THE HISTORY OF RBA
INTRODUCTION
[2004] I have been thinking for a year if I would like to write this story and it took me a year to do so. I have tried not to tell you the story of myself as an escort. However, RentboyAustralia.com is now a part of my life. So, I have to be in the story. I also hope that this story may inspire someone to do something better for our gay escort Australia and the world. I've never told anyone before about my true story. I hope my decision is right! It's the story of me, my career, friends and finally RBA.
BEFORE IT WAS BEGUN
About me, I don't want to advertise myself in this area of the website so I will keep my identity private. It wasn't the big issue anyway because we are about to get to know RBA, not me. However, I entered into this career by accident and then by choice. So, I would like to share with you a bit of my story.
When I was 24, I was a student. I was also a young hard working boy. I worked full time at a Chicken Shop on Coogee Beach (Sydney). I was paid $90 a day starting from 8 am to 7 pm working as a kitchen hand preparing turkeys for Christmas. When I got home, I had to go to bed right away so I could wake up (6.30 am) and be ready for work on time in the morning 7 days a week during holidays and working a few days when I had to study.
Later, I was also working as a waiter in a restaurant in Bondi where I could escape from the kitchen and I met people. I noticed I was a hottie. A gentleman (a restaurant client, I didn't know his name) gave me $20 tip right into my pants because I was a professional waiter! So, I believed I was very good at client service. When I helped my friends at the restaurant deliver dinner to one of the gay clients in the gay area, I was invited to step in and the clients asked me to stay a little bit longer but I could not. When I went to gay pubs, there were always older gentlemen would like to talk to me. I had noticed I was uniquely special.
MY ESCORT CAREER
My escort career started accidentally. My first so called a client was a late 30s gentleman living in Crown Street, Surry Hills. We met at the pub one night on Oxford Street. He asked me to go to see him one night and offered me $100 as my reward to help out as “a friend”. I accepted the offer. He asked me to strip off, stood still then asked me to relax in bed. I was very open-mind about sex. So, I gave him what he wanted. The Job was easy. Just stand and sit there being me (may involved naked bodies, sexual act, you know that right). I was still young. I had a lot of sexual energy to kill. Finally, I got my $100. I managed to visit him a few days in a row and earn extra $300. I thanked him for helping me out.
Without starting this career as a professional, I also remembered one night I went to a gay sauna near Flinders Street, a older gentleman offered me $50 to get into the cubicle so he could jerk off and cum on me. I took the chance. It was not too difficult. I was paid. I thought it was a reward for my generosity.
Later, I needed a lot of money for my study. A lot of money. I didn't have much time working full time in the Chicken Shop any more. So, I decided firmly to do some escort work. I started collecting information from other escorts by calling them pretending that I was a client.
I learnt that everyone could not work as an escort because of there looks. This job would depend mainly on my age, body and appearance. Thank God! I was young, cute, hot and hung. What a perfect boy! I wanted to turn my sexual energy into cold cash, seriously. So, I decided firmly to start this career. I studied how an escort got into the business from other escorts. Several years back, an escort named “Spike” was the one who had the most outstanding advertising campaign. He was a handsome Aussie porn stars and escorts in his time. So, I tried to follow his steps in the way he responded on the phone and how he distinguished himself in the boy business. He was a smart boy. I finally managed to see him live at the party one day but he would never know who I was. (Sorry, but I was too shy)
So, I managed to get my ad done and call The Star to advertise as an escort. I also advertised occasionally as an erotic masseur (I finished a Swedish massage course). Later, I mostly did escort jobs because most people always trying to get “extras” or “full service” when they met me. I had been working as an independent escort since then. I had met a lot of clients, the best to the worse. I had been to 5-star hotels around Sydney. I even went to 2-stars. I have flown first, business and economy class with my clients. Helping them around during their business trips. I had been on luxury escape holidays with my clients. (Please do not think they were easy. I was a hard working “actor” at the back end and I had to work long hours to entertain them).
There were gentlemen who were willing to pay to get my company because I was their entertainment. I also had a few celebrity clients hiring me when they visited Sydney.
I had seen many “collectors” (who hire an escort only once or twice). I also had made long-term relationships with my regulars. I was a perfect toy boy in my clients' world. I did whatever they pleased.
Let me tell you how happy Sydney was before September 11, 2001. Sydney, then, there were not many sex-on-premise places, and there were only a few sex parties. I was very busy making money because Sydney needs entertainers! It was the best time of my escort's career. I managed to get whatever I wanted at the time. My tuition fee was paid; I could also help my mum, my brothers and a few friends.
Suddenly, after September 11,2001, the World has changed, and so did my escort's world. There were fewer jobs, and people felt uncertain to hire me because of the world situation. I thought my mobile phone went dead. Well, on the good side, escorts had more time for themselves. So, I spent my time on my hobby – getting on-line, and surfing the net.
