changes in the argot and nature of male

changes in the argot and nature of male prostitution in New Zealand 1867 -1990

aspro bat boy battler bona roba bumboy call boy car-go joey chippy cocktail COD (cock on delivery)

commercial crack salesman bat boy dick peddler battler dilly bona roba he-whore bumboy gobble goop call boy hockey box car-go hustler joey illegal Tegal chippy iron hoof cocktail jolly for polly COD joy boy (cock on delivery) juvie aspro

commercial crack salesman bat boy dick peddler battler dilly bona roba he-whore bumboy gobble goop call boy hockey box car-go hustler joey illegal Tegel chippy iron hoof cocktail jolly for polly COD joy boy (cock on delivery) juvie aspro Kleenex merchandise pro male escort Moro merchandise trader wheeler tima moll private rent queen renter rental box

commercial crack salesman bat boy dick peddler battler dilly bona roba he-whore bumboy gobble goop call boy hockey box car-go hustler joey illegal Tegel chippy iron hoof cocktail jolly for polly COD joy boy (cock on delivery) juvie aspro Kleenex merchandise pro male escort Moro merchandise trader wheeler tima moll private rent queen renter rental box rent boy ship boy speiler streetie street mechanic street oyster street solicitor shingler trade trash venereal boy working boy worker

Based on interviews and oral history recordings of 50 men whose employment in the trade, or use of male sex workers has spanned 85 years. This presentation briefly profiles extraordinarily shifts in a language form that has operated just under the surface of New Zealand society.

thieves cant polari boob slang gay slang

thieves cant polari boob slang gay slang parlyaree mumpers talk pig Latin back slang

thieves cant polari boob slang gay slang parlyaree mumpers talk pig Latin back slang online acronyms and truncations

1867 -193 o 1867 Offences Against the Person Act Reverend Yate Spielers, bludgers and light mannered men grottos and stations thieves’ cant coding

1867 Offences Against the Person Act (31 Vict. 5) (s. 58): Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery committed either with mankind or any animal shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be kept in penal servitude for life or for any term not less than ten years. The act further provided (s. 59) for imprisonment for between three and ten years for attempted buggery.

1837 Reverend William Yate dismissed from the Church Missionary Society over allegations that among other things, he paid for sex with young Maori men using a pound of tobacco as payment.

cant noun: Cant or pelting speech contained words for criminal strategies, tools, spoils and the law. ‘family’, cruise, pickup, troll, omee, nantee, pegger, trade

cottage noun: Cottage first appeared as a term for toilet at the close of the nineteenth century [Baker, 2002]. The term was British in origin and generally referred to toilets that were built in parks to resemble miniature country cottages. To go cottaging meant to cruise public toilets seeking paid or unpaid sex.

beat noun: an environment where paid sex/soliciting occurs. Beat is particular to both New Zealand Australia. Partridge (1961 p. 56) notes the word’s use as far back as 1788 where it described a normal route taken by a prostitute or policeman.

stations, catacombs & grottos

gardening Hanging Gardens, the Garden of Eden, the Cottage Gardens, the Black Forest, Bluebell Dell, Cherry Lane, and the Country Club

1860 s bludger noun: ‘pimp who assaults or bludgeons. In Australia and New Zealand by the 1930 s it had come to mean one who, without working lives off the earnings of another. account executive purple Bob, hock

1887 speiler‘ “disreputable, over-dressed, and given to high levels of ‘indiscriminate immorality’. ” 1890 s “some of the younger and more attractive of these men probably provided occasional homosexual favours. ” Eldred-Grigg, S. (1984). Pleasures of

June 1896 “What can be done to rid the streets of these giddy, lightmannered boys … who patrol arm in arm, giggling and shrieking and pass on going down to the side street. One of our leading papers calls them ‘juvenile prostitutes’ and thinks the police should have power to clean the streets. ” ‘White Ribbon. Vol. 1 no. 12 (p. 7)

1893 In the criminal code (57 Vict. No. 56) Section 137 provided for up to ten years imprisonment, with flogging or whipping for attempted buggery, assault on a person with intent to commit buggery or for anyone ‘who being a male indecently assaults any other male’, noting ‘It shall be no defence to an indictment for an indecent assault on a male of any age that he consented to the act’.

