Ah, yes, the gigolo. Everyone knows the stereotype: (1) a cross between Richard Gere and Warren Beatty, radiating virility and possessed of an endurance a thoroughbred at stud might envy (2) who is temporarily down on his luck but basically a decent, caring fellow (3) who upon meeting the Right Woman can fall in love and renounce his lifestyle.
Hardly. The correct responses to the above are: (1) More like Dom DeLuise; (2) rarely and (3) not before the next Ice Age.
In truth, says Edna (Adie) Salamon, an academic expert on the subject, gigolos often are not particularly attractive men, their only concern about a relationship is financial and their moral compass can swing from calculating to criminal. Fidelity is not a word in their vocabulary. And never, says Salamon, in 643 interviews with gigolos, did she find one case in which the rent-a-man actually fell in love with his lady and decided to throw it all over for romance.
”I have yet to meet an altruistic gigolo,” she says. ”(With them) you never get a free cup of coffee.”
Salamon, 27, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, has been researching gigolos for six years. The results will be published in a book, ”Gigolos: The Intimacy Quest,” that she expects to be released in Great Britain this fall.
Actually, the gigolo tome is an outgrowth of her first book, ”Kept Women: Mistresses of the `80s,” published in 1984. This was a pared down version of her doctoral thesis at the London School of Economics and she used the income from the first book to fund work for her second. In fact, she says, it was a kept woman who introduced her to her first gigolo.
And just how does one, um, research gigolos?
For the Winnipeg-born Salamon, it began with a letter she submitted in October, 1983 (when she was teaching at a university in British Columbia), to every North American and British newspaper with a circulation of more than 100,000.
”I am an assistant professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University,” it read, ”and am preparing a book on gigolos: men who purposefully seek to be supported by a woman. I invite individuals with personal knowledge of these relationships to contact me. Anonymity and confidentiality are guaranteed.”
The hundreds of replies ran the gamut, ranging from the obvious cranks to prison inmates looking for a pen pal to mothers who wanted to nominate their daughter`s boyfriend. There also was the probably inevitable avalanche of letters, postmarked ”everywhere from Miami to Kipling, Saskatchewan” written by eager and earnest young men who said in effect: Gigolo? Wow. How can I become one? Please send instructions immediately.
”Obviously,” Salamon says dryly, ”there was a lot of interest.”
But in amongst all the throwaways, there also were a number of genuine replies from men who were proud to call themselves gigolos (or, as some preferred, ”gentlemen of fortune”). What did they have to gain from answering an ad like that? In a situation where the woman controls the purse strings, Salamon says, the gigolos ”love to reiterate how they`re the powerful ones. They`re dying to tell you how they retain control of the relationship. Plus, they`re guaranteed confidentiality, anonymity, they have my rapt attention and it`s a non-judgmental situation.”
After corresponding, taking their case histories by mail and phone and checking for authenticity, she began between 400 and 500 face-to-face interviews in Europe and North America. She also interviewed several hundred of the ”Madame Bountifuls” who were keeping the gigolos.
Some conclusions: ”I found a lot more who looked like James Coco than James Caan . . . basically the guy can be a little better looking than Godzilla and still be a gigolo. Looks are not a bar to this career.”
The reason for this, she says, is simple. Most women want to put some kind of ”romantic veneer” on the situation, to believe the man really is interested in them for their own sake and ”if a guy is too good looking, the women wonder why he`s after them.
”They`re suspicious if a gorgeous hunk comes comes on (to them). Especially women in their 40s and 50s, moving in the business world, working in the field of glamor like clothes or cosmetics or, alternatively, women who enjoy the companionate role of high class wife, the flower in their husband`s lapel, whose money comes from their husbands. (These various women) tend to be highly self-critical. These are the ones who buy all the cosmetics that ostensibly make wrinkles disappear. They`re conscious of not being as perfect as Farah Fawcett. So if the man is not perfect, too, there is more of a tendency to suspend doubt (about his motives).”
As examples, Salamon cites one of her favorite subjects: a ”sort of fat and squat” European, now in his 70s, who has been a spectacular successful gigolo for 50 years and accrued enough money to maintain both a home in Italy and a flat in a swank Paris hotel.
”He had the most charisma of all,” she says. ”And he stressed a primary motto of any aspiring gigolo: Treat her like a lady and act like a gentleman.”
