Don't have an account? This chapter concentrates on the male sex workers in Beijing and Shanghai. There are forty-five in-depth interviews of money boys mainly coming from rural or semi-rural areas to big cities in China.
Contrary to the overtly one-sided and dominant representation of male sex workers as depressed, depraved, dissolute and violent sociopaths in popular Chinese culture and media representations, it is found that the option of sex work has offered new possibilities for survival, livelihood, and self-development for young migrants in a class-stratified society confronted with massive tensions between rural and urban developments. In the discussion of male prostitution, one view is that it is a survival strategy enforced by poverty, homelessness, and powerlessness β a form of slavery arising from economic, social, and cultural deprivation.
Male prostitution is a contested but negotiated arena of power, and the identity of the male sex worker involves a strategic self that constantly negotiates risks and dangers, excitements and gains, in the process of sexual transaction.
Hong Kong Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content. To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us. University Press Scholarship Online.
