Eastern approaches | Male prostitution in Croatia

Boom time for Croatia's gigolos

Not a story you read every day

By T.J. | ZAGREB

MONITORING stories in the Balkan press every day can be quite boring. Here are two of Tuesday's prime cuts: Serbian President says he is pro-Serbian, and, from Croatia, PM Kosor satisfied with adoption of state budget. So when I came across Business booms for Croatia's gigolos, my eyes lit up. Happily, the piece, written for Balkan Insight by Croatian journalist Barbara Matejcic, was original and fascinating, made me laugh and involved some real work. It's safe to say that this not every piece of Balkan journalism ticks all these boxes.

You can read the whole story by following the link above, but here are some edited highlights for Eastern Approaches readers. Ms Matejcic sets out to meet Mario, one of ten hetrosexual male prostitutes she spoke to for her story. “You'll recognise me easily,” he tells her. “I'm tall, moderately muscled, with short brown hair. I'll be in a tight white T-shirt."

I have yet to set eyes on 27-year-old Mario, but I already know more private things about him than I do about my closest friends. I know his measurements and that the only things he does not consent to sexually are sadomasochist or homosexual acts. Everything else is a go…

We shake hands, as befits any business meeting, and a few minutes later he is showing me nude pictures of himself over coffee. That is the way it goes in this trade; you meet a person and the next moment you see them in all their glory.

Mario is a male prostitute. A gigolo, he corrects me. A semi-professional version of the once-famous Yugoslav "seagulls"; men who "entertained" middle-class female tourists in the summer months in return for a gift or an all-expenses-paid night on the town.

Nowadays, it seems, men like Mario have expanded their customer base far beyond tourists. He tells Ms Matejcic:

“They are married women in their forties with workaholic husbands who feel neglected. I indulge them, am attentive to their needs, send them tender messages. I listen to them, even though it all goes in one ear and out the other. It's a piece of cake with women,” he states confidently.

He says his live-in partner does not have a clue about his second job. “How could she ever suspect? I trained as a boxer for years. I'm a man's man, I could never be a paid man,” he says.

Other gigolos tell Ms Matejcic that sometimes their services are procured for women by their husbands. Two tell her that their clients are often “well-off couples in their thirties and forties who want to spice up their sex lives, try something new or realise a fantasy.”

So how much does all this cost? One gigolo charges €55 an hour; an agency supplies men for €1,000 a day. When supply is scant, prices are high:

“Between 2002 and 2009, the police registered 1,968 people as being involved in prostitution, in a country with a population of just 4.5m. Comparative statistics show similar prostitution rates in neighboring Balkan countries, according to the police.

Out of that 1,968 total, six were male and only one of them a heterosexual male prostitute. "99% of all sex workers in Croatia are women," explains [police official Zlatko] Kostic.

It is impossible to find research detailing the number of heterosexual male sex workers in Croatia. The few organisations that supply sex workers with condoms, such as Let (Flight) and Help, say they have never come across male sex workers.”

Discover more

Transylvanian surprise

A big bump in voter turnout puts a competent ethnic German, Klaus Iohannis, in the presidency

Shale fail

Poland hoped shale gas would free it from Russia, but finds there is no getting around geology


A minister comes out

Edgars Rinkevics enters the culture war with eastern European conservatives, and with Russia