Diversity Rules Magazine

5 Diversity Rules Magazine April 2017 he'd been doing it for a year or so, I went along to do a series of gradually more involved photo sessions with the same men I'd seen my brother with. at is where it started. Each step made the next one easier. If you take your shirt off for the camera, why not your jeans? For a few more bucks and a gift of some sort how about taking your underwear off, too? en posing with an- other boy. en a man. en time alone with that or another man in the shower, in bed. Playful touching and kissing lead, with promises of rewards, to more and more. It was less than six months between the time I first took off my shirt to be photographed and the time the first man paid me to suck him off. JRK: In your case, it seems that your involvement in this world was directly related to the socio-eco- nomic condition of your family at the time, which generally can be the case with street hustlers, who help support their families through prostitution. Can you tell us a bit about your family background and did it directly influence your becoming involved in such a taboo "profession?" JS: My parents had my brother not long after my dad came back from Vietnam. My dad and mom traveled around Europe for a while, apparently, dirt poor, and making their first connections with recreational drugs and with sex for pay. Back in New York, my brother came along and then dad spent a short time in prison and my mom was – as she would be her whole life – struggling with her own combination of addiction and mental illness. My dad got his act together for a while, working at a loading dock and that was the first job I remember him having and one of the last legit ones. ey got into harder drugs – I didn't really understand that until I was much older and the family history was explained to me – and from the time I was 4 to 6 we had fairly frequent short periods of homelessness bro- ken by occasional stays on the floors and couches of people my parents knew. It was in a situation like that where a pair of guys introduced themselves to me and my brother. Dan and Rob. ey would be part of my life, on and off, for some years to come. ey paid for access to my brother for themselves and for other men and were responsible for those initial photo sessions. We often slept at their place; sometimes for a night or weekend, sometimes longer. Just being able to rely on having the same comfortable place to sleep every night was a luxury. When my parents would spend a week- end or whatever shooting up, Dan and Rob would of- ten put me and my brother up at their place where there were usually other boys in and out from similar circumstances. And, while there, we would "entertain" Dan and Rob's many guests. From those other kids, we learned of the other places around town where a kid could do the same sort of thing, pocketing cash and sometimes getting other bonuses out of the deal. is included street hustling in certain places in Times Square, the Meatpacking District, and the West Vil- lage. In Times Square and the Village, there were ratty little establishments for hookers, male and female, where you could do business in return for giving them a cut or a payment at the door – which your adult friend would be expected to pay as you entered. Also, there were bathhouses and sex shops where we could hang out, just outside a back entrance and be brought into a back room for patrons inside who said just the right thing to the guy behind the counter and slipped him the right amount of money. JRK: How did those in "the business" recruit kids to hustle? JS: Kids of drug addicts. Homeless kids. Kids of prostitutes. Kids of prisoners. e people like Dan and Rob knew how to approach and feel out those kids, and like I said, it tended to start with something that seemed foolish to say no to. 50 bucks to let you take pictures of me in the shower? Sure. en the next Puppy - Con't on page 6

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