Diversity Rules Magazine

April 2017

Diversity Rules Magazine - _lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning_

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4 Diversity Rules Magazine April 2017 Times Square in New York City during the 1970's was a much different place than it is today. en it was the home of New York's sex shops and peep shows, and where prostitutes openly worked the streets, along with the drug dealers. e area was full of crime and was not the best place to be in New York City, especially at night. Along with the ladies of the evening, there was also a flourishing underage prostitution business in Times Square, where boy prostitutes, called "chickens" or "puppies," would work the streets, seeking out men who would pay them for their services, otherwise known as "chicken hawks." While such a topic is ta- boo in today's society, it was generally overlooked and ignored by the Police during the late 1970's, unless there was a larger disturbance to contend with. Many of the boys who were hustling, were helping their fam- ilies make ends meet. One such boy was "John Smith. "John" was first intro- duced to the prostitution business at a very young age of 10 years old. While other boys his age were com- fortably at home with their families, "John" was be- ing rented out to the chicken hawks and hustling the streets of Times Square. He continued in this "profes- sion" through his teenage years. e April issue's feature interview is with "John Smith," whose real name was changed to protect his privacy and identity, now that he is an adult, far removed from the world in which he grew up. While this interview will certainly make some readers uncomfortable, it is, nonetheless, part of the historical evolution of New York City's Times Square, and "John Smith's" part in that history, before its transformation into a place that does not currently resemble at all what it once was in the late 1970's and 1980's. JRK: Your childhood was unlike that of most kids since you were introduced at a very young age to what most consider a "taboo" world – child pros- titution. First off, I want to thank you for your willingness to discuss this period of your life with Diversity Rules readers. Second, can you briefly de- scribe how you first became introduced to this hid- den world that most people just know about from the news and at what age you started in it? JS: I would think everyone would consider that a ta- boo world. is was in the mid-1970s in New York City. My introduction kind of depends on what you think counts. My older brother was involved in it for a year or so before anything went on with me. I re- member having an overwhelming mix of curiosity and anxiety about what I think I understood as my broth- er's participation in adulthood. He had adult "friends" who gave him cash, clothes, toys, etc. and who had visits with him that lasted anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes in a home, car, hotel, etc., up to overnight or all weekend when they would take him away with them. After these visits, he would either be on a very manic high that ended with him having an emotional outburst and then with him exhausted and passed out or to very depressed lows during which he retreated into himself and wouldn't speak for a day or more. At some point during that year, I began to think more and more about what was going on and what it meant. I had seen and heard bits and pieces here and there but hadn't put it all together – and couldn't have put it all together because even a city kid who was regularly exposed to porn in sex shop windows didn't necessar- ily, as a still pretty young kid, think of it as much more than something grown-ups did with their clothes off and somehow babies happen. When I was taken along once and saw him posing partly and completely na- ked for photographs and subsequently was allowed to briefly see him naked on a bed with a naked man, I began to associate what little I understood about what sex was to what my brother was doing. en, after Confessions Of A Puppy The Story Of A Child Prostitute by Jim Koury, Editor/Publisher

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