A BIOGRAPHY OF LEN, A NEW YORK PIMP, 1969

The following was published in Boys for Sale. A Sociological Study of Boy Prostitution by Dennis Drew and Jonathan Drake, New York, 1969, as one of several consecutive sections on New York, the city whose boy prostitution scene they surveyed most thoroughly.

BIOGRAPHY OF A PIMP

Len is 26 years old. He originally came from the West Coast. He has travelled and is well experienced. For the last five years, he has functioned as a pimp for boys in New York, Florida, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Handsome, well-dressed, well-educated and from a good family, Len is vastly different from the traditional concept of a pimp.

His sexual career began when a young neighbor fell in love with him. The youngster, then 10, had a violent crush on Len and pursued the older boy passionately. Len, then 13, was soon seduced. While he enjoyed playing the male role with the erotic lad, Len has always considered himself completely heterosexual. He is still a bit mystified by the fact that young boys are continually attracted to him and seek him out, even when he makes no overtures. His sexual relations with boys now are strictly for business.

Len and his young friend were at a swimming pool one afternoon when a distinguished looking older man approached him and made a few cautious inquiries. Once the obviously wealthy man had determined that the lad was not Len’s brother, but merely his “friend”, he arranged to take the younger boy for a ride in his Cadillac — Len found himself with $100 in his pocket! Len’s career as a pimp was launched even before he had realized that boy-prostitution existed. He found it easy to recruit other boys for the same wealthy man and then for the man’s friends. He went on building up his business for several years. As often happens, he ran into trouble with the police and took off for New York to begin new “operations.”

Now, Len spends half of each year in New York where his mode of operation is exclusively that of booking agent. He is very chary about dealing with runaway boys, professional hustlers and other questionable types. He manages boys who live at home with their parents, or, if he can, those in fatherless homes with their mothers. His boys come from Brooklyn, New Jersey and the Bronx. For some reason, the boys rarely come from Manhattan, even his Spanish contacts.

His boys range in age from 9 to 14. They work for him for an average of two nights a week plus a weekend from time to time. Sometimes, a boy will break with his home life after a family argument and come to work full time for Len. If the boys is young and attractive, Len can book him twice a night, sometimes more, and several times for the weekend. Such a boy will have sexual relations with more than twenty different men in one single week.

Len’s boys are clean and immaculately dressed. They have regular blood tests and medical examinations. They are beautiful, polite, well-behaved, erotically talented and...expensive. Len will not manage a boy unless he will “do everything.” He sleeps with each of them from time to time to check on technique and to instruct them when necessary. All of the boys greatly enjoy men with money. They go boating, take trips, go to the theatre, weekend at the beach, have fine food and do many other things which would be impossible for them to enjoy otherwise. Nearly all of them also enjoy the sexual experiences.

Len’s boys take good care of their money. They help their families and often even send themselves through college. While they tend to spend a great deal of money on unnecessary luxuries and clothes, they are so eager for the things that money can buy that it doesn’t matter to them what they do or whether or not they enjoy it. So money keeps pouring in for all hands.

Len rarely takes in less than $500 a day (keeping half the boys fees.) He sleeps mornings and spends his afternoons checking on new boys who are recommended to him. He never “cruises” for boys any more but merely makes appointments to meet new ones sent to him by boys already working for him .Quite a few of his New York boys turn out to be recent immigrants to the United States for one reason or another. Memories of poverty overseas contrasted with affluence so general in this country, persuade the boy that anything he does justifies the money he earns for it. Most of these boys learned about “hustling” by the time they were ten and all have had sexual experience with men before meeting Len.

Len’s office is the rear booth in a small restaurant. It is an innocuous family restaurant, not the sort of place where criminals or homosexuals hang out. He sits near a pay telephone which he answers for the owner whenever he is there. Sometimes, he stands outside the restaurant near the corner where there are two more pay phones in booths. He receives calls on these telephones too. His conversations are veiled by code names — references to the type of boy a customer wants and occasionally the type of relationship desired. The latter is hardly necessary since Len’s boys will do everything anyway. Most of the time, Len never sees the man or the boy for any given date. He merely arranges their rendezvous.

Len refuses to deal with strangers at this stage of the game. A new customer must be introduced to him personally by a customer he already knows. He relies upon the recommendations of a satisfied clientele. The following is cited as a typical example of how Len might be contacted and a transaction arranged.

