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

Shai Shahar: Well, there’s the technical answer and the "real" answer. Technically, I was a paid consort and traded sexual favors for money from 1992 until 1998. And the first three years were the most intense – client-wise. But even after retiring, I still earn the major portion of my living as a ‘gigolo’ in the sense that I am considered by many to be a symbol of the business…the identifiable gigolo...the public face of hetero-escorts/consorts. I mean...that’s why you picked me for this, isn’t it?

HOOK: There seems to be this notion that men who pay for sex are desperate, lonely, ugly, etc., but women who pay for sex seem to be wealthy, women of means...what kind of women have your clients been? Has it changed from when you started?

SS: Well, I’ve met a few women clients who I considered borderline desperate. I mean they hadn’t had a decent roll in the hay in years – if ever some of them...but as for stereotypes, I don’t believe in them and do everything I can do to avoid encouraging them, or being one myself, if I can. None of the women I went out with were ugly. Period. Were they all Marylin Monroes, Lauren Huttons, or Sophia Laurens? No. And very few looked like Britney [Spears]. But they were all attractive, especially once they were enjoying themselves and the sex we were having. Most of my clients were mid-30-something to 40-something when I started, but over the space of just a few years I saw the borders expand at both ends of the age scale – and some late-20 types booked me. Very, very few were wealthy. Most were divorced, or un-happily mated, but by no means all of them. God bless the frisky, horny, honest ones that just loved the adventures in life!

HOOK: Now you have accumulated some notoriety from your parties and such, has this notoriety afforded you anything in terms of opportunities in your life--personal or otherwise?

SS: All I have now, in terms of opportunity, family, possessions...all I value, with the exception of my daughter and maybe two others...and the wisdom I picked up in the process, I received not as a result of my notoriety but as a reward, I think, for maintaining the mindse that led to my being in the ‘wrong place' at the right time...which made me "notorious." You only get one life, don’t be afraid to live it. I did what I did out of a good heart, a love of people, especially of the "female persuasion," and in celebration of sex as the water of life. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

HOOK: Have you had many high-profile clients?

SS: Yes. Next question.

HOOK: How did you meet/find new clients?

SS: If I would un-retire, the first thing I’d do is print more business cards I could discreetly drop in a lady’s hand on which they’d find my name and ‘Your Pleasure Is My Business’...Call _______ for private appointment.

HOOK: How did you alleviate a new client’s nervousness?

SS: Two things I always did: first was inviting her to play a little four question game with me, and the second was to treat her like I had already known and slept with this woman for years...treated her as a ‘familiar’...a mate, not a date.

HOOK: And this game?

SS: The game is a simple thumb-nail psychology ditty that has one describe her favorite color, favorite animal, how it feels to be in water, lots of water...and how it feels to be in a white-room with no-doors. It only takes 5 minutes and works every time...no more ‘nerves.’ We’ve shared a game and a laugh. We’re cool now.

HOOK: Did you prefer having couples or just individual female clients?

SS: Individual female clients – always. Couples can be fun, but more often than not when you are dealing with a couple, you are dealing with three sexual agendas, not two: his, hers, and theirs. A couple is a strange, two-backed beast, with two faces, as well.

HOOK: From your experience with couples, do you have any observations or insights regarding dealing with them? For example, are there surprising moments when the male of the couple wants to have, for lack of better phrasing, “homosexual contact?”

SS: Glad you asked. I find it amazing just how many straight guys suddenly discover their gay side, or that they have one, when I’m in bed nailing their wife, or girlfriend. I don’t mind contact with a guy when we are both doing her, but I do not like probing fingers up my butt or whiskers on my dick. I don’t care how sexy he all of a sudden thinks I am. It really throws me off my rhythm sometimes.

HOOK: The attitude toward prostitution in much of Europe seems vastly different than that of the United States. How far along (or off) do you think mainstream Americans are toward a more progressive perspective?

SS: I haven’t spent enough time in America lately to know if there is any trend one way or the other as far as the (in)tolerance of prostitution. But I’d say that the next generation — the X’ers and the 2K's — they have even less tolerance for hypocrites and hypocrisy than we Boomers did, and that can only bode well for the biz. Anti-prostitution laws – in fact vice laws in general in the United States – are all a bunch of hooey. They are anti-sex, anti-female, anti-social, and give lie to the idea that America is a land dedicated to the proposition that one is free to pursue happiness.

