ABSTRACT
Male sexuality and sexual behavior in Argentina tend to be more fluid than in Europe and North America. Hence, a large percentage of male escorts there offer their services to both men and women. As the authors note, “Services in which male escorts are willing to engage … may have more to do with financial benefits than with the clients’ or the sex workers’ sexual identity.” In addition, recent studies find that the majority of male Argentine escorts report a masculine sexual role, defined as “a ‘top’ (the person who penetrates the other in anal sex and [who] is sexually dominant.” Although male sex workers have typically been ignored or represented negatively in Argentine popular culture, recently they have gained visibility and received more sympathetic coverage. Some hostility toward gay men and lesbians remains, but increased acceptance of homosexuality in Argentina has led to marriage equality and fostered greater tolerance of male escorts. Still, a legal double standard in Argentina demonstrates the country’s ambivalence toward sex workers in general. While sex work itself is technically not a crime, different acts connected with sex work are illegal. These include publishing commercial sex advertisements and offering sexual services in public spaces. Consequently, sex workers are often harassed by the police and exposed to harm from others. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the number of male escorts in Argentina has risen, and these men have moved from the streets to the Internet. Unfortunately, however, the demand for unsafe sex has also increased, which raises concern for sex workers’ health and safety. Argentina has several organizations concerned with preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but it does not have a national sex workers’ organization or state-funded groups that offer services specifically to sex workers.
