Prologue

At fifty-eight years old, I became an erotic masseur.

The work has strengthened my sense of worth, fortified my assuredness and desire for sexual intimacy, and encouraged my love of men and their bodies. Touching men for money has deepened my emotional life and expanded my appreciation of the loving tenderness of men.

Not what you expected, is it?

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Who am I and why do you care to read about sex for money?
- AB, AM, & PhD in social psychology from Harvard
Roger Brown's memoir as pattern and encouragement; 'lay down with panthers'; author as social constructionist critic and memory construction; person portrait vs. 'real' person
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These tales are partly a social-psychological analysis of my experiences with hustlers in Montreal, with the intention of adding to the anthropological record, much as my PhD advisor did some years ago. As such, this is a kind of journalistic investigation and academic examination of three levels of sex workers today; their online presence, the real social experiences with clients, the impacts on others, and analysis of how and why men readily engage in sex for money. While hustlers and erotic masseurs appear to be a somewhat obscure community, in actuality they come from many social groups and are found in every village and hamlet.

The web-links, profiles, pictures, or videos I use are all readily available to the discerning public. While it seems these writings are of intensely personal experiences, they are also often involve public figures; teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, psychologists, actors, singers, writers, artists, along with more common occupations, too; farmers, counselors, carpenters, ministers, office clerks, restaurant owners, bankers – in other words, all of us.

The use of public profiles from sex and meetup websites is not new to academic or journalistic endeavors and I rely on the rubric of “what’s posted for thousands to see is not private” to explain my inclusion of links to print-screen captures of profiles, pictures, texts and videos as source data and verifications of my stories and statements, much like most academic research uses footnotes and excerpts from published articles to support their conclusions.