So, there are male escorts in Ottawa. However, they don't advertise and they are strictly for other men. How do I explain this? Ok, so, gay men have, since Christ was a Cowboy, had underground secret meets and even though the world has 'accepted' gay men, many prefer to remain underground. Call it old school, call it a want for privacy, call it their own damn business and no one gets to judge, whatever. Many male escorts work bath houses or clubs. They stay IN community and therefore have no need to advertise. A lot of work comes from word of mouth referrals (pun intended, see what I did there?). This doesn't include rent-boys and yes, rent-boys still exist. Overall, it's a numbers game. You will find far more male escorts in larger urban centers south of the border than in Canada. In Canada, you'll find more in Toronto than in Ottawa. I'm not sure I'm doing it justice or making sense, but they're very different from heterosexual sex workers. There's far more acceptance in the community. One way that it's different is that, for a very long time, gay men met in secret clubs because they had to and in those secret clubs there were male escorts who were very plainly sex workers and accepted as such by the community. As the secret club was already risky to find and get into, if you wanted work you had to be very open and in the old days, establishments got a cut of the male sex workers earnings via rental of rooms, booths etc. You don't find that in heterosexual settings because, being the dominant orientation, heterosexuals never had to hide. It's the reverse of gay escorts. Because gay men hide and had to go looking for these secret places, which were illegal in most places, the male escorts were right out in the open in the secret place. Where as it's the opposite for heterosexual escorts, because heterosexual sex was the 'norm' and going outside of the societal sanctioned courting process was frowned upon AND in many cases illegal, the heterosexual escorts had to hide AND find ways of advertising themselves without getting caught. Does that make sense? There ARE male escorts that advertise on places like Locanto who claim they are 'strictly' for women and it may be so, but my gut tells me it's a not always the case.
