Embracing the "inner ho"

David Sterry is a baseball writer and former male prostitute who is working on a novel with no sex in it.

By Tracy Quan

Aug 21, 2002 | David Sterry is, among other things, a 40-ish heterosexual baseball writer coming to terms with his "inner ho." Satchel Paige is one of his role models and, last year, he published (with coauthor Arielle Eckstut) "Satchel Sez," a book about the pitcher's wit and wisdom. Sterry's idea of a religious site is Yankee Stadium. And he looks the part. Slightly gray, with a deep baritone speaking voice, he's what Americans routinely call "a regular guy."

At a sex-worker conference in May, I couldn't help noticing how unusual a "regular guy" can look in a room filled with male sex workers who are still acting boyish (even into their late 30s), and far more likely to be interested in gardening and decorating than baseball.

At first, it's disorienting to hear Sterry talking so candidly about the lost inner prostitute -- a youthful persona he left behind after a year of turning tricks while in college. He's not a veteran of the sex trade like some of us and he's new to the hookers movement. So Sterry probably has no idea what people are saying behind his back. Because most of his customers were women, he defies a few stereotypes, including those of the sex-workers' movement.

One male sex worker (who never met Sterry) suspects that he's "under-reporting the number of men he serviced." Come on, another activist insinuates, did he really make a living just doing women? Activist sex workers love to debate the authenticity of their comrades -- out of earshot, of course -- and we often theorize about whether or why a particular prostitute is essentially putting on airs. So Sterry is not being singled out.

In p.c. lingo, it's often stated that many males who have sex with men "do not identify as gay." The homophobic young hustler who resentfully has sex with men, while pretending that "nothing really happens" with his customers, is a trope -- of the sex trade, of the streets, of the movement. "But," I ask one doubtful colleague, "shouldn't you read 'Chicken' [Sterry's memoir] before you jump to all these conclusions?"

Sterry admits that male sex workers weren't the first people to welcome him into the movement. He sounds wistful. "They haven't been as warm toward me. But the women have been wonderful, very supportive." When I float the phobic-hustler-in-denial theory, he protests, "I'm not homophobic! I worked in the theater for 10 years -- and I was best man at my ex-wife's gay wedding." Despite his straight appearance, this guy is not exactly wearing the mantle of macho.

Hetero male prostitutes are sometimes treated like curiosities in our movement. At the PONY (Prostitutes of New York) meetings I attend, they are rare. When such a guy appears at a PONY meeting, the girls gather out of sheer nosiness. We ask questions that we wouldn't ask another girl, out of respect for her privacy. We sometimes end up sounding like the voyeurs we've spent our lives dodging. With all this in mind, I asked David Sterry for an interview.

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