Holy Hustling

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That is because the proper business of any prostitute is to become a saint. I don't mean piety here. I'm not expecting a call from the Vatican. The thing that struck me about saints when I was growing up a devout Catholic boy was not so much that they did good things. Some, in fact, did very weird things. What impressed me was that they had their needs and desires so carefully tamed, so managed -- though they usually chose a life of denial as a way of making this happen. I've found that a life of excess works equally well.

I noticed it the first time I saw hustlers at work in groups. The boys often worked the baths, and what struck me most, as they sat and smoked and talked and laughed together, was that they didn't look. Everyone else was looking. But these boys floated above desire, empty of need, promising to be anything I or anyone else could want.

Something changes when you've had sex with hundreds of men. You discover, eventually, that there isn't much difference between having sex with someone you find very attractive and someone you think is ugly. This is a revelation -- particularly in a culture as image-obsessed as ours. When it starts to happen, it means you are witnessing the slow erosion of the power of need.

Need is always an engagement with the particular -- a certain body type, the way hair falls across the forehead, the fullness of lips. When you discover that particulars are losing their power, you have taken the first steps toward a sainthood that only prostitutes can know. Freed from the demands of your own needs, you will do a much better job catering to the needs of others.

Prostitution has been the splendid discovery of my middle years. I don't know how long it will continue -- the pool of those men attracted to the 50-plus age group must be rather small. I will never, though, lose my vision of a city luminous with need, my pleasure in its endless variety, my sense of self transformed by needlessness. I will always be a prostitute at heart.

I owe Baby Geoffrey a lot.

From This Magazine (Jan./Feb. 1997). Subscriptions: $34/yr. (6 issues) from 35 Riviera Dr., Markham, Ontario L3R 8N4.

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