Grindr: Confessions of contemporary Mexican sex workers
Sexual work is currently an attractive alternative for young people who are struggling to survive in the tumultuous and precarious reality of the Mexican labor market. Thanks to the internet, the traditional concept of prostitution (made up of dark streets, sex clubs and strip clubs) has changed. The substance of sex work has not changed, but the meeting dynamics have been digitalized. On apps like Grindr and Twitter, as on a plethora of web pages (mileroticos.com, rentmen.com), a wide variety of sex workers offer their services, many with their own characteristic niche. The customers can personalize their consumption, depending on price range and personal taste.
There are uncensored digital platforms, such as Twitter, that allow “publicity” for sexual services. Grinder is instead a tianguis (Mexican street market) of selectable and meticulously coded choices. Categories such as dulces (drug delivery), vergon (referring to genital size), pregunta (used by those selling their services). Digital platforms allow a multifaceted choice for the customer, but very low security and protection for sex workers. Not infrequently, men who use digital means to set up meetings are assaulted, beaten and/or raped.
For this project, I interviewed five Mexican sex workers. We spoke about topics such as masculinity; family; homosexuality; risk and safety; HIV and PrEP; their way into the sex industry as well as their positive and negative memories of it. The material gathered helped to create an idea of what it means to be a male sex worker in Mexico City in 2020.
The experiences of the protagonists of this project, although diverse and ever changing, have a common basis of desperation and hopelessness that stems from the awareness of not being able to improve one's living conditions in a socioeconomic context defined by scarcity and poverty.
The protagonists of these photos are illuminated only by the cold, modern light of their mobile phones: the blue light. This aims at showing the vulnerability and precarity of their lives in an urban setting. It also shows the contrast between them and the traditional, public spaces of the city, putting emphasis on the digital aspects of their (our) identity, the so called pixelated body. And, most importantly, the cold blue light illuminates both the clients in the act of choosing the body of their desire from the menù of the app, and the workers in the act of closing the deal. It is the de facto connection point between worker and client.
https://pics-ci.com.mx/fluido/2/permanencia-voluntaria.html
“Permanencia voluntaria” Exhibition by Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, 2020