It’s hard to make an indecent living. That’s the tagline, excuse the pun, of M-Net’s Tuesday night comedy-drama series, Hung.
In it, Thomas Jane plays Ray Drecker, a divorced middle-aged basketball coach and high school history teacher who’s left with nothing after his house burns down.
Needing to provide for his children, he opts to use his exceptional physical endowment (hence the title) to change his fortune - with the help of first one, then two female pimps. Their business, Happiness Consultants, services well-to-do but lonely women.
The critically acclaimed HBO series made us wonder: Are hard times forcing more men into prostitution?
It’s impossible to gauge how many men are servicing clients in South Africa, but a Google search on “male escorts” yields many sites such as gigolos.co.za, stripped.co.za, wildparties.co.za and escorts.co.za. In today’s economic times, more will no doubt appear.
But it was the lure of extra cash that seduced Deon - not his real name - into that life. By day, he has a very respectable and reasonably paid job in the corporate world (but “not so much that I can blow R10 000 frivolously”). At night and at the weekend, he works as a male escort.
He hates that label. It’s seedy, he says, and doesn’t adequately describe his “skills”. He prefers to be called “a service provider”.
The 40-year-old, one of the few male escorts advertising on the internet who was prepared to be interviewed, said it all started four years ago.
A “braai, beer and rugby kind of guy”, he visited Kim, a female escort, for a “happy ending massage”. They talked about her work. Seeing that he was intrigued, she suggested that he give it a go.
He dismissed the thought immediately. He wasn’t crazy enough to do that, he told her. Besides, his salary wasn’t bad.
But afterwards he gave it serious thought. The idea of raking in more money was seductive. He called Kim one day and told her he was keen to do it. A week later she called with a booking for him.
A male client wanted a threesome, and was willing to pay Kim and Deon R750 each for an hour.
Deon agreed.
On the day, however, he was so nervous that he was shaking. “It was in the middle of the afternoon, I was stone-cold sober and there was a man who wanted to touch me. I had never done that in my life.
“I was s*** scared,” he recalls.
Kim could see he was freaked out and told him: “Just do what feels natural. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.”
Deon stayed in the backgroud, only responding when Kim touched him sensually. But she took care of the client on her own.
“He didn’t touch me, but he wouldn’t stop looking at me either,” said Deon.
It got easier after that first experience. They serviced a few more clients, including couples, together, before Deon decided to strike out on his own. For a part-time stint, the money was good. He would rake in R30 000 to R50 000 a month.
Working mostly from his home on the East Rand, Deon charges R1 000 an hour. He has become far more discerning about the clients. Most are white, married women between the ages of 30 and 45. And, from the type of vehicles, that show up at his house - a Porsche Cayenne, X5s and BMW 7 series - they are wealthy women.
For R1 000, he gives women and men a full body - front and back - massage with the option of a “happy ending”.
He doesn’t actually have sex with the men, but does ensure they achieve sexual release.
Deon says he’s a very good masseuse. It’s not just a stroke here and there, he says.
Clients have a choice of whether they want him naked or wearing shorts during the massage.
If his female clients want a “full house”, he makes love to them with a condom. Some have offered to double his rate for unprotected sex, but he tells them “that’s never going to happen”.
Interestingly, three out of four clients don’t want penetrative sex, says Deon. While he may stimulate them, they see him for the simple reason that they want to talk and need someone to listen to them.
He says they are very lonely women, whose husbands work long hours. Two of his regular clients, for instance, see their husbands three times a week.
They want to be told that they are beautiful and, whatever their appearance or shape, Deon obliges.
To some of his regulars, he has become their “overpaid psychologist”, he says. They confide their lives to him and even divulge their sexual problems, asking him for advice on ways to satisfy their husbands.
“Eventually, it becomes almost a teacher-pupil relationship,” says Deon. “And I might get an SMS afterwards that says, ‘Thank you, you’ve really helped’.”
He says he makes his clients’ experiences really special for them. He doesn’t do anything kinky. “It’s an honest-to-goodness experience they want.
“I treat them with respect and dignity. I don’t have sex with them and then tell them to get out of my house. They don’t leave quivering.
“I’m everything a lot of women want but don’t have because their husbands are working so hard. So they phone me instead,” he adds.
Often he meets his clients at a hotel, where they spend two to three hours together. He has been flown to Durban and Cape Town, and had all his expenses paid at hotels. For these clients, he charges R5 000 for the night.
He says he never ventures to their homes. It’s too risky. He does not want to be put in a situation from which he can’t extricate himself. “I’m not that stupid. At a hotel I have control over the surroundings,” says Deon.
The only time he risked going to a client’s home was when he and a woman friend were hired for an all-night booking. The married couple, from Mpumalanga, paid them R10 000 each.
Do any of his clients ever fall in love with him?
Yes, replies Deon, but “I’m upfront with them and tell that that it can’t happen. I can’t have a relationship with a client.”
Some have become upset, but eventually they understand and return to him.
He once developed feelings for a client. She was beautiful and she understood him. She was also married, says Deon. He knew his boundaries and played by the rules.
One of his more enjoyable experiences, Deon says, was being hired by a wealthy 60-year-old, single woman. She wasn’t interested in sex, she told him that she was too old for it. She just needed someone to accompany her to an upmarket banquet for a few hours.
He got R5 000 for that service.
“These bookings don’t happen often,” says Deon. “But when they do, I have more fun. I can be myself. I can talk to people on a different level than just sex.”
Do escorts ever get abusive treatment from their clients?
“Yes, it does happen. I know of a woman who was raped after the man installing her TV discovered what she did for a living.
“He laughed and walked away. I told her to report it to the police and see a doctor. Subsequently that man was arrested,” says Deon.
The only abuse he’s ever received has been verbal - from a male client who had contracted Deon and a woman escort for a foursome with his wife.
“I didn’t like him. He treated my lady friend badly, and told her to stay in the hotel bar while he watched me with his wife. I couldn’t go through with it. He was abusive and then told me to take my stuff and leave. So I walked away.”
Towards the end of our interview, Deon reveals that he’s soon going to give up being a male escort as he is about to be married.
His fiancée doesn’t know about his double life “and I will never tell her”.
None of his clients has his personal number, and he’ll stop any further contact with them.
“I don’t think it’s fair on her. I am going to stop. It’s time.” - The Star