HOOK: Do you consider yourself a sexwork activist?

SS: No. I consider myself a "mensch," a humanist, who is known for being very active, sexually. However, if someone would like to nominate me as a pro-sexwork..or even better...a pro-sexworkers' spokesman, I’d be happy to say a few words on their behalf – anytime, anywhere.

HOOK: Men are obviously great consumers of Internet porn and accessors of sex through the Iinternet, why do you think women aren’t bigger consumers in cyber-smut in a relatively less stigmatizing “Internet world?” Do you suspect women are an untapped market for cyber-smut?

SS: Again, I’m not sure what the trend is, specifically, but I see an awful lot of sex sites up and running now that are by and for women who seem to like porn as much as me[n]! [Porn] maybe with a different twist but certainly no less explicit. Yes, they are an untapped market, I suppose, but then again it just could be that they haven’t figured out how to sell women what they want yet in cyber-sexual terms. So we’ll wait and see.

HOOK: As for gigolo.com, how long have you been running this site?

SS: I haven’t been running it. I’m just the spiritual godfather behind it who occasionally contributes advice or a column to keep my hand in. The site started up in ’97. I think it was the result of an idea I pitched to a bright young guy, and good friend, E.J. Swarte, who has maintained it since. God bless him.

HOOK: What do you want to accomplish with gigolo.com?

SS: Originally the idea was to give women a place to window shop for value and link up with willing escorts for dates anywhere in the world. But I’d also like to see gigolo.com become the flagship site for a range of products and services all related to the finer arts of living the "paid life,"...including apparel, accessories, colognes, oils, and signed copies of memorabilia related to me and those brave few who followed in my...um... footsteps.

HOOK: Why do you think you were so successful?

SS: I honestly don’t know what to say to that one. I mean I feel successful, yes...but I still don’t feel deserving of the good fortune that has befallen me. Sometimes instead of feeling rewarded, I feel like I’m living on God’s credit card – that it’s a loan to be paid back someday, but we’ll see. In the meantime, I’d credit my success to one thing and one thing only....at times when it mattered most, when all was on the line with me – regardless of the consequences – I told the truth. I’m not saying I was honest all the time, or never shaded the truth for or about so-and so, but at those moments when I could see the sparks and feel the chills of a life-altering event circling around me, when I absolutely knew that the next thing I did or said was critical and would mark me, effect my own and everyone else’s estimation of me, I abandoned all reason and ‘self’ and spoke my heart. And here I am. Go figure.

HOOK: Any pieces of advice to give to those who want to get into the business of being a gigolo?

SS: Start having sex whenever you feel you’re ready, but don’t turn ‘pro’ until you’ve seen at least twenty-five summers go by and had your heart broken at least once. Stay clean, pay particular attention to your shoes, your fingernails, your hair, and above all, your breath. Treat your client as you would wish to be treated…or your wife or daughter or Mom. Yes, they do have a sex-life you know. Don’t give up your day job ‘til you have at least twenty ‘regulars’ in your black book.

HOOK: And finally, if there is someone you would LOVE to have as a client, who would it be?

SS: I know, you want me to say Julia Roberts or J-Lo, right? Once I thought of gals like Cher (way cool!) and would you believe Goldie Hawn?! And of course Madonna. I just LOVE Madonna – really, truly. Not that I have any way of knowing how they’d feel being clients. But to be honest, when it comes to my own personal preferences or professional wishes – two gals, actually: the first being Nikki Charm, the porn starlet from the ‘80s. She must be approaching 40 now, but God I loved that little XXX vixen on-screen and I think she’d be deliciously ripe by now. The other is a well known CNN correspondent who I will not embarrass by naming, but she’s a business correspondent who I think is one who could not only appreciate a good fuck, but judging from her recent appearances on the tube, could use one as well. I say that in all deference and humility, by the way. ;)

Daniel sucks cock best after he’s been decently mind-fucked. A former go go dancer/stripper, he is now taking strides to fully develop his inner smut-peddler, but not spending nearly enough time accommodating his bisexual envy.

When doing neither things, he can be found in the kitchen cooking his spinster life away or strategizing to achieve his lifelong goal to be both an expatriate and cultural juggernaut by shamelessly promoting himself. Read his funny writing at www.amateurbastard.com, his politically-oriented work at www.spoonfedamerika.com, and saucy sex poems in the anthology, Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian Pacific America.