The document discusses best practices for supporting male sex workers based on the experience of the SWISH project in London. It outlines national reporting data on sex workers through the National Ugly Mugs program. It also discusses the diversity of male sex work, common support needs, outreach approaches, issues with chemsex, the process of exiting sex work, confronting stigma, and resources for sex workers.

1. Del Campbell, Manager, SWISH Project London
Terrence Higgins Trust
For the event
Current Sex Work in Leeds: Knowledge Sharing
Friday 12th December 2014

2. Introduction
 SWISH project
 Early member and contributor to
UKNSWP
 Early involvement in addressing Trans
issues
 Early involvement with men selling sex
 MESMAC project Blast is local
counterpart

3. UKNSWP best practice
 Sex work Project toolkit
 Available from website (download pdf)
 Currently being updated (most info still
relevant)
 Wealth of information on best practice

4. National Ugly Mugs
(NUM)
Female 1593 75.89
%
Male 305 14.53
%
Not Specified 54 2.57%
Rather Not
Say
78 3.72%
Trans f-m 5 0.24%
Trans m-f 64 3.05%
Total
Individual
Members
2099 100%
Female 1108 93.03
%
Male 60 5.04%
Not Specified 7 0.59%
Trans m-f 16 1.34%
Total Reports 1191 100%

5. Diversity of male sex work
 Not all in the industry are gay or bisexual
 Men may enter sex work in different ways
 PSE/sauna
 Drugs
 Porn work
 Exchanging sex for goods and service
 Rare to find male street workers in London
 Migrant Men
 Trans for Pay?

6. Support Needs of Male
Escorts
 Housing
 Mental health
 Drugs and/or alcohol
 Issues around chemsex
 HIV combination therapy
 Using Viagra
 Sexual Health
 Domestic violence/Sexual violence/Sexual abuse
 Exiting
 Debt Advice / Tax or self employment
 Legal Advice
 Personal Safety
 Trans issues

7. Trans*
 Transgender v Transvestite
 Know your client
 Know your pronouns
 Support issues
 Mental health
 Transphobic attacks
 Losing work or accessing work (transition)
 Transitioned (loss of income)

8. Outreach
 Modern outreach to male sex workers not
(rarely) street based
 Netreach
 Marketing of project services through sites and
magazines
 PSE outreach rarely engages male sex
workers unless newly migrant
 Brothels
 Private houses and flats
 Local outreach policy - critical

9. Chemsex
 Drug issues with male sex workers is now best described under
this heading
 Usually including the three drugs Crystal, methadrone and G
 More related to taking sex than prior ‘party drugs’
 Increasingly related (public Health England et al) to the
increased rate of HIV in London
 Method of usage quickly escalates to injecting behaviours
(slamming)
 Regularly see ‘psychotic’ clients as result, self harming
increased in this group as has homelessness, loss of regular
jobs etc
 Evidence that this behaviour is spreading (public Health Wales)
 Work includes a ‘reduction’ approach and joint work with other
specialist ‘chem sex’ drug projects

10. Exiting
 Exiting is a long term support process – much
like quitting smoking
 Motivational work always required –
judgemental approach does not work
 Building confidence & skills (personal training
programmes leading to clients confidence to
support themselves with changes)
 Build a network of support projects to refer into
 Volunteering
 Keep in touch with client, throughout !

11. Back office: Away from client
 Confronting stigma and judgement
 Better improved access to services
 Lobbying
 Evidence based approach
 Questioning figures (see next slide)

12. Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral
panic
•The Guardian, Tuesday 20 October 2009
There is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking
in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein's
weapons.
In the story of UK sex trafficking, the conclusions of academics who study the sex trade have been subjected to
the same treatment as the restrained reports of intelligence analysts who studied Iraqi weapons – stripped of
caution, stretched to their most alarming possible meaning and tossed into the public domain. There, they have
been picked up by the media who have stretched them even further in stories which have then been treated as
reliable sources by politicians, who in turn provided quotes for more misleading stories.
In both cases, the cycle has been driven by political opportunists and interest groups in pursuit of an agenda. In
the case of sex trafficking, the role of the neo-conservatives and Iraqi exiles has been played by an unlikely union
of evangelical Christians with feminist campaigners, who pursued the trafficking tale to secure their greater goal,
not of regime change, but of legal change to abolish all prostitution. The sex trafficking story is a model of
misinformation. It began to take shape in the mid 1990s, when the collapse of economies in the old Warsaw Pact
countries saw the working flats of London flooded with young women from eastern Europe. Soon, there were
rumours and media reports that attached a new word to these women. They had been "trafficked". (ctd..)

13. Resources
 Ugly Mugs
 https://uknswp.org/um/
 Swish project (London & Coventry)
 www.swishproject.org.uk
 UKNSWP (resources on best practice)
 http://www.uknswp.org/
 Advice for sex workers from sex workers
 Saafe forum
○ http://www.saafe.info/

14. Contact details
Del Campbell
Project Manager
Del.campbell@tht.org.uk
Tel 0207 812 1809
Website:
www.swishproject.org.uk
www.tht.org.uk