MEETING WITH OTHER ESCORTS, Josh and Ryan & Getting the name rentboyaustralia.com
I managed to get on-line and get in to the IRC chat room. There was Joshua Black who was always on #gayescorts. (I promised him to mention his name here). Josh was a smart boy. He was always there when I needed some advise. He was running www.gayescorts.au.com a year before RBA were born. His idea could be the founder of this website. So, I was a good (cyber) friend with him. I became a regular boy on #gayescorts and finally met Ryan an escort from Adelaide and Ben from Melbourne . We had chat several times about creating the best Australian gay escort website. Most of the good name has been registered. At the time, the world famous escort web site was rentboy.com. So, we thought that we need an Australian version of the site or a new invented site to provide more information for clients and boys in this business targeting Australians. (We respected rentboy.com)
So, our RBA might give chances for young boys who can see potential power in themselves, or to get their lives sort out a bit, just like me, Josh and Ryan. Thinking how difficult we had to fight for ourselves secretly as rent boys, we should have a place where we could say for ourselves that we are independent.
Nevertheless, we would like to upgrade our social standard of what we preferably called ourselves “escorts”. We would like Australia to accept who we were and respected what we do. We were working boys, making money from ourselves, not from the dole. We would like to tell the clients what we offered, how much, what and why we charged. (We knew we could not be a millionaire, but this career helps us a great deal). We also believed it would help other boys who may need advice from experience escorts. I personally wanted to run a charity organisation to help sexual workers (let's say like SWOP, Sexual Worker Outreach Project focusing on gay men prostitution), but I was not a millionaire. I could not afford it. I did not even have a time. So, RBA should be an ideal. Just wanted to do whatever I could. I knew I could not help everyone but at least I could help to make a different in a smaller scale and hope one day I could help gay escort community.
GET IT SPONSORED
So, I personally had secured the name and paid thousand of dollars to get it in shape and get it promoted. It was difficult to say at the time, no one was willing to share cost of this intellectual property. Also if the website had been transferred to the wrong hands, I would be very sad. So, I had to finance it. We also had to face many critical issues to keep rentboyaustralia.com running. We had promised the boys not to charge them a cent to advertise on our website and would always keep the promise as long as we could. We helped our fellow escorts save $$$money and also helped put extra money in their pockets. RBA was always very generous!
To pay for the costs, we have to get it sponsored. We finally had our first sponsor UncutDVDs.com, then CuriousCash.com, AEBN and the sponsor names go on and on. You will obviously notice anyway.
WEBMASTER ROD
I met Rod at a friend's party. I was too silly not keeping in touch with him after that. Well, I did not come out (as an escort) to him (and every boy I met) at the time. I was afraid of rejection. There were a few cases I tried to be straight forward to the boys I met that I was an escort. Then, I never heard back from them again. So, I kept myself (as an escort) in the closet.
In early 2003, I got Rod's e-mail invitation to an invitation-only party in Sydney. I accidentally set up my auto reply to answer my client's e-mail to Rod's e-mail address. Oops! Silly Billy! The e-mail was a response about a threesome arrangement to a client with my mate, Ryan. I felt very stupid that the e-mail had been accidentally sent out to Rod. (Don't laugh, this could happen to you). I was afraid of many things afterwards. I was afraid that I might lose him just like I lost others. (The fact is…nobody cares if you are a rent boy except those who loves you without sex!) He did not reply me right away though. I asked God to erase that e-mail from his Inbox. But God was too busy!
Then, there was the Inquisition party in 2004 (http://sydneyleatherpride.org/). (That why I decided to launch this story during this time of the year). The party tickets were sold out. I was desperately looking for a ticket through pinkboard.com.au (http://www.pinkboard.com.au/) at last minute. It was Rod who read my add and called me that he had a spare ticket. Then, we met at the party. He said to me he had read e-mail. I thought my face was red. I did not know what to say. I've never came out so suddenly to a friend. He was very okay about it. It was a relief for me. So, we kept in touch with each other until now.
Then, there was the time when I had to go overseas for a long time. All of my friends who helped me update the site had gone back to the bush and some had suddenly disappeared. I needed cash for the overseas trip so I didn't have much spare to hire someone to take care of it. I did not even have a thousand dollars to hire someone. (Please do not think I spent on luxury things, I mostly shared the money with my love ones. If you were my clients you would know how generous I was as a rent boy). So, I had to look at the last option – finding someone who knows the boy business, loves doing the website, ... someone who is willing to communicate to the boys, "accepting them of what they are and what they do". It was very difficult to find “the one”. I had been searching...
Then, I had thought of Rod. So, I asked him nicely to help me update the website while I was away because I knew he had been doing a few websites, too. Since then, we had him on board RBA where you might have talked to him. The boys were very happy to have him, right?
Webmaster Rod is more senior than I am in terms of experiences and how to solve conflicts and problems. He always gave me many good advices during the years.
FINAL WORDS
Well, that's the story for now. It may not so important to you. However for me, RBA and the boys, this is a great story worthy of being written down somewhere. I would like to thank everyone who helped supporting RBA including: RBA clients and RBA readers (I will never know the names), RBA sponsors, Joshua Black, Ryan, Ben... I also would like to personally thank escorts: Ethan and Keith who was always there for RBA meetings. Especially, Rod who always helps me with the updates and been a good brother for the boys.
We hope you love our RentBoyAustralia.com! and we might see you at RBA annual meeting in November 2005.
RBA is just a small web site but packed with many big stories.
Anyway, no matter who you are, you'll see the words 'boy' and 'escort' quite a lot on RBA - and we intend them to mean any male whom we find sexually interesting. Doesn't necessarily have to be a young guy. RBA boys are at least 18 years old – they are private escorts, masseurs, strippers, photographers, models and whoever appears on our website.
If you have any thing to say at all about our boy's businesses, please do not hesitate to contact us.