gigolos in literature

[cacian]

how is the concept of a male prostitute exploited/written about in literature?
looking for characters from stories to come forward :)

[Darcy88]

I'm writing a novella about a male prostitute now, just started a few days ago. I've never encountered one in literature before though I'm sure the topic has been explored in some book.

[cacian]

I'm writing a novella about a male prostitute now, just started a few days ago. I've never encountered one in literature before though I'm sure the topic has been explored in some book.

Darcy what do you call the difference between a novel and a novella apart from one is masculine and the other feminine.
How easy is it to write a male prostitute without making feel as if it was easy ?
this is an article you may find interesting :)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1336918/posts

[ennison]

Books with a short shelf life - like their subject.

[kiki1982]

Novels ar fictional stories as we know them (originally: basic situation - problem - seeking to solution - solution - end). Novellas are a subclass of these fictional stories that essentially provide an image of the times they play in. So, a novella is more about the era than it is about the story. If you write a novella about the 80s, you might want to include some punks, some bombing and an economic crises and some horrible disco music.

Does that make sense a little?

[Darcy88]

Darcy what do you call the difference between a novel and a novella apart from one is masculine and the other feminine.
How easy is it to write a male prostitute without making feel as if it was easy ?
this is an article you may find interesting :)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1336918/posts

A novella is basically just a short novel. I don't know what you mean about "making it feel as if it was easy."

[papillondemai]

I'm writing a novella about a male prostitute now, just started a few days ago. I've never encountered one in literature before though I'm sure the topic has been explored in some book.

How about "Our Lady of The Flowers" by Jean Genet?

[Darcy88]

How about "Our Lady of The Flowers" by Jean Genet?

I haven't read that book. I read Querelle a number of years ago, that's it for my reading of Genet.

One of the main characters in Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos is a former male prostitute, but the subject is merely mentioned in passing, never actually discussed.

[OrphanPip]

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Caroll
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (Giovanni is heavily implied to have been a male prostitute though his life as a prostitute is not the focus of the novel).
Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim
Hotel de Dream by Edmund White

[cacian]

A novella is basically just a short novel. I don't know what you mean about "making it feel as if it was easy."

What I mean is how would you approach a male prostitute without over exaggerating or underrating it? do you have a knowledge of what a male prostitute does is what I mean or are you just writing it up according to you? :)

[cacian]

Novels ar fictional stories as we know them (originally: basic situation - problem - seeking to solution - solution - end). Novellas are a subclass of these fictional stories that essentially provide an image of the times they play in. So, a novella is more about the era than it is about the story. If you write a novella about the 80s, you might want to include some punks, some bombing and an economic crises and some horrible disco music.

Does that make sense a little?

Hi kiki and thank you. I think it does. so what you mean is that a novella is interested in the details of an era and so focuses on that rather on the subjectery of the story. it is more concerned with looks then ideas right?

[osho]

Once I used to read some novels, thrillers, by James Hadley Chase and in some of his novels he wrote as to how rich women used men to satisfy their urges. It is not uncommon and of course women of fortune can hire young and muscular males. Notwithstanding its commonality literature is scantily addressing the issue and of course today books to mirror such realisms are in demand. We have yet to dip into some of the recesses of human beings and our literature run short of such nuanced themes and this is the poverty of our literature or expressions

[kev67]

I could not think of any books and the only movies I could think of that were about male prostitutes, both gigolos and rent boys, were My Own Private Idaho, American Gigolo and Midnight Cowboy. I think the first two were original film scripts, but Midnight Cowboy was based on a book by James Leo Herlihy. I don't know what the book was like, but Midnight Cowboy was a superb film.