We're not here to promote prostitution or anything, but we do want to show you a picture of one of our sources, Ryan James:

Via Ryan James

Guys tend to assume that heterosexual male prostitutes would quickly go out of business -- after all, if a woman wants to get laid, can't she just stroll into any bar and say, "Who here wants to get their f**k on?" But, women seek out the pro's services for all sorts of reasons. "I've seen a girl who was studying full time and working a lot, and she was about to turn 21 and wanted to lose her virginity before [then]," Ryan says. "But, she 'couldn't be bothered going out' to find somebody she wanted to sleep with. [I also saw] a 50-year-old lesbian who had 'sleep with a guy' on her bucket list. She just wanted to see what it was like."

Ryan services women only, and our other source, Albert, markets to the dudes. But, he found that servicing male clients is tricky. There is still a significant social stigma associated with homosexuality, so any male prostitute has to build in a certain amount of "expectation of failure" every time a man calls to book them. For instance, a significant number of the folks who contact Albert ask him to do an "in-call", meaning they want to come over to his house. That's still illegal in his part of the world, unless you've paid to have your home brothelized. "Generally, they ask to do an in-call because they're closeted," Albert says, "or cheating on their wife/husband, and they just want to remain as anonymous as possible and don't want a 'rentboy' in their house ..."

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And in general, males just tend to get cold feet at the last minute. "Out of every three clients who book me and say, 'I want you to come over at X time and f**k me,' probably about two-thirds of them cancel," Albert explains. "So, if I have a new client scheduled ... I plan that evening as if I don't have that client. For instance, I have a new client for Wednesday, but there's a [66 percent] chance he's going to cancel, so I've also got plans with a friend to hang out and watch TV." Albert basically just has to prepare for a Wednesday evening that could go in one of two wildly different directions.

Other male clients will try to get as much "service" as they can without actually following through with the transaction. " ... [there are] guys who like the fantasy of hiring a rentboy, but don't want to go through with it," Albert says. "There was one guy who would call and ask, ' ... What are you wearing? When did you f**k last? Did you like having your dick sucked?' At first, when I was new, I talked to him. But, I very quickly realized he was just in it to jerk off over the phone for free."

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This isn't the only time Albert's been cheated by a potential John:

" ... I've had guys who wanted me to jerk off on webcam for them. And when I was new to it, I sort of opened to that idea and was like, 'OK, if you pay me an advance over Paypal or a bank transfer, that's fine.' Eventually, I settled on, 'Here's my Amazon wish list. Buy me something, and I'll jerk off on camera for you.' Then, a couple days later, I noticed that he had cancelled the purchase. Now, I don't do anything on cam for anyone."

One woman had a problem with vaginismus, an involuntary tightening of the vaginal muscles that makes any kind of penetration extremely painful. "There are various methods sex therapists and psychologists use [to treat it]," Ryan says. "One method [involves] these things called 'dilators,' dildos ranging from a small size to a normal size." Unfortunately, the telescoping dildos didn't work in this particular case, so the therapist sent the poor woman to Ryan with a referral. "And essentially, I just took a very long time making her comfortable. We spent basically two hours on foreplay and oral, building up to one finger, then two fingers, then full-on penis-and-vagina intercourse. That was a gradual build-up over the course of two hours."

And yes, there is at least one study saying sex work and therapy are more effective at treating vaginismus than just therapy alone. Another woman Ryan saw hadn't had sex in 20 years because of some abuse she had suffered when she was younger. "She used it as a stepping stone," Ryan says. "It was a safe environment for her."

In Australia, you can run an ad in the yellow pages and openly offer to let men and women pay to f**k you just as freely as you could advertise a yard sale or a litter of kittens. There are some limitations, however -- you can't show your nipples (even if you're a guy), you can't talk about your dick, and you can't explicitly talk about sex in your advertisement. Consequently, the physical ads wind up looking pretty tame:

Even on the Internet, where things are a bit looser, personal ads tend to be fairly subdued:

Cracker.com.au

"Most clients find me through my [Internet] ads," Albert says. "One is on Rentboy Australia, and probably half to two-thirds [of my clients] message me on that. The other half message me based on my ads on a site called Squirt.org, a gay hook-up site that allows you to escort as well." As its name probably suggests, Squirt.org is somewhat less subtle:

Squirt.org

Meanwhile, we showed you Ryan James' website earlier, and he orchestrates a lot of his bookings through social media:

"I get a lot of work through [Instagram and Facebook], and people are directed to my website from them ... Twitter is the main one for escorts in Australia ... I'll say, 'I'm going to be in Perth on such and such day', so anyone following me on Twitter will know when I'm in town so they can book me. People don't just want to see a page with a profile written about a person, they want a bit of personality -- to feel like they can get to know that person. It helps people get a better idea ... women might be hesitant and nervous about booking a guy, [social media] gives them a bit more of an idea of what they're going to get."

Erections are troublesome things sometimes, and they're doubly troubling when doing your job requires you to achieve one and see it through to the end. Albert has his own strategies for ensuring his salami doesn't turn into a tube of ground beef. "I think about sexual encounters I actually enjoy -- imagination and Viagra almost always do the trick. I don't need to stay hard the entire time I'm there, just at the critical moments. And a lot of guys understand if I have a little difficulty getting hard. When you're nervous, in a new situation, it's harder to get aroused. "

Ryan actually worked part-time in porn, and he found it much easier to "remain vigilant" during his work as a prostitute. "It might sound surprising ... it's a lot harder to get an erection in porn than in escorting, regardless of how the client looks or how attracted I am to them. In porn, it's about what you're capturing on camera; it's not about the two performers. You're focused on the performance. In escorting, you're focused on the physical act. You're more able to focus and concentrate. I just find it easier."

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Further complicating matters is the fact that clients often want you to do drugs with them. Depending on your attitude toward drugs, this can be a wonderful perk or a constant annoyance. According to Ryan, "Clients who are into sex and drugs say something like, 'Do you mind if we're wired for sex?' or 'Are you into wired' play?' That means meth. I'll usually say, 'No, meth isn't my thing, I can't help you there.' One time I said that and the client said, 'No, by wired, I meant MDMA, we're old school.' I was like, 'Sure, I'm up for doing E with you guys.'"

But, sometimes, not even a condom is enough. " ... there's a lot more to it than 'use a condom and get tested,'" Ryan explains. "I get tested monthly. You're supposed to get tested every three months, but it's down to the individual. The police won't knock on your door if you don't get tested often enough. I use condoms, [but], if you're not using lube [as well], it's going to get dry and tear."

The very first legal prostitute we ever interviewed mentioned doing dick checks on clients to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. Ryan doesn't work with dicks, but he does do vagina checks. "When you see a client for the first time, you inspect down there. I try to work it into the physical act [because] women get uptight when you say, 'Let me check down there.'"

Ryan points out (and this is confirmed by the CDC) that condoms aren't 100 percent guaranteed to prevent a herpes infection because herpes is spread through skin-to-skin contact rather than through bodily fluids. So, any piece of skin that isn't covered by the condom, at any point during a spirited bout of intercourse, is at risk, including any bits that might become exposed by a storm of latex-tearing passion. "And you can visually see an outbreak," Ryan says. "You can't slap a condom on and forget about it."