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News - South Asia - Gigolos speak out in conservative India

What is common between a draughtsman, an accounting clerk, a shop assistant and a school dropout?

Nothing much apart from the fact that the four men come from middle-class families in India and - barring the drop out - quit humdrum jobs to start selling sex to women in the crowded eastern city of Calcutta.

Dibakar, Samrat, Pallab and Goutam have also come together to bond in a group called Anandam that includes gays, lesbians, transgender groups and bisexuals to push HIV prevention programmes.

They are also stepping out of their shadowy world to talk about their lives and problems in a society where very little is known about them, talking about sex remains a taboo, and homosexuality and soliciting sex is outlawed.

High risk

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.

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