ABSTRACT
The study of male homosexual prostitutes is bedevilled by sensationalism and academic myopia. For example, the titles of two well-known papers on the subject, ‘Dollars Take Priority over Love’ (Humphreys, 1972) and ‘The Meat Rack’ (Ginsburg, 1967), are without doubt spicier and more enticing than the average sociology article but employ imagery which is almost Dickensian in its evocation of an iniquitous white slave trade. The cost of such intellectual laxity, always considerable for the male prostitute, has substantially increased with the emergence of AIDS, when the dilemmas of the individuals involved require more imaginative understanding than has so far been commonplace.
