>Are male prostitutes ever conceptualized in this fashion?
In the U.S. male hustlers are generally presented as tougher than johns and in control of their fate. They're men after all.
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/-lyrics-The-Ramones/48B9852847D7416448256A0D002623CB
If you think you can, well come on man I was a Green Beret in Viet Nam No more of your fairy stories 'Cause I got my other worries
53rd and 3rd Standing on the street 53rd and 3rd I'm tryin' to turn a trick
53rd and 3rd You're the one they never pick 53rd and 3rd Don't it make you feel sick?
Then I took out my razor blade Then I did what God forbade Now the cops are after me But I proved that I'm no sissy
When John Rechy published his first novel, City of Night, in 1963, he was still earning his living as a prostitute on the streets of Los Angeles. It made sense: he didn't expect a book that dealt with underground gay life in America to make him much money, and it's a foolish writer who gives up the day job (or in Rechy's case, the night job) with the first flush of publication.
To Rechy's astonishment, and despite the best efforts of homophobic critics, the book was a smash and money started rolling in. But Rechy still couldn't leave the streets. "It caught me out completely," says Rechy, now 74, and still living in Los Angeles. "I was bewildered. I did nothing at all to promote the book, even to the extent of denying that I wrote it. I felt that if I left the streets as soon as I had some success, I'd be betraying the world that I wrote about. And the truth is that I couldn't give it up. I'd been hustling for so long that it was a habit."