The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

theaters for both male and female audiences and often provide sexual
services to both male and female clients.
It should be noted that the first study, from 1987 to 1988, did not locate
male sex worker agencies operating in San Francisco, although there
were several female agencies operating. Male sex worker agencies had
operated in the past in San Francisco, but police had conducted
crackdowns against such agencies just prior to the first study, and not one
was operating at that time.
The two additional subtypes identified during the second study were drag
queen call men and agency-affiliated call men. During 1989,
transvestite/transsexual sex workers began to place advertisements in
specialty newspapers and magazines offering their services; this was a
new development. Both sex worker agencies began operating in 1990
and advertised regularly up to the end of data collection in 1991. The
second study gained unusual access to these agencies and interviewed all
the workers at both agencies. Therefore, the second study conducted
interviews of nine different subtypes of male sex workers rather than the
seven subtypes interviewed during the previous study (table 1).
Drag queen call men are transvestite/transsexual men who generally
provide the same kinds of services as drag queen hustlers but use
advertisements and telephones to solicit clients.
Agency-affiliated call men are gay-identified men who operate
similarly to models and escorts but get their clients through an agency
rather than by advertisements.
Concurrent with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
epidemic, there has been a paradoxical increase in the number of
advertisements for call men appearing in San Francisco’s gay and erotic
newspapers. There may be many more call men than there were before
the AIDS epidemic. Explicit erotic massage advertisements are also a
fairly recent phenomena in San Francisco newspapers and have increased
dramatically since the AIDS epidemic began. This increase in
advertisements for sex workers seems to indicate that sex in San
Francisco may have become much more commercialized with the AIDS
epidemic.
119