Although there are obvious differences between his hustling and his noncommercial sex, differences in terms of the acts performed and his attitude toward his partners, there are also similarities worth noting. The men who pick him up buy the drinks, pay for taxis, and take him to their apartments rather than returning with him to his own place.
With some of these pick-ups Greg has established friendships of considerable duration, but he has never had a steady love-affair with any of them. He did live with one for a period of a few weeks, but only because he was in the process of finding an apartment of his own.
“I don’t fall in love. I will like certain guys very much, and I may enjoy sex with them very much, but I don’t love them in the sense of not wanting to have sex with anyone but them, or even of wanting to live with them. Some people say this is immature, or that there’s still something in me that holds me back from that kind of thing. Like I won’t admit I’m enough of a faggot to love another man. Well, maybe they’re right and maybe they’re not. But there are plenty of guys like me who just want their sex when they want it and with whoever they want it with, and they don’t want to get involved. Maybe I’ll change but I don’t think so. I could see myself living with a girl, maybe even getting married to a girl, but I couldn’t see myself falling in love with another guy, although I suppose I could turn out to be mistaken about that. There was a time when I couldn’t see myself, you know, going down on a guy.”
Why does he go on hustling?
“The money is part of it, man. I’m always broke. Clothes, everything. Somehow or other I’m always broke and the money always comes in handy.”
But he can make good money about as easily as a model, and does earn a decent living that way. Isn’t it possible that he derives some essential satisfaction from hustling? Some sort of gratification that is unavailable to him in any other way?
“Yeah, I suppose. Oh, shit, there’s no question about it. The only thing is that it’s such a childish thing, you don’t like to admit it.
“It’s a particular feeling, when you have this man who will actually want to pay money for the privilege of sucking your cock. It’s saying to you over and over that you’re beautiful, that you’re worthwhile, that you’re desirable. And I guess I have to have this, because otherwise it’s ridiculous to go through with it. The pleasure, a situation like that, you have an orgasm but it’s no pleasure compared to being with a person you like in a comfortable bed in a clean place. I mean, getting blown by some creep in a toilet, that isn’t pleasure.
“I guess it’s a matter of having a part of your brain that thinks you’re basically a worthless shit, and you need to keep proving you’re not.”