Don't put on your Red Light
The male escort business has always had a rather unique image. While we often picture women employed as escorts or sex workers as exploited, abused and coerced, we like to regard their male counterparts as somehow more in control. The image of the wise cracking gigolo, offering sparkling conversation, sartorial elegance and perhaps a little something more is a much more congenial picture than that of the emaciated crack whore.
As such the latest news from the sordid underbelly of Oxford Student life is particularly informative. As we report this week a number of male students have advertised themselves as escorts across the broad fabric of the interweb, and it appears that one of their number was willing to act above and beyond the call of duty in the execution of his role.
We take great pleasure in reporting the fact that in our university, famed as a bastion of celibate troglodytes, there are individuals not only that are having sex, but that are deemed attractive enough for others to pay them for the privilege. Our decision not to name the student at the centre of this intrigue reflects a genuine concern on our behalf for the welfare of the young man concerned.
We have all had first hand experience of the insidious nature of college gossip, and how the most minor misdemeanour rapidly becomes public knowledge. As such, we feel there is little to be gained by publishing ‘Julian’s’ real name. However, the real issue that is raised by our coverage is whether or not to it is wrong to partake in such activities.
Elsewhere in this newspaper a senior academic from outside the Oxford bubble questions our society’s attitudes towards the trafficking of sexual services, and this is clearly an issue where open and frank debate is required. Some might say that rather than censuring those at the centre of this rent boy ‘scandal’ we should in fact applaud them for their entrepreneurial zeal.
After all, we all capitalise upon the name of our university in one way or another, or will do so when we have graduated and are looking for jobs. Is it really any different to use the august name of Oxford University to appeal to a particularly niche male escort market (comprised of ‘uniboys’ aficionados) than it is to impress the HR department of an investment bank? Of course, it is easy for us who are not involved to have a rose-tinted vision of the realities of escort work.
It is one thing to consider the high wages and relatively short hours while engaged in a thirteen hour shift stacking shelves with in generic German owned supermarket.
However, if the only way to gain those wages was to be vigorously sodomized by an anonymous stranger in return for a wad of grubby twenties how many of us would be prepared to go through with it? The clear issue at stake then, beyond the immediate sensation, is whether those offered services on the internet were in danger of being exploited. We are all of an age to make decisions, and it could be argued that the authorities have no right to sanction the private volition of the individual.
However, The Oxford Student still believes that we should not live in a society in which external pressures, especially financial ones can force a young man to, quite literally, take up a difficult position.
18th May 2006