by Donald West
The identification of a predominant psychological pattern among the group does not, of course, account for everything. Resort to heavy drinking or illegal drugs complicated the picture in some cases by facilitating crimes during states of intoxication. The terrain of British Columbia and the prevalence of hitch-hiking favoured the style of crimes committed. Female hitch-hikers on the lookout for sex and targeting male drivers were fairly common. The availability of dirt roads leading to remote forest locations enabled drivers to make quick turn offs, removing their victims from the prospect of rescue.
A unique feature of the treatment programme was its intensity, impacting on the men’s every waking hour. Gaining insight into the origins of their irrational behaviour was encouraged by endless discussion and challenges from others in the group when individuals seemed to be trying to evade personal responsibility. Many were already aware of experiences that underlay their anti-social and misogynistic attitudes. More important than gaining insight was to change behaviour in everyday life. To this end their responses in the hospital environment, their interactions with each other and with the nursing staff, that were being constantly monitored and discussed, gave numerous indications of change or lack of it. For instance, Andrew’s responses, and his final despairing decision to return to the penitentiary, where he committed suicide, contrasted with that of most of the others, who were more determined and optimistic about change.
Despite their appalling criminal histories, most members of the group maintained a superficial normality in their everyday behaviour that was impressive. In fact, by their polite and civil attitude and neat appearance they could seem attractive young men, and their relations with female nurses sometimes broke the bounds of professional detachment. At the time of my visit one member of the group was still in touch with a nurse who had left the hospital. He was hoping to be reunited with her one day.
One of the glaring deficiencies of the treatment system in my opinion was the rule that, before any possibility of release into the community, men were made to return to prison and remain there until regular parole qualifications were achieved. It would have been preferable to arrange a graduated release, beginning with accompanied day parole, while still under the surveillance of the treatment team. The critical period when help and guidance is most needed is when offenders have to leave the shelter of the therapeutic community and face once more the challenges of life outside. It was argued that the ability to adjust to prison requirements was a good test of the genuineness of their reformation. This seemed to me unrealistic in view of the men’s doleful accounts of the prison environment and the risk that the break in therapeutic support would provoke a relapse.
A vivid description of the anti-therapeutic character of prison experience for these sex offenders was given by one man I interviewed: “[while awaiting sentence] I was scared of going to the penitentiary because the prison officers kept telling me I was going to be killed there because they were going to tell their guard friends to put me in with the general population. I lived on chocolate bars because the food was contaminated with excrement. The guards kept waking me up at all hours of the night, throwing water at me and saying ‘We don’t want you to miss the last few months of your life’. The man in the next cell hanged himself. In court I pleaded guilty to everything because I didn’t care anymore”. [When transferred to the penitentiary and placed under protective custody] “that meant solitary confinement in ‘the hole’. I became the tough guy again, in and out all the time for [various offences]…I flipped out completely one day, couldn’t remember what day it was or whether it was night or day. At one point I wasn’t even sure where I was and that scared me. I decided to die. I waited till night when the guards did not come around and slashed myself. After a lot of blood I decided I wasn’t going to bleed to death, so I got the mattress and set it on fire. I remember feeling very calm. I woke up in hospital red like a lobster with casts on my arms. I was put in a strip cell, medicated up to the hilt, and was then sent [here].”
The ultimate question about any treatment programme is how well it works. The most disappointing feature of this experiment was the absence of systematic follow-up after release. Most of those passing through the programme have been released long ago. Many years after my visit Dr Roy told me that he believed none of the released men had been reconvicted of serious sex crime or he would have heard about it. If this is anything like an accurate picture, considering the persistence of the men’s previous offending, it suggests a distinctly positive result.
This example of an exceptional therapeutic effort raises a dilemma for policy makers. From the standpoint of justice and personal responsibility, the common reaction to these men’s hideous crimes would be to “lock them up and throw away the key”. Yet I believe the experience suggests that some individuals, whose behaviour has become unimaginably odious, can be rescued from themselves, given sufficient effort and patience. The cost, however, appears exorbitant, but the common alternative, of long term incarceration under dehumanising conditions, is also costly and some might say repugnant.
Gay Prostitution
My last formal research to appear in book form was Male Prostitution, authored in association with Buz de Villiers, a graduate of the Institute of Criminology, and published in 1992 by Duckworth. A Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship provided an expenses grant to carry out the work. The project came about fortuitously. I had served on a Howard League for Penal Reform working group on Unlawful Sex (1985, London, Waterlow). Lady Williams, a member of that group, was also Chair of the Management Committee of Streetwise Youth, and invited me to join her there. This was a London charity dedicated to helping young male street prostitutes. It operated a drop-in day centre for these youths, some of whom had to sleep on the streets if they failed to find a client to give them a bed for the night. At the Streetwise premises, they could wash themselves and their clothes and receive a free meal, counselling and introductions to various sources of welfare. The law forbade the admission of children under sixteen, but in practice most open street soliciting was by older teens or men in their early twenties. The organisation continues under different management, and nothing said about the past applies to its present incarnation.
