I was twelve.

He was a teacher.

My parents had explained to me that they could no longer afford me. They had no money.

I was on my own.

I was terrified.

All I had to do was be naked, and then it got a little bit more complicated.

He liked watching me have sex with other boys.

He paid.

I was trying to survive.

My story is only relevant to me. But when I listen to other boys who are doing sex work today, I hear all too familiar echoes of things that never seem to change.

What has changed sex work is the Internet.

This is not trafficking. It has always been connected kids having sex with men who were paying tricks. There was no evil bad guy guiding anyone or anything. We were managing our own businesses. You quickly learned the ropes.

He sat there and masturbated while us boys had sex. Sometimes, he would tell us what to do, and we did it. Twenty dollars was a fortune.

For us, sex work was about POVERTY. It is not a complicated concept. I had always literally worn rags. After I started doing sex work, I could actually go into stores and buy clothes.

I could buy food.

Putting a roof over my head was often out of reach. But I wasn’t starving, and that was something.

What we did was degrading.

Especially when he made us shit one another other.

Watching us shit was extra. We grew increasingly numb from the abuse.

He’s dead. He died a few years ago. I am glad he’s dead. Just thinking about him leaves a bad and bitter taste inside my mouth. Some things stay with you forever. They cannot be erased.

Today, the tricks don’t like condoms. No condom is always extra.

PREP, the antiretroviral that is a prophylactic to HIV, is rarely available to young boys doing sex work. Even if the kid was utilizing a public health clinic, they want to know who you are, how old you are, where you live, and who your parents are. Public Health is only an idea. It has mainly failed us.

Poverty is not an idea. It’s quite real. And so is sex work. The boy learns how to market himself, and brand himself, on the Internet. This is where he meets his tricks.

Unless he has no access to a computer.

The infamous corners on the infamous streets are all still there, especially in the developing world. Prostitution has been around a long time. So has rape. So has disease. So has starvation, school failure, and shunning.

Boys doing sex work today are as at-risk as boys who did sex work in the past. The CDC calls them the Hard To Reach.

If they are, in fact, the Hard To Reach, they are the Hard To Reach because there is such little effort made to reach them.

QUID PRO QUO: INTERVIEWS WITH BOYS WHO DO SEX WORK, is a small collection of their stories.

Tim Barrus

Tim Barrus Blog

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QUID PRO QUO: INTERVIEWS: BOYS WHO DO SEX WORK