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Originally Posted by infopop
I skimmed through the article quickly with my messy knowledge of Tex-Mex Spanish, then again with the awkward and inelegant Google Translate version. It's really interesting to see the normalization in the culture, although I think we've seen it in straight culture for generations.
For example, I'm remembering a scene in "Biloxi Blues" where the G.I. Private (Matthew Broderick!) loses his virginity with a prostitute. There's always been a lot of that sort of thing going on, whether in the military, or with college students going to Texas' infamous "Chicken Ranch" in La Grange, or with some uncle or even father taking a young fellow to a brothel to "become a man." I've no idea how widespread it was or is, but it's a sort of archetype. We've seen it in the Wild West, we've seen it in Merrie England, we've seen it portrayed in romantic/tragic opera, and on and on.
Why is anyone surprised?
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The article focuses on the fact that young guys crowdfund their trips to the places where they meet up with the prostitutes on a regular basis. This has become a sort of a Friday-after-work-regular-entertainment feature. Not really a supposedly life-changing experience when you lost your virginity with the help of your buddies or someone from your family which was mostly a one-time, special kind of experience that you may be later on repeating ON your OWN (or not) in the years to come.
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Originally Posted by infopop
For self-identified gay men and bi men, and for straight-identified men-seeking-men, I edit and publish reviews on CRUISING for ESCORTS. There are indeed a lot of older men who hire younger men. There's also guys who simply are in the course of their careers, maybe travel, maybe not. There's even younger guys who may be coming to grips with their sexuality and find it hard, fearful to put themselves out there in the meat-marketplace.
So if they have the money, it can be easier to hire someone than to play the missed connection and flakiness games so characteristic of Internet dating these days.
It's not like years ago when I was 20-something. If I felt confident and I wanted to, it was easy enough in DC to walk into the Frat House or J.R.'s and find a nice older man to take me to his home or his hotel room. I didn't get paid, my reward was the experience.
There's fewer and fewer bars now with that atmosphere -- some in the leather scene, some places, or some times -- and generally today's gay bars are more places to hang out with people you know rather than places to hook up with someone new. |
The same applies to the bars across many cities in Europe now, too. Well, we have been socializing in those bars for a few years now. But socializing in a gay bar meant that you would bump into some of your buddies and talk with them. Then, someone you knew would stop by to say 'hello' and you would introduce the guy to your crowd, and he would probably join in. You would also wander off to the other groups where you knew someone to say 'hi' and meet a few other guys socially. Info on who is 'good' and who may not be that 'good' would be exchanged quickly, together with the basic info on the dude as in his being a 'top' or a 'bottom'.
Experienced cruisers would take all the information with a huge lump of salt but nonetheless, you had a starting point and an introduction, too. The size queens would know if you were going to be worth their while, and an 'older' dude would know if the young guy he was after was likely to cost him more than just a couple of drinks or not...
Most of this is now history. You meet up with your buddies and stay with them. Wanna meet someone knew? Turn on your app!
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Originally Posted by infopop
But back to the article and to Spain, I wonder if they have a similar discussion to the US one about "rape culture," respect for women, and that "no means no." We've had so many highly publicized cases and discussions about this in recent years.
To me it's better for a young man to to hire a professional - and not someone coerced into the business or the victim of human trafficking - than to force himself on someone he met at a party or was out with on a date.
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There are relatively very few rape cases reported in Spain. The society has become rather liberal; functioning bisexuality among young men is taken for granted among many, AND there is a very low cost professional service available for straight men mostly. Hence, rape along the lines of the highly-publicized cases in the US is really not an issue here.
The typical Spanish issue is 'gender-based violence'.
Men tend to beat and verbally abuse their girlfriends, wives, even sisters, mothers and/or other female relatives. They call it 'violencia de genero' and mostly see it as an issue of 'machismo'.
Hardly any of many of these sad cases of attacks on women is related to the desire to have sex with them, hence, there is really no rape element to it.
Men seem to be blowing the fuse if you will, in a society where they feel cornered by the demands of their female folk which they seem unable to fulfill for a variety of reasons.
At times, men have expectations that they have inherited from their originally conservative families and which their wives and GFs neither want nor really can fulfill in this time and age.
The conflicts and the ensuing violence are usually mind-boggling.
KD