Male Street Prostitution

A young street boy reclines on a couch while an older man passionately kisses his foot in this 1884 print "Les Pédérastes" by Léo Taxil, from the series La prositution contemporaine, or contemporary prostitution.

Then:

From a modern perspective, 19th century France had a paradoxical view on sexual liberty. France was the first European country to strike its anti-sodomy laws from the books, after the revolution in 1791, and is the first modern example of regulated female prostitution. Yet men who had sex with men were victimized by the police -- particularly men of the working class who had sex for money. [1] Much in the same way that prostitution was legal but streetwalkers were criminalized, sodomy was technically legal but police looked for excuses to arrest men soliciting or participating in gay sex. The Moral Brigade, or the Brigade des moeurs, the branch of the Prefecture of Police that was responsible for policing prostitution, orchestrated rafles, or raids, on areas where clandestine prostitutes worked. They would secretly surround the areas and then arrest all the streetwalkers working within them. The Brigade des moeurs, acted controversially in that they often sent these streetwalkers to prison without trial or appeal. [2]

According to Peniston, male streetwalking in the 19th century went largely unremarked upon in official documents because like the female streetwalkers Parent-Duchâtelet encountered, men were unlikely to seek medical treatment and thus have legible records. [1] Many relationships that have been documented, especially those that deal with prostitution, are between older rich men who bought sex from younger poor men and teenagers.

This is illustrated in the Taxil print, above, which shows a pederast kissing the feet of a boy reclining on a couch, presumably in a brothel or somewhere else that a young man soliciting sex could bring his partners. It so closely resembles the photograph below, taken by Stephen Shames a century later, that it is impossible not to draw parallels between pederasty in 19th century Paris and streetwalking relationships between chickens (boys or young teenagers soliciting sex) and chicken hawks (men who paid them for sex) in the 1970s.

Now:

While men form a significant portion of the sex trade, they receive little attention from the general public, media, and researchers. The studies that have been conducted reveal a variety of differences between male and female streetwalkers: men are less dependent on prostitution for financial survival and are less likely to have and be controlled by pimps. They are less likely to have been sexually abused as children and are subject to less violence from their clients. They are also less likely to be arrested for solicitation, as they are less conspicuous than female streetwalkers. Thus, the authorities pay more attention to the women walking the streets and focus their sting operations on them. Furthermore, male streetwalkers are more likely than their female counterparts to experience sexual gratification with clients and to view prostitution as recreational sex. [3]