ABSTRACT
In a richly detailed chapter, Cirus Rinaldi places contemporary male sex work in Southern Italy in the context of a long history of sex work and of attitudes toward homosexuality. In the traditional paradigm of Mediterranean homosexuality, a man may have sex with other men without losing his manly reputation and normative sexual status as long as he is “active” and has a virile appearance. In contrast, those who perform a “passive” role in anal intercourse are seen as “faggots,” “sick people,” and “sinners” to be exploited. While a newer model based on homosexual identity has challenged this traditional model of homosexuality, the earlier model remains central to contemporary male sex work in Southern Italy. Typically, male sex workers enact sexual scripts to protect their threatened masculinity by identifying their clients as “faggots.” As sex workers, they are dependent on their clients (and thus occupy a subordinate position), but they resist identification with them. The sexual-economic exchange must appear as a concession that the sex worker grants to the client. The most common justifications that sex workers use to legitimize their behavior revolve around neutralizing the stigma of having sex with other men. They present themselves as subscribing to the dominant social values and sexual norms as a means of convincing others that they should not be classified as “queers” even as they offer excuses for engaging in sex with men. The sex workers’ self-positioning as both heterosexual and contemptuous of their clients enables them to assert a claim to traditional masculinity. They often convey a hypermasculinity through aggressive manners and virile physicality in an effort to compensate for their sacrificed masculinity.
