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		<title>Comment on Small cars post gains, trucks fall as gas prices rise by createmo</title>
		<link>http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/small-cars-post-gains-trucks-fall-as-gas-prices-rise/#comment-1101</link>
		<dc:creator>createmo</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:44:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://seclater.wordpress.com/?p=30#comment-1101</guid>
		<description>Thank you for your website ;-)
I made on photoshop backgrounds for myspace,youtube and even more
my backgrounds:http://tinyurl.com/6ptkxd
have a great day and thank you again!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thank you for your website <img src='http://s.wordpress.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
I made on photoshop backgrounds for myspace,youtube and even more<br />
my backgrounds:http://tinyurl.com/6ptkxd<br />
have a great day and thank you again!</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Comment on Storytelling: A Powerful Marketing Strategy for Your Online Business by Lori Silverman</title>
		<link>http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/storytelling-a-powerful-marketing-strategy-for-your-online-business/#comment-1073</link>
		<dc:creator>Lori Silverman</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:21:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/storytelling-a-powerful-marketing-strategy-for-your-online-business/#comment-1073</guid>
		<description>Thank you for reinforcing the importance of powerful stories in marketing. In the three years of research I spearheaded on how stories can impact bottom-line performance, summarized in the book, Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results (http://www.wakeupmycompany.com), there is an entire chapter on the use of story in marketing and marketing research, along with a separate chapter on the use of story in branding. Each chapter features five separate company examples from enterprises around the world.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thank you for reinforcing the importance of powerful stories in marketing. In the three years of research I spearheaded on how stories can impact bottom-line performance, summarized in the book, Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results (<a href="http://www.wakeupmycompany.com)" rel="nofollow">http://www.wakeupmycompany.com)</a>, there is an entire chapter on the use of story in marketing and marketing research, along with a separate chapter on the use of story in branding. Each chapter features five separate company examples from enterprises around the world.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Comment on Storytelling: A Powerful Marketing Strategy for Your Online Business by Wayne Barlow</title>
		<link>http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/storytelling-a-powerful-marketing-strategy-for-your-online-business/#comment-1062</link>
		<dc:creator>Wayne Barlow</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:02:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/storytelling-a-powerful-marketing-strategy-for-your-online-business/#comment-1062</guid>
		<description>Great article. I also found some great examples of using the story from Anita Roddick of the Body Shop: 

http://gotvmail.com/newsletter/12-2007/entrepreneur-video.html

She discusses how you can turn difficult situations into excellent publicity and the various elements you can use to create stories that promote your company.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Great article. I also found some great examples of using the story from Anita Roddick of the Body Shop: </p>
<p><a href="http://gotvmail.com/newsletter/12-2007/entrepreneur-video.html" rel="nofollow">http://gotvmail.com/newsletter/12-2007/entrepreneur-video.html</a></p>
<p>She discusses how you can turn difficult situations into excellent publicity and the various elements you can use to create stories that promote your company.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Comment on Storytelling: A Powerful Marketing Strategy for Your Online Business by Barbara Bix</title>
		<link>http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/storytelling-a-powerful-marketing-strategy-for-your-online-business/#comment-1059</link>
		<dc:creator>Barbara Bix</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:56:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/storytelling-a-powerful-marketing-strategy-for-your-online-business/#comment-1059</guid>
		<description>As a B2B marketing consultant, one of the first recommendations that I make to my clients is to prepare customer case studies.  These stories have four sections:  challenge, activities, result, and material impact of the results (increase in profitability, quality of life etc.)  I make this recommendation for several reasons.  As you note, a picture (even a verbal picture) is worth a thousand words.  Telling a story not only makes one&#039;s services more memorable, it also helps people quickly understand not only what you do but the benefit that you deliver to your clients.  The other reason is that case studies help my clients sell to their clients&#039; competitors. When these companies see how the competition benefited from my clients&#039; products or services, they want  to buy too.  Who doesn&#039;t want to &quot;keep up with the Joneses?&quot;  Finally the press loves case studies.  When you write their stories, they don&#039;t have to.  So, whether you plan to use them in your 30-second intro, marketing collateral or press releases, I agree that stories are the way to go!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As a B2B marketing consultant, one of the first recommendations that I make to my clients is to prepare customer case studies.  These stories have four sections:  challenge, activities, result, and material impact of the results (increase in profitability, quality of life etc.)  I make this recommendation for several reasons.  As you note, a picture (even a verbal picture) is worth a thousand words.  Telling a story not only makes one&#8217;s services more memorable, it also helps people quickly understand not only what you do but the benefit that you deliver to your clients.  The other reason is that case studies help my clients sell to their clients&#8217; competitors. When these companies see how the competition benefited from my clients&#8217; products or services, they want  to buy too.  Who doesn&#8217;t want to &#8220;keep up with the Joneses?&#8221;  Finally the press loves case studies.  When you write their stories, they don&#8217;t have to.  So, whether you plan to use them in your 30-second intro, marketing collateral or press releases, I agree that stories are the way to go!</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Comment on Are You Looking For Ways To Earn Money Online? by skilline.com</title>
		<link>http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/are-you-looking-for-ways-to-earn-money-online/#comment-1043</link>
		<dc:creator>skilline.com</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:09:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://seclater.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/are-you-looking-for-ways-to-earn-money-online/#comment-1043</guid>
		<description>Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.
Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.

