Trade (Homosexual)

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Trade refers to the straight partner of a gay man (as in, "He's trade"), or to the genre of such partners. The motivations may at times include a desire for emotional fulfillment and admiration, but usually the term refers to a straight man who partners with a gay man for economic benefit, either through a direct cash payment or through other, more subtle means (gifts, tuition payments, etc.). Usually, the concept of trade occurs when the gay man is comparatively wealthy and the partner who is trade is economically deprived. Examples of this include wealthy englishmen finding partners among deprived Cockneys in 1930s London, or men from the United States and elsewhere finding willing partners in places such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, today.

Contents 1 Royal favourites 2 The Victorian and Edwardian eras 3 Rough trade 4 Gender roles 5 Sexual identity 6 See also

[edit] Royal favourites

Royal favourites may at times have been trade. The label could perhaps be applied to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I of England.

[edit] The Victorian and Edwardian eras

While members of the British army and the Coldstream Guards in particular have long been regarded as coming from relatively elite backgrounds, guardsmen have also had a long and celebrated reputation as sexual partners to wealthier partners. This has led to their figuring in plays by playwrights such Georges Feydeau and Ferenc Molnar as partners to adulterous society ladies, as well as to their performing as partners of men. The novelist J. R. Ackerley wrote in his memoir My Father and Myself that he considered his guardsman father to have been the lover of an aristocrat for a long period of time before pursuing a wife and family, economically bettered in the end by the support he had received from his male partner.

[edit] Rough trade

Often, the terms "trade" and "rough trade" are treated as being synonymous. Often the attraction for the gay male partner is finding a dangerous, even thuggish, partner who may turn violent. That is not to say that people necessarily desire to be physically hurt, but the danger of seeking a partner in a public park or restroom, or in an alleyway in London's West End may be intoxicating.

[edit] Gender roles

Usually, it is very important to the straight partner that he maintain his masculine identity and not be particularly emotionally available, nor cuddlesome, nor perform as the "passive" sexual partner. Often, with rough trade it is his masculinity being questioned that pushes him over the edge into physical violence.

[edit] Sexual identity

The question, of course, is whether the "straight" man is indeed straight if he has sex with other men. The answer may be clear where poverty drives young men in Brazil to prostitution, but is less clear in the case of "happily married" men in the United States.

[edit] See also

• Situational sexual behavior