Who becomes a gigolo? This is a little more difficult to characterize, but Salamon says the men generally have a middle class to lower middle class background ”and their education is typically some kind of liberal arts degree or some portion of one. Their general education tends to be in something not particularly marketable, like philosophy. They tend to be superficially well versed so they can at least carry their own in a conversation.”
Some work at careers, she says, but ”with limited devotion.” A few fall into the gigolo field by happenstance, some start as male strippers or employees at male escort agencies. ”I`ve seen them start as early as 16 or 18,” Salamon says, ”and there was one guy who claimed to have started at 14.” She estimates about one-third are bisexual.
To meet women, at least those with lots of cash who may be lonely, the gigolos tend to favor posh resorts and watering holes such as St. Tropez or Waikiki or the bars and lounges of ritzy hotels in major cities. Large cities are important to the gigolo, Salamon says, because ”a small town may have only one rich lady.”
Cities also offer the gigolo optimum opportunity because there almost always are more available women than men in the older age groups. Some good cities in which to be a gigolo for this reason, Salamon says, are Houston, San Francisco, Chicago (where, she says, there are 38 eligible men for every 100 eligible women in the 50-54 age range) and ”the geriatric beaches in Florida.”
In this era of health consciousness, Salamon says, aerobics clubs also are turning into hunting grounds for gigolos ”who figure they`ll get a female professional and one who`s interested in her appearance.”
In one of her reports, a typical case study who met his current lady this way was ”a 27-year-old Vancouver gigolo, previously supported by a woman whose father is exceedingly wealthy, presently kept by a female executive . . . he met at a fashionable and expensive health club. Between women he works as a salesman in a men`s boutique. He is well groomed and preppy. Although not overly attractive, he is friendly and gregarious. . . .” Salamon says that when she inquired about financial support he replied it ”came to be given when I explained a temporary shortage of funds. Currently my lady pays my rent and most living expenses. Other friends have provided me with clothes and more recently a Porsche 944 . . .”
This acquisition of goods is, in fact, typical of a gigolo relationship. According to Salamon, little actual cash changes hands–instead, the woman tends to provide things like housing, meals, clothes, a car or nice trip. She says she has seen the benefits range from ”guys who get hundreds of thousands of dollars (worth of goods) a year down to ones who might get just something like a free trip to Hawaii.”
As for the average relationship, she says, it tends to last between 8 and 16 months. ”Most men drop out when (the situation) ceases to be economically expedient.”
When the gigolo is an out-and-out con man, it can end even sooner–which is to say, as soon as he makes his score. This kind of gigolo sets the woman up, usually gets her to invest in some kind of bogus business or scheme, and then takes off.
Many women taken in by gigolos chose not to press charges because
”They`re too humiliated, too fearful of being laughed at,” Salamon says,
”Even when they`ve been extremely financially exploited, they don`t want to admit they`re the victim of a romantic dupe.”
And what of the ”Madame Bountifuls” she interviewed?
”By and large, women 55 and older are much more pragmatic, more satisfied with the situation . . . you get women who bluntly state they are willing to pay for companionship.
”Between 35 and 44 are the danger years. These are women who have never married or who have divorced. They are more likely to superimpose a romantic love story on the relationship. They view it as an alternative to the rather dramatic idea that this is their last chance, that (without him) they won`t have the home with the white picket fence and the dog. They have been socialized to view themselves as incomplete without a man. . . .”
The gigolo doesn`t do anything so tacky as ask these women for cash directly. Instead, he tells them he`s going through a bad financial patch because he`s working on a book or waiting for a deal to come through or just extracted himself from a messy divorce. Having an excuse like this, says Salamon, helps the women ”suspend doubt” about his real motives.
He may wine them and dine them, even send them flowers (but never spend too much on any of it), tell them about all the things he`d like to do for them, places he`d like to take them if only he had the money–and bingo, they`re hooked.
Says Salamon, ”they`re trying to create a Harlequin Romance (out of the situation) instead of something more mundane and pragmatic.” As for the men, she says, ”they didn`t seem to find any need to link sex and love.”
And as for the future of gigolo-dom? With women living longer than men, with an increasing likelihood of divorce and with women coming increasingly into positions of power, ”it`s (only) going to get bigger,” Salamon says.
”Especially since there`s still this social message to women to find a partner, any partner.”