Access to Streetwise clients provided a sample representative of young street prostitutes, but not of those working through escort agencies or massage parlours or of the sometimes not-so-young men working independently from their own flats or rented rooms. Securing interviews with the latter required introductions by former patrons. Once recruited, a sex worker might then refer us on, snowball fashion, to others willing to talk. It soon emerged that male prostitutes were as varied in their motives and circumstances as female prostitutes. Some were driven to the trade through desperate circumstances or personal maladjustments. Others were financially successful individuals exercising free choice of a profitable occupation.
Like female prostitution, the male trade thrivres despite the increased accessibility of unpaid sex that has come about through relaxed social standards and the availability of gay contacts via the internet. Paid gay sex is also advertised on the internet and in magazines freely distributed in gay bars. Under the ambiguous headings of escorts and masseurs one finds pictures of nude males with coded indications of the types of sex on offer. Easy telephone contact, a guarantee of satisfaction and the prospect of obtaining exactly what one wants without any continuing obligation, are powerful inducements. As one masseur put it, the idea of prostitution, either as client or provider, comes easily for “a gay man, particularly in London, where cruising and casual sex, a lot of it unsatisfactory, is common experience. I see my own [masseur] experience as just an extension of this. It’s not such a big deal whether they cruise for it or pay for it”.
Interviews were carried out (a half of them by me) with a random sample of fifty of the Streetwise clients, using a pre-arranged schedule of questions. Some differences from female street prostitutes emerged. Save for a few brief liaisons with older men
at the start of their rent boy careers, these youths managed without pimps. The need for erectile potency to satisfy clients meant that the majority were homosexual or bisexual. The few who professed a positive aversion to gay sex were likely to be using importuning to gain opportunities for theft or extortion. This sample of fifty young men conformed all-too-well to a sad but expected stereotype. Nearly all came from dysfunctional families, many had experienced abusive or rejecting parents, many had run away from home and arrived in London unsupported and unprepared for finding work and accommodation. Some were escapees from the police or from local authority ‘in care’ placements. Most had bad school records with histories of truancy, disruptive behaviour and poor scholastic attainment. Having no address in London and being supposedly the responsibility of welfare services elsewhere, most were unable to access welfare money. They tried to avoid resort to youth hostels on account of the restrictions applied there and the fear of exposure of their rent boy status. A few of them knew about the rent scene before coming to London, but more often they learned the ropes from other homeless youngsters or after being propositioned by strangers inviting them for a drink or a visit home. This tended to happen when they were hanging about Victoria Station or public places frequented by men on the look-out for straying youths willing to do anything for money, food or a bed. The uninitiated might feel bewildered at first, but would go along with mutual masturbation without finding it either unduly unpleasant or particularly exciting. As a source of money it was easier, less risky and more profitable than robbery, theft from cars or housebreaking. Once settled into a routine, the easy money enabled them to find places to stay and some would discover the specialised gay bars, such as the White Bear mentioned earlier, where rent boys were in abundance and formed a species of camaraderie.
Pre-existing undisciplined and anti-social attitudes meant unconcern about saving anything from their sporadic earnings, applying for job training or indeed holding onto any job actually found. Nearly all remained indefinitely unemployed, spending their easy money on drinking, drugs and socialising, but finding Streetwise a welcome refuge whenever the supply of punters dried up and they were temporarily ‘skint’. They were often resistant to advice and disinclined to settle down to humdrum, lowly-paid work. At the time, the Streetwise counsellors were primarily concerned to help the young men to a more efficient management of their current way of life, to stay out of trouble, and to cope with drink and drug addictions, unsettled fines and summonses, sexually transmitted infections and other crises. Conversion to conventional norms was a doubtful prospect. This picture of the work was not much advertised to potential donors to the charity, who might have expectations of more immediate reformation. Even keeping order at the Centre was not so easy. Various break-ins and thefts of the TV and other items of humble equipment were undoubtedly the work of clients. The absence of stable addresses and their unreliability in keeping appointments made the youths unattractive to the owners of male escort agencies. One of them, however, had found a profitable job in a gay ‘massage’ parlour and was attempting to recruit his friends from Streetwise. This came to the notice of the police and did nothing to enhance the reputation of the organisation.
It has been suggested that homosexual molestation of young boys predisposes them to homosexual prostitution later on. In fact, sixteen of the interviewed sample of fifty reported that at some time when they were under fourteen they had been forced to comply with another male’s sexual demands. The high prevalence of such histories was clearly a reflection of chaotic upbringings. The incidents occurred when they were living in children’s homes, where the assailants were members of staff or fellow residents, or when they were unhappily wandering alone and miserable and exposed to approaches from strangers, or lastly at home where the abusers were ‘uncles’ or mother’s boyfriends. Some of the incidents were definite anal rapes and some were reported to the police, but most were never mentioned to any adult. One informant confessed to having accepted gifts from a paedophile when he was a boy but, disliking what he was required to do, he had denounced the man eventually. None of the interviewees linked these traumatic incidents to their prostitution activity. However, a few informants described non-traumatic childhood contacts with older men in public lavatories or elsewhere which they had either initiated themselves or had readily accepted. This was an obvious preparation for subsequent gay prostitution.
