friends with similar taste. Driven by curiosity, he sought out gay photos online back in 1998, back when Internet access was still new to him. The medium-built and sun-tanned young man from Anhui province asked to be identified only by his first name and declined any photos, but he spoke candidly about his life as a sex worker, offering a rare glimpse into a common subculture that is being overlooked in modern society.ĭaniel claimed he was not sensitive to his sexual orientation when he was a boy. When Daniel, 33, decided to explore the gay world in 2000, he never thought he would eventually enter the oldest profession of mankind - prostitution.
He found office work boring so despite his well-to-do family background on the mainland, Daniel took up the sex trade.