The boy zone

[Guest guest]

The boy zone

JOEANNA REBELLO FERNANDES TIMES NEWS NETWORK,

TOI Crest, Jul 18, 2010,

From gigolos to strippers, nautch dancers to maalishwalas, male prostitution is

becoming alarmingly common. However, it's still a phenomenon that's pretty much

swept under the carpet

Every month, about eight to 12 boys under 18 arrive in Mumbai from the

hinterland to work as 'masseurs' (read commercial sex workers). They land here

with correct estimates of the money they stand to make, but cloudy ideas about

the job description. Few can guess how prostitution will transform them

psychologically, socially and perhaps even physically.

That's when non-profit Samabhavana Society steps in to elaborate in graphic

detail such occupational hazards. " We advise them to go back home, " says Jasmir

Thakur, Secretary & EO of Samabhavana, " but they say they will only give simple

massages and not have sex with clients, no matter what. " Jasmir then pulls out

the props. He holds out a wad of Rs 1,000 to the boys - a denomination they've

rarely ever touched - and questions whether their self-made stipulation would

hold fast before such bait. " We show the 12-year-old a condom and ask if it

would even fit him. We show him a dildo and ask him to imagine what it would be

like to have anal sex with a client. We show him pictures of men with Sexually

Transmitted Infections and of men with AIDS and tell him that could happen to

him without a condom. That they could die before they hit adulthood, " finishes

Jasmir with some sweat. So does the spiel work? He pauses, as if considering the

futility, and then smiles resignedly, " No, " he says. " They never go back. I

can't fight poverty and hunger with fear, and I certainly can't do it alone. "

Last year, 21 boys under 18 contracted HIV in Bombay. Seven succumbed to

'professional hazards'. Migration of men from the mofussils to the metros has

been a centuries-old transition, and while patterns and compulsions of movement

remain more or less unbroken, motives have got distorted. Young boys (mainly

heterosexual), who in the throes of these times mature sooner and show physical

signs of such ripening, have discovered a new inroad to money, and contrary to

belief, it isn't easy money. This is a profession where youth and physical

beauty have high stock. To understand this, process the recent commoditisation

of masculinity, where smooth figures with waxed chests and shining hair move

with a sensuality previously only imputed to femininity in the ads. Men sell

sexuality as well as women today, if not better. (Perhaps that's why we see so

much of Abraham.)

Young, smooth-skinned pubescent boys are cut of similar stone. That's why the

age limit of male prostitution has perilously dropped to as low as 12 years. By

the time boys become men at 25, they're considered too old for the game and

required to exit. Their shelf life is typically five years. Their monthly income

ranges between Rs 6,000 and Rs 1 lakh, contingent on looks, versatility and,

predictably, length of organ. Most have predecessors - boys who've entered the

night garden and return holding out passion fruit to the hungry young.

Mobile masseurs

The 2009 estimate of the number of children in prostitution in India is a

conservative 1.2 million. It has been assumed that girls form the greater

percentage, and one can only guess at the number of boys simply because they

subvert institutionalised systems. Jasmir counts 9,584 masseurs in Mumbai alone.

" Most of the male sex workers under 18 cover up as 'masseurs', " he says. " They

are street-based and mobile and emerge after 8 pm. Masseurs are the entry point

for prostitution, and since the job requires vigour and strength, young boys are

believed to do a better job " .

In a country where the laws on immoral trafficking and child sexual abuse are

still paper tigers, the situation is worsened by a systemic gender bias. It is

still believed that it is largely women and girls who are victims of commercial

sexual abuse; the exploitation of boys is nonsexual, in areas like labour camps

and camel jockeying. The entrenched notions of gender in this heteropatriarchal

country have vaunted masculinity to such social and psychological heights that

boys are generally believed to be untouched by the sexual violations that

threaten girls. These biases naturally deny boys the scope of aid and support

held out to girls. We'd like to believe that boys don't cry, and are certainly

not prostituted. What's worse, the pressures on the male child to support the

family have pressed many boys into giving out their bodies willingly on rent.

In the safe anonymity and license of cities, boys walk the whole plank of sexual

offices - from plying as gigolos, escorts, strippers, nautch dancers and call

boys, but according to Samabhavana, children and minors, especially those from

impoverished rural backgrounds, are most visible as 'maalishwalas'. Their

migration into the city is seasonal, staying here through the festival calendar,

and returning home to meet the onset of farming. To their folk back home, their

sons' occupations are 'bare-concealed' secrets.

In the city, the boys' clients are tabled as men who have sex with men

(including men who don't identify as gay); sugar mummies and daddies;wives of

male clients and visitors (businesspeople and tourists). " Many closet

homosexuals in conjugal situations employ masseurs for sexual gratification, "

says Jasmir.

His non-profit outfit not only furnishes legal and medical advocacy, but

attempts to relocate the boys to safer environments of work and living.

