I have been running on a bit of an unusually tight schedule lately. Yet, this article caught my attention in mid-September, and I wanted to share it with you guys.

It is in Spanish, which is a bit of bummer for those whose Spanish may be too rusty to read it through...

Pagar por sexo, normal entre los jóvenes | Sociedad Home | EL MUNDO

In a nutshell, it is about your usual college age guys who, though heavily affected by the lack of cash, high unemployment in Spain, and other accompanying woes, choose to save up and pay the prostitutes for some fun.

Like so many other things in Spain, it usually happens in a group or at least, with your best buddy. The amounts of cash exchanged are usually very modest. The sex is anywhere from OK to stellar. The respective GFs do not like the idea but do not need to know.

No one has serious moral hang ups about it. It is sex. Everyone needs it. And if you happen to be in your early 20's you may need a lot of it..

They go on to say that prostitution happens to be gender-based violence almost per se. And, sure, many prostitutes are victims of human trafficking. None of the guys seem to be too concerned about it for as long as they can enjoy themselves.

A few dudes turn out to be sex-addicts. Their ability to create human, emotional bonds, etc., is reduced or even diminished.

Yet, the article ends up quoting one of the guys saying, "with whores you save both money and time."

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All of the above pertains to the str8 dudes.

Seen anything similar among the gay guys in your corner of the global woods?

KD

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The argument that "with whores you save both money and time" I know a lot of guys who would agree with that. Back in college the idea that going to a strip club and getting a lap dance may be expensive - but if you add up the cost of dating (dinners, movies, etc) it can be much more cost effective to just go and get your rocks off.

The funny thing is in the gay community I think it is just the opposite. Your article talks about young college guys paying for it because it is cheaper - with gay sex I don't think it is so much the young guys having to pay to get some as the older guys...

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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?

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.

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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This is probably a universal phenomenon. Whenever there is a substantial difference in pricing on the fresh daily meat market, and you want to overcome your disadvantage, cash comes to your help. Straight or gay or whoever.

More likely than not, the young gay guys won't develop anything along the lines of behavior described in the article I have mentioned. Guys are guys. They'll have sex and move on. Relatively few, if possibly an increasing number of them would go as far as to condition sex with previously built emotional bonds, promises of life together or marriage, etc.

KD

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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.

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!

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

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I find this relatively new phenomenon all over the place - not just bars or gays bars - everywhere that people used to go to meet new people.

Everything now is a group going out together and you do not interact with "strangers", you stay with your group. It makes it so difficult to make new friends and expand your social circle.

I can see the apps replacing gay bars for hook ups - but sometimes you just need to get out of the house and meet someone new and most of the places people freak out if a stranger starts talking to them.

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Very true!

I have also noticed that the apps are now starting to develop the same symptoms if you will.

People chat you up. Much of it stays within the 'How are you doing?' range.

I doubt that the guys using Grindr really want to engage in civilities only. Yet, the fear/social incompetence is out there doing well and getting stronger by the day.

Few people dare to ask anything beyond the aforementioned civilities.

If you asked, 'What are you up to?', the chances are that the dude would run for the hills and say, 'Nothing'.

If you asked, 'Who/what are you looking for?', the chances are that the dude will get all-defensive as in, 'nothing in particular'?

The more empty, easy, cheap, effortless communication we have the less value there is to it.

KD

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LOL - that is so true!

There is an ABS in the area and at times all the booths are full and people are waiting, especially for the glory hole booths. When waiting sometimes a conversation will start up but it will be over the most mundane non sexual topics.

It is the middle of porn store with a bunch of horny guys waiting for access to a glory hole and they will be talking weather, politics, last nights TV shows!

Not sure if it is society that makes us nervous or that little fear "What if the person is a cop and this is a raid" but so seldom will anyone address anything about why they are really there.

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You could kinda rationalize the fear of entrapment/sting operation, etc. No doubt, the whole situation must be weird-weird, though.

Now, if a guy chats you up on a Grindr to ask how are you doing ONLY? Well, this sure, is both civil and polite... but I doubt that this is what the guys flock to to those apps for.

I am probably a bit old-fashioned here but if you chat anyone up, you ought to take the risk and spill out your 'plan' or whatever? You are chatting someone up for a reason, so, show some guts and accept the risk of being rejected...or whatever the case may be.

KD

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