Male Prostitution - Feminist Studies

Feminist Studies

The topic of male prostitution has been examined by feminist theorists. Feminist theorists Justin Gaffney and Kate Beverley stated that the insights gained from research on male sex workers in central London allowed comparison between the experiences of the 'hidden' population of male prostitutes and the traditionally subordinate position of women in a patriarchal society. Gaffney and Beverley argue that male sex workers occupy a subordinate position in our society which, as with women, is ensured by hegemonic and patriarchal constructs.

In contrast, social theorists writing from a poststructural critical theory perspective have claimed that unlike women, male sex workers are seen as less likely to take on submissive roles by their clients due to hegemonic misogynistic social constructs. Based on a series of interviews, Douglas Langston finds the attitude of "johns" and underground male sex workers towards gender relations 'remarkably misogynistic,' and compares their attitude to that of the fiction and Christian apologetics of C.S. Lewis. Langston argues that both express a remarkably similar misogyny to the point of male homoerotism, and fetishization of patriarchal domination, especially over subjects seen by other members of society as less likely to take on submissive roles.