This the story of Harry B., an old client — Harry came to New York on a business trip. He telephoned a friend, Joe R., who had promised him a “special treat” the next time he was in New York. Joe told Harry to meet him at Grand Central Station at 6 p.m. Joe then contacted Len and arranged to pick up Mickey, a twelve year old Irish boy at 5:30 p.m. Joe took Mickey to Grand Central where they met Harry and the three of them went to dinner together. Harry was delighted with Mickey. The boy seemed to love his jokes. They held hands under the table and played “footsie” during the meal. Not wishing to check into a hotel as father and son, Harry arranged to borrow Joe’s apartment for the weekend while Joe went to see his family up in the Hartford area of Connecticut.

Once alone together, Harry took giggling Mickey to the shower where they washed each other fondly from head to toe. After they stepped out of the shower, they headed for the bedroom where they set up the T.V. set so that it would face the bed. They rolled back the blanket and jumped in.

Harry had found out in the shower that the boy was easily aroused sexually, and quite responsive to boot. Mickey began to excite the man orally while Harry fondled the boy’s genitals and thighs. Then Mickey received Harry’s penis anally until they both achieved orgasms. Afterwards, they lay watching television — fondling each other, drowsing, and kissing deeply every time they woke up between naps.

They slept late the next morning, took another shower, and then Harry enjoyed the boy sexually until noon. Again, relations were both anal and oral. At noon, Mickey checked in with Len and got clearance to spend the rest of the day and a second night with Harry.

Harry then spent the day doing whatever the boy wanted. They went to Coney Island, to a movie, took a few rides — the whole time, the two of them were frolicking like a pair of little kids, goosing each other, or holding hands and kissing whenever they had a private instant. Where the boy’s kisses had been dutiful the first night, they were adoringly passionate by the second evening. Indeed, when they got back to the apartment, the eager boy could not hide his haste to get to bed. Mickey promised to give a good return for the fun he’d had that day. The second night was spent much as the first, but the emotional impact and the eroticism of the blossoming romance were now intense. By the second noon, when Mickey had to leave for another appointment, Harry was physically exhausted by their lovemaking. He was astonished that the boy was still fresh and unfatigued. The two almost wept at parting. Harry promised to return to New York on another business trip as soon as he could. He wanted to spend every free hour of it with Mickey.

Although they liked each other, Mickey was not really as emotionally involved with Harry as Harry was with Mickey. Within a few hours, he was just as passionately devoting himself to the amusement of another man. Harry, meanwhile, paid Len $250 and made a deposit to guarantee Mickey the next time he was in the city.

Len had also slept late that morning. After a one o’clock breakfast, he took a train to Long Island to meet a “little gay boy” at the home of an acquaintance. The boy turned out to be only nine — much younger and smaller than Len had expected. Len used the boy a trifle roughly to determine his stamina but the youngster cried and complained, so Len paid him off and made a note to look him up a year or so later. By 5 p.m., Len was at the restaurant, making his first “arrangement” for the new night.

The boys who work for Len laughingly call him “the sadist” because he spanks them all regularly. While he probably does enjoy it to a degree, he claims that it is actually a method for determining how long to keep a boy under his management. When he meets each boy, generally once a week, the boy gets spanked before the financial settlement. Len insists that he can tell when a boy is no longer good for the trade by the way he reacts. Just what the secret is, he doesn’t tell. It probably has something to do with a boy’s rebellious spirit. While a boy is maturing into young manhood, he resents having another “man” ordering him around and telling him what to do. He wishes to assert his independence. Len feels that he can tell when a boy is no longer a boy and, therefore, no longer acceptable to his clients. As far as the boys are concerned, he tells them that submitting to the spanking is evidence that they know who is boss and, when Len is no longer boss, there won’t be any use coming around.

A surprising number of Len’s boys are the younger brothers of boys who have already worked for him. In several families, the older boy has brought a younger brother around when he thought the kid was old enough — often not as early as Len would have wished. The older brother has always introduced the younger to all varieties of sexual experience involved before bringing him to Len. One of Len’s former boys, now a happily married man, has named one of his sons after Len, an act which he no doubt considered an honor, and a token of his esteem. In any case Len continues in his chosen career and we suppose that as long as there are customers to be pleased, he will find the boys to please them.

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