Although male prostitutes are usually younger and stronger than their clients they are not immune from violence or coercion. One interviewee recalled a pleasant-sounding punter who gave him something to eat that must have had a drug in it. On awaking he was trussed up with rope and being painfully penetrated. He was shouting protests and swearing, but the action carried on for what felt forever. When at last it was finished he was thrown out with no money and with crab lice and anal bleeding as souvenirs. Several men recalled incidents when they had been taken home by one man only to find others present who overpowered them and took turns at anal rape. These mistreatments were not reported to police for fear of a charge of importuning. One man, a skinhead with a reputation for violence, who was beaten into submission to anal rape by a punter and his accomplice, managed revenge. The pair were drinking and fell asleep. He took the opportunity to stab one of them with a broken bottle before running out of the house.
Client abuse or failure to pay were relatively rare and not the reasons why the majority were discontented with the rent business. Most expressed dislike for their punters, and enjoyment of the sex required was unusual. Nevertheless, some clung to the hope of finding a ‘sugar daddy’ to change their lives. In fact a few had clients who had become friends upon whom they could rely for help in times of need. Of course, anyone succeeding in settling into a dependent relationship with a client would not be found at Streetwise. The irksome search for punters, the risks of arrest for importuning or of contracting HIV caused many to declare their intention to give up the game. The HIV risk was serious among those who were heavy drinkers or drug users with hazy recollections of whether unprotected sex had taken place with a punter. Intentions to quit were hard to put into practice while trapped without work skills or experience and with dubious backgrounds.
During my time at Streetwise, conflict between personal life and professional activity became more intrusive than ever before. One of the young men I interviewed complained of having been questioned in an irrelevant, prurient manner. Fortunately, the interviews were all tape-recorded and I was able to demonstrate a clinical approach and strict adherence to the pre-agreed schedule, but it was embarrassing trying to allay the scepticism of workers at Streetwise, who believed the boy. The Centre occupied a house in the vicinity of the Colherne pub, then (but no longer), a traditional gay ‘leather’ bar. I was there one evening in the company of a former research assistant, a gay man who was the partner of a distinguished lawyer and later judge. A Streetwise client entered and approached, inviting me to a private ‘session’ that would be kept a secret between ourselves. I was not so foolish as to accept, but mere presence in that bar might have been thought inappropriate for one of the managers of a charity supposed to be befriending, not encouraging, prostitutes. Worse was to come.
One of the members of the Streetwise Management was a younger man who often turned up dressed in leather. At the time I had begun responding occasionally to gay escort adverts offering ‘disciplinary’ and similar sexual services. On calling by appointment at one such address, I was confronted as the door opened by a young man pointing a camera at me. He was the aforesaid member of the Streetwise committee. He called me inside and began lecturing me on the unsuitability of a client of prostitutes occupying a post at a charity for helping prostitutes off the game. In my mind I had always compartmentalised sex research from my own sexual proclivities, considering them helpful in empathising with unconventional orientations in others, without preventing objective study of the origins and social effects of differing sexualities, but I now feared that the public, and espe
cially donors to Streetwise, might think differently, so I resigned swiftly and severed connection with the organisation, giving only the reason that I had served long enough and had other duties. The man who was exerting this species of blackmail was in a scarcely less compromising situation, using his local authority accommodation for the pursuit of a prostitution business. A lawyer friend went to see him on my behalf and I heard no more about threatened exposure, save that a long time afterwards I heard that he had expressed regret for his behaviour.
Involvement in research or in the helping services concerned with sex means that one is always suspect of improper motivations and exploitative conduct. When I joined Streetwise management the Centre was being run by a gay man who lived in a flat on the premises. He was accused of fraternising too closely with the clients, allowing some to stay overnight and permitting the use of prohibited drugs. It became my sad duty to insist on his resignation. I knew this was unavoidable, but wondered whether, in truth, his closeness to these damaged youngsters, whose situations resembled his own earlier life, was doing them more good than harm.
I encountered controversy at Streetwise on other grounds. Strenuous efforts were being made to preserve political correctness with regard to avoidance of any taint of racial discrimination in the appointment of staff. I was roundly condemned for once asking whether this was a high priority in view of the all-white clientele. Doubtless I was wrong, but the enlistment of a black woman activist did nothing to encourage young blacks to make use of Streetwise in the face of the high level of homophobia in their community. Furthermore, it seemed to me that, notwithstanding her devotion to her justified cause, the non-white staff members under her wing were getting no favours whatsoever!