Peering into Toronto's seamy underbelly, part II

Mark describes himself as a 22-year old college student of Eastern European and Italian descent. Although he's in good shape, he's nowhere near as buff as the photo in his Craigslist ad.

When clients ask, I just tell them it's an old pic. Most are so hot and bothered at that point they don't care what you look like anymore. As long as you look clean, and do what you said over the phone, they're good to go.

Mark moved to Toronto from St. Thomas, Ontario when he was seventeen. Growing up gay in a conservative town of 30 000, Mark had ambitions of leaving since he was 12. After meeting a 45 year old bartender on MySpace, Mark dropped out of high school and hopped onto a Greyhound to Toronto. Three months later, after an argument, Mark's boyfriend kicked him out of his Church street apartment and onto the street.

I had no money or place to stay, but I wasn't going back home... not after I got a taste of life in the big city where I was finally around other people like me.

Mark looked for more conventional work at first, waiting tables, telemarketing, and even bartending down the block from his old boyfriend's bar, but in the end the money he earned at those jobs was never enough.

Rent anywhere was a 1000 dollars a month, at least, and any job I could get was minimum wage. After food,  bills... I had to borrow money from friends and the family who still talked to me just to get by.

There was no single profound moment that marked Mark's entry into prostitution- for a few months he would pick up men in bars, and although there was never an explicit agreement in regards to an exchange of money for sex, he would inevitably end up living at his new partner's apartment for a few weeks on their tab. He eventually picked up a reputation on the bar scene, and men began to straight up offer him cash for a night back at their apartment. For Mark, what happened occurred so gradually he didn't realize a line had been crossed until an encounter with a man in the back of his car months later.

It was a married man who just wanted me to go down on him in the back of his car. It was the first time I didn't find the guy attractive, and I didn't want to be there. But I did it anyway because I needed the money... that's when I realized.

Mark stopped for a few weeks, looked for a new job in vain, and even considered moving back home to St. Thomas- but by then his sexuality had become town gossip, and he was no longer welcome at his parents' home. Mark stayed with friends, and even spent a few nights at a homeless shelter at a downtown Church where he kept his homosexuality secret (although by his own admission they probably wouldn't have cared regardless). He later returned to the bars, looking for men willing to pay money for a night in bed. 

Unfortunately for Mark the bars soon caught on, and banned him from entering. Not wanting to walk the streets, Mark began advertising on Craigslist. He borrowed a friend's digital camera and took nude shots of himself from the neck down in the washroom mirror. But while facially handsome, photos of Mark's pale, mushy physique didn't attract many customers. So he later posted a photo of a Playgirl centrefold he found on Google. When men question him about it, he claims its an old photo from his high school track and field days, a technique which usually gets the johns aroused enough to skip further questioning. He now makes enough seeing men in his rented downtown condominium that he only needs to work three to four days a week, usually one to two clients a night. 

Unlike Mark's early days, most of Mark's clientèle are not other gay men in the village, but closeted married men looking for some anonymous sex with another man. He began advertising himself as a 'college student' because he found that attracted more of the married suburban clients he wanted to focus on;

The married guys like the idea of a young college kid. They find it more taboo.

When I asked him why he preferred seeing married men, Mark offered a few explanations.

Other men in the community can be real catty if they found out I was hooking. Husbands from the suburbs are going to keep their mouth shut... (and) they tend to be safer too. Always condoms, never bareback... 

Mark also cites the added thrill of knowing he has so much power over a supposedly straight male.

I imagine they're the men back home who used to say shit about me behind my back.

Still, there are nights that Mark admits he would like to find a way out. On more than a few occasions a client made Mark fear for his safety. One in particular, when a 6'5 body-builder requested Mark partake in  some auto-erotic asphyxiation games with him. Mark refunded the man's money in full rather than partaking. He now has a friend on call every time he sees a client, calling to check up on him at the end of each and every session. The friend, James, a receptionist originally from Niagara Falls shares a similar story to Mark; he hooked the first two years he lived in Toronto, only quitting after seeing a former client shoot-up heroine in a back-alley.

You're constantly scared of disease... and every now and then there's a gross guy who you don't want to have any part of... but a job's a job, and everyone has to do stuff they don't want.

Mark himself isn't sure how much longer he'd like to do this. He has thoughts of actually going to college or university some day, and his love of animals has made him consider a career as a veterinary technician. But of course that's the future, and there are bills to pay now:

I don't know if I'll ever quit, quit... maybe get to a point someday where I can turn more people down and only be with the people I genuinely want to be with. To me that's the ultimate. What more could there be to life?