HOOK: E-zine By, For, and About Men in the Sex Industry

Joseph Kramer is the father of bodywork and sensual massage. Sure, massage has always been around, but only in the last decade have massage schools and erotic massage become a way of life. Kramer has also been active in the exploration of the sex industry along with female sex worker activists Annie Sprinkle, Scarlot Harlot, and many others.

HOOK: Do you consider yourself a sex worker?

Joseph Kramer: The woman who did 20 videos with me invented the term. Carol Leigh, known as Scarlet Harlot. She was the editor for 20 of my videos. She came up with the term ‘sexwork’ and it is generic enough to say you are paid for sex. I like hooker. I like prostitute. I like powerful words. You have to jar people a little bit. It is a little tame.

HOOK: Why is prostitute such a powerful word?

JK: One of the main gifts of my life is being gay because it helped me escape mainstream. I was pushed out of mainstream. Prostitute is another term that stigmatizes and pushes you outside. I read a lot of erotic stories on the web and there is a part of these that says, ‘My friend and I are fooling around and we aren’t gay.’ I think there is the goal to be part of the mainstream. No one wants to be pushed out. A prostitute is a rebel, an artist, a fringe person. Sexworker does that too but it is more generic.

HOOK: Do you think there are different types of sexworkers? I see there are ones that take it as a spiritual journey and the whole mythology of caregiving. Others see it as pure manufacture of affection for a price like any other service industry?

JK: I am for creativity, and I think that perhaps the most unhealthy form of sexwork or prostitution is someone who has a vision that says, ‘I wanna be like soandso because I want to be paid for sex.’ There is a kinda fantasy. It is hard when it is over. I would put Rick Whittaker in this group. They don’t like who they are or what they do, so they take drugs to deal with the job when the fantasy wears off. I think the unhealthy part is where you are not being creative. You are making yourself available for someone else’ use without acknowledging your talents or how you want to be in the world.

I feel like I brought erotic massage out of the closet. I was the first person in the BAR to say I do erotic massage. This was in 1979. If anyone did that before then, I didn’t see it. Now there are 300.

HOOK: There is a new term bodywork...

JK: And I like that term. Right now, I am working with guys who are prostitutes here to train them in a new skill in being masturbation coaches. Most men are locked into this paltry way of masturbating. And they are ashamed. If you want to do sexwork that is therapeutic, how about reframing it. You are in control of the perimeters…so it is another form of sexwork. I look forward to thousands of masturbation coaches. We have schooling and teaching for everything and the way we jack off is so one-dimensional. It is a fundamental part of out body image and how we work. I think that sexworkers can do more than provide a sexual pleasure in a moment…so I am trying to get a bunch of guys to reframe the experience.

I came back from Amsterdam and I was tired and I wanted human contact. I went to a brothel there. Beautiful, young men. And yet I didn’t want sex. I wanted something further. Sex plus. Someone who reminded me what it is to be human. I don't think it SHOULD be hit and miss to go to a brothel. I started studying and looking in to the history and saw the ‘sacred prostitute.’ 90 percent were women but 10 percent were men, and they were spiritual teachers and guides. So, I did trainings for years. A thousand people use that term. I call it sacred intimates. They are intimate out of compassion. And you can fuck and suck and be a sacred intimate. You can flog and fist. It is about being there for the highest good of that person which isn’t the intention of most hookers.

I got this because among gay men…a percentage are out there being sacred and they don’t know it. I would say they are creative. Therapeutic. I could coach people. I could be a service of them in education,. I can be a spiritual slut. Holy whore. Annie Sprinkle has epitomized that among women and we have worked together over the last 10 years. In her performances, she has put it out there. The underlying thing in all this is that the person who is doing the sexwork is choosing exactly what he wants to do and he is in charge. I feel sorry for the Polk Street boys waiting for someone to come. Or it is whatever their customers want. Part of that is I’ll pay you more to get fucked without a condom. So, it is what the customer wants.

People like John Rechy. I got the sense they were creative in this business. If people aren’t creative, it becomes so intimate that they hate it. They resent it. There is not the level of challenge and if you are bored or you're not into it anymore. Disgust. Repulsion. Self-disgust. I get this all the time. It is usually after 3 months, 1 year. 2 years. I see much less of this in erotic masseurs...or people who chose to do this and are in charge.

It is kind of like being an artist of your life. It is what you choose. The moment you don’t choose and you are being chosen. You are being told what to do, that is the crossover. You can still do it.

I don’t know if you have seen the videos of the company Shotgun. They are made by a videomaker/hooker that goes by the name of Roger. And he is 50-year-old, and he is a Sadist. He has been doing sessions for 20 years. He has refined what he wants so well that he has perfected his desires in tortures that he cums without touching himself. He actually puts one of his hands…and like an animal, feels the pain and cums. This is a sexworker who knows exactly who he is. He has refined so much what sexologists call the ‘lovemap’ that he can cum without touching himself because he knows so well what turns him on. I admire someone who has discerned exactly what he wants. And then constantly refines it.

HOOK: Why don’t male sexworkers talk to each other?

JK: I think there is shame. But I think there is a lot of lone ranger. It’s really a profession…it’s a feral profession. My whole thing is just the opposite. I just taught a class at Harvey Milk for sexworkers. I tried to do a weaving of those men. There is now a listserv…so these men chat daily. The St. James Infirmary in SF is a free sexworker run health care clinic for sexworkers. One night a month, Kirk Read leads an evening for male sexworkers to connect and share concerns. I think male sexworkers don’t talk to each other enough because they haven’t had the opportunity. In this class, people were invited together. I sent out emails to 100 sex workers in the area and I got most responses back saying, "Oh, spare me." It is a very cordoned off part of their life that they don’t want to integrate…

Too much interaction with others pulls them into a communal network and spills over into their private life. They hook on AOL or in this one ad. Or they have an agency or whatever. But it isn’t integrated in. They don't choose to have normal human communications with other sexworkers. I find in the hookers of SF that there are more professional networks and that the working lads constantly share their experiences with their hooker friends. We can always use more organizations and more ways to communicate.