From the glamorous courtesans of the Moulin Rouge to destitute “Fallen women” in the stories of Charles Dickens, most people imagine females when they think of sex workers throughout history. In reality, there were plenty of male gigolos earning a good living from providing their company to both women and men. Each one of these male sex workers became famous for their lovers, and the impact they left behind on society.
John Saul
During the Victorian Era, people put out the appearance of being very prim and proper, but they were wildly sexual inside their minds and didn’t mind experimenting behind closed doors. A man known as John Saul was born in Dublin, Ireland in the 1800s. He became a male prostitute to earn some money to get him out of his poor circumstances, and eventually moved to London so he could find some higher paying clients. He wrote a book about this experiences called The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism.
At that time, male prostitutes were given the nickname “Mary-Ann”, as a code name, so men could refer to their male lover as the common female name “Mary-Ann” without it seeming suspicious. In this book, Saul wrote that prominent members in political society paid him for sex, and even participated in orgies.
The address of 19 Cleveland Street was well-known for being a male brothel. After publishing his book, John Saul was ordered to appear in court to testify if what he wrote was true about a man named Martin Oranmore Kirwan, who was the son of a wealthy man. Gay sex was illegal at that time, but they decided not to prosecute him for sodomy, because it would set in motion a slew of prosecuting every other man who participated in homosexual sex. It was rumored that Queen Victoria’s grandson was gay, and it was “bad timing” to go after gay men. They knew that the prince probably went to 19 Cleveland Street as well. So, John Saul got away with writing pornographic stories of his sexual adventures.