They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.

It is hardly a easy job to do - in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.

“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.

“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn - 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.

Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.

“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ - wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.

Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.

“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.

Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.

‘Not thriving’

“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.

Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.

And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.

“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.

Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities

www.skilline.comMost female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.

There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.

They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.

“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.

Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.

They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.

They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top u</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.<br />
Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very Most female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top up their prepaid mobile phone cards and pay for their internet connections for phone and cyber sex.</p>
<p>They also offer some insight into the changing sexual mores of a growing number of Indian women who are ready to spend money on buying sex in a traditionally conservative society.</p>
<p>It is hardly a easy job to do &#8211; in the absence of male brothels, gigolos like Samrat cruise after dusk for prospective clients, mainly upper or middle-class and rich women who usually drive in their cars with dark tinted windows.</p>
<p>“It is not all fun and games as people think. Just as female sex workers face violence and get cheated, we face such situations from time to time too,” says the son of a bank worker, who joined the sex trade after a short stint as an employee with a multi-national pharmaceutical firm in the capital, Delhi.</p>
<p>“I have often not been paid by clients, and when I have protested, they have threatened me with telling the police that I tried to rape them. And there are clients who love to stub out burning cigarettes on our bodies. These days I have begun to charge for a cigarette burn &#8211; 500 rupees ($11) per stub,” he says.</p>
<p>Over the years, the profile of women buying sex in India has also changed, Samrat and his friends say.</p>
<p>“Even four years ago, my clientele was what you would call ‘high class’ &#8211; wives of businessmen, executives, bureaucrats, traders. Now there are middle-class women calling us,” says Samrat.</p>
<p>Also, says Sudeep Chakraborty, 31, an accountancy graduate, it is no longer difficult to get in touch with clients.</p>
<p>“Women who seek us out are no longer bashful. They are as professional as men seeking female sex workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Sudeep says he met his first client at a friend’s party. The lonely wife of a businessman, “as she described herself”, took him aside and poured out her heart to him. Then, the two began going out for dates.</p>
<p>‘Not thriving’</p>
<p>“She used to pay for my company, and later for the sex. She would give me pocket money. With her, I was making 800 rupees every time we met, so I thought why don’t I join the trade,” he says.</p>
<p>Younger men like Goutam, Pallab and Aditya, who all dropped out of school and began working in massage parlours before picking up the trade, say the clientele is not as thriving as some make it out to be.</p>
<p>And for that reason, they say, many of them have to sleep with men to keep their home fires burning.</p>
<p>“Women can be very demanding. Sometimes they shock my middle-class upbringing with their demands. When we don’t get women, we have to sleep with men. It’s not fun and games at all,” says Pallab.</p>
<p>Some names in the article have been changed to protect identities</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skilline.comMost" rel="nofollow">http://www.skilline.comMost</a> female sex workers in India walk the streets or work out of thriving, grubby red light districts. Male sex workers usually cruise downtown streets in main cities, work in shady massage parlours and trawl internet chatrooms for clients.</p>
<p>There are several thousand of them in the big cities and their numbers are growing as the mobile phone and the internet have made business easier for them.</p>
<p>They are hardly spoken about in HIV prevention programmes, though they comprise one of the most high-risk groups in the country.</p>
<p>“Nobody really has any idea of what we do, and the problems we face. In India, the gigolo is usually made fun of. Some of my friends tell me, ‘what an enviable life you live!’,” says Samrat, a earnest looking thirty something man and a science graduate.</p>
<p>Most of gigolos in India tell stories of hailing from middle or lower middle-class backgrounds and getting introduced to the world of selling sex through friends, parties, and working in seedy massage parlours that have sprung up all over the country.</p>
<p>They have now begun putting adverts in newspaper classified columns and ‘penpal’ magazines, hawking themselves openly as male escorts and ‘friends’.</p>
<p>They say that they not only meet their clients for paid sex charging upwards for 1,000 rupees ($25) for an hour, but also get their clients to top u</p>
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