Samabhavana has successfully proselytised 52 such boys by equipping them with

soft skills and training them in automobile mechanics, where they now earn their

bread. He wants to set up a vocational training centre in Mumbai and Mathura,

UP, the home of many masseurs, and make livelihood options available for boys at

the source to stem the inflow. While he is patently opposed to children trading

on their flesh, he knows the only way he can reverse the commercial sex tide is

if he gains the community's confidence and offers profitable alternatives.

Dancing boys

If public discourse limits the tradition of male prostitution to modern

licentiousness, it denies the heritage of the laundas - the effeminate boys who

danced at weddings in feudal UP and Bihar. In 2007, Kolkata PLUS, a non-profit

organisation supporting sexual minorities, studied the prevalence of the launda

tradition, and the eventual prostitution and brutalisation of these boys, of

whom 30 per cent of the sample set were between 15 and 19 years. In his report

titled Dancing Boys, Agniva Lahiri, executive director of PLUS noted, 'In India,

young gender-variant boys (males with feminine demeanor) are victims of social

stigma and human rights violations, which preclude them from joining mainstream

occupations.

The absence of alternatives leads many to the " Hijra " (eunuch) community where

they undergo illegal, secret and crude castrations at risk to their lives. The

other alternative is launda dancing. The dancers mainly belong to indigent

families from West Bengal, Bihar, UP and Maharashtra and also from Nepal and

Bangladesh. Often at weddings, the dancers' backs are slashed with blades

through backless cholis. Often they are bitten and/or stubbed. A group of 10 to

15 men could easily carry a dancer to a field and gang-rape him, which is a very

common trend. In parts of rural Bihar and UP, men satisfy their wild sexual

urges with these effeminate young men because, they are available, identified,

socially sanctioned for prostitution, and having sex with them proves their

mardangi.'

" Many don't even consider themselves victims of sexual exploitation, " says

Lahiri, pointing out the normalisation of violence. For them, prostitution is

par for the course - the price for living and earning among equals. Lahiri's

report catalogued several misconceptions about the migration of adolescents and

young boys for sexual exploitation - all fixed in the patriarchal view that it

is an issue related solely to homosexuality and child sex tourism. Results

demonstrated that the perpetrators are largely from the local heterosexual

population and not solely homosexual men or tourists.

In the course of this article, several specialised non-profits were contacted

for statistics or case studies of male prostitutes under 18 years. There was

ignorance, if not denial of the subject. They had all rescued girls, but never

encountered boys being trafficked for sex.

Follow the money

According to Samabhavana, male prostitution in India is not institutional. Boys

offering sex for favours or money are transient, moving to where the money is.

Boys as young as six are trained to approach foreigners and moneyed older

Indians, touching them strategically, and offering 'homo sex' and 'suck'. They

then repair to cheap lodges in the vicinity or are ferried away in cars. There

is usually a pimp who runs these rings.

Mohammed Aftab, national Child Protection Manager at Save The Children, admits

there is no empirical evidence on the subject. " Our observations show that such

children are compelled by circumstances, primarily poverty, and this creates

'supply'. Where there is supply, there is demand, " he reasons. And demand peaks

at places of tourism - black holes where all discretions are swallowed and

forgotten. And as Mohammed points out, as tourism gains, so will hunting grounds

spread.

The tourist trap

In 2009, the research and advocacy outfit Equations launched a study in concert

with ECPAT International, a Bangkok-based body that strives to end child

prostitution. The project was called 'Unholy Nexus: Male Child Exploitation in

Pilgrim Tourism Sites in India'. The inquiry investigated the religious cities

of Tirupati, Puri and Guruvayoor and reported that in all places, children

between eight and 12 were engaged in prostitution. The clients in Tirupati were

largely domestic tourists, in Guruvayoor it was the local ones, and in Puri,

foreigners. " We learnt that many of these boys had been abused when under six,

and an innocuous familiarity with sexual advances drew them closer in as they

grew older, " says S Vidya, Equations' Project Coordinator of the department of

Child and Tourism.

By 12, the boys know whom to solicit, which public places to retreat to and how

much to charge. " They said Indian tourists often had sex but refused to pay at

the end, threatening to take the boys to the cops. Foreigners gave them money,

clothes, food and took them along for the ride, " she says. The study indicates

that tourists cast a wider net for boys than girls because they are more

amenable, easier to find and can't get pregnant. Finally coming home to the

problem of exploitation within its jurisdiction, the tourism ministry broadcast

a Code of Conduct for Safe and Honorable Tourism early this month. It is to be

seen if it makes a dent.

Advocacy groups, in the meanwhile, want people to know that the transactional

space of prostitution is occupied by men too, particularly boys under 18. They

hope government legislation becomes gender-neutral and pays the boy child equal

attention (for example, sections 366, 366A and 366B of the IPC deal with the

kidnap, procurement and import of the girl child, not the boy). They hope that a

thorough and comprehensive law on child sexual abuse is enacted and compasses

both genders. They hope the law goes beyond paper. They hope people report cases

of the sexual abuse of boy children too, because whether they consent or not,

they don't know any better. And then boys won't always be boys.

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