America’s First Legal, Male Prostitute, the Great Happiness Space, and the Art of Male Companionship

This is a bit old, but as of January 13th… America officially has its first, legal male prostitute. And his name is Markus.

The title of the article caught my eye, when I first saw this mentioned online. And boy, let me tell you… this guy is all sorts of quotable:

Despite a rather unfortunate comparison between himself and Rosa Parks, I found the article an interesting insight into a guy who’s got a whole different day job than me. “Markus” was a lot more thoughtful than I would have assumed, and positions his value more on the companionship side (as opposed to the physical).

I was reminded of this fantastic documentary I saw called The Great Happiness Space. It was about the “host clubs” in Japan where women go to drink and to spend time with “host boys.” The young men who work those clubs are good looking, charismatic, and they work to encourage the customers/women to spend as much money as they can.

With the host clubs, it’s not a sordid thing and not about sex. While the structure is similar to that of, say, a strip club, the primary currency there is companionship. Conversation.

Now that I’m thinking about that movie again, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s available on Netflix, and can also be viewed instantly too (if you’ve got that set up). For some reason, the movie trailer isn’t available on the official movie site, but the first few minutes are available for preview here.