Charles Paine Pauli

Samuel Butler

1941 - 1969 slang British polari regency & feminisation Amendments to part 7 of the 1961 Crimes Act

ginger verb: to steal, but specifically to steal from a man while having sex with him. The verb appears in New Zealand Australian prostitutes’ slang dating back to the 1940 s (Partridge, 2002, p. 464) A more contemporary term is to ‘roll a client’. Other terms like half inch appear in lexicons of contemporary New Zealand prison rhyming slang (Looser, 1999, p. 32), and the now obsolete term bilk is listed in 1897 in Stephens and O’Brien’s unpublished Dictionary of New Zealand Australian Slang. bilk, five finger, roll, half inch

half iron noun: a male prostitute who services or associates with both women and men ca. 1940 s. The term probably comes from the British rhyming slang iron hoof, meaning poof. Partridge (2006, p. 950) defines a half iron in more general terms, describing him as “a heterosexual or bisexual man who associates with homosexuals. ”

purple Bob noun: a man kept by a male sex worker (kwn 1940 s). Sometimes also called a bludger. In many cases they were recently released prisoners. Upon release they would sometimes put in with a gay man or prostitute and live off their earnings. Simes (1993, p. 163) notes the term’s concurrent use in Australia in the 1940 s.

law change Amendments made to part 7 of the 1961 Crimes Act that reduced the penalty of imprisonment for “indecency” between consenting males. However, consent was no defense. Indecency between males (consensual) and indecent assault on a male by another male (non-consensual) were considered equally severe (s. 140, 141) and carried penalties of five to seven year’s imprisonment.

hawk it verb: to work as a male prostitute, ca. 1960 -70 s. The term may be compared to the Australian verb ‘hawking the fork’ meaning to work as a prostitute. Hawking probably has origins in the older noun hawker meaning “one who goes about offering goods for sale” (Chambers 1985, p. 442). In New Zealand the verb appears in sentences like “I saw a couple of washed out little queens trying to hawk it outside the Gladiator on their way home from the Aquarius Club. ”

hockey box noun: a male homosexual prostitute. Although more commonly used in Australia (Thommo 1985, p. 136), the term was known by ship boys working between Auckland Sydney in the 1940 s and 1950 s. Its origins may come from hock, which in New Zealand Australian boob slang [prison slang] describes a man who seeks active homosexual contact but is not classified as a queen or cat. Newbold (1982) describes hock in New Zealand prison slang as an “aggressive homosexual” (p. 249). The word box is a homosexual term for anus.

dead [or stale] meat noun: a worker who has operated for a long time on the same beat, or more commonly, an aging worker. Dead/stale meat is an antonym for fresh meat. Stale meat began to fade from use in the mid 1950 s, but up until then it could also be used to refer to older clients. At that time, other terms for these men included: old queens, Aunties, pension book crowd, overripe fruit, geriatricks, duchesses.

polari is a secret language mainly used by gay men living and working in England’s large cities. Polari appears to have come into New Zealand via the U. K. Merchant Navy and the Juilan & Sandy sketches broadcast on Radio New Zealand in the 1960 s. Baker (2002) suggests that Parlyaree probably acted as a bridge between thieves’ cant and Gay Polari.

regency Queen [trade queen, wall queen, watch queen, munge queen] A flush of queens [a collective noun for an exodus of men leaving a public toilet at the time of a bust] Queen mother [or ‘Mother’] an older man who protected or watched over the welfare of young sex workers.

dethroned verb: forced to leave a public toilet. enthroned verb: to be in a public toilet and looking for sex. of the urinal.

royal circle noun: the two cubicles with the clearest view of the urinal. royal box noun: the cubicle adjacent the urinal.

feminised names for the police circa 1963 Alice Lily-lunchbox Vivian Vice Jennifer-Justice Nelly-law Petunia Pig Dolly handbag, Tilly Tight-twat Dora-D Cherie Cunt-stable Hilda-Handcuff Our Lady of the Golden Brooch

197 o - 1990 entrapment & harassment Carmen’s coffee lounge agencies language of the worker

urinal sniffer noun: agent provocateur in a public toilet. By the late 1970 s and early 1980 s feminised names for the police were being replaced by more aggressive or descriptive terms including cleaner, Commodore, D, demon, lace-up, shaker, snake and Waitomo. Urinal sniffers got their name from the police habit of kneeling down on the hands and knees at a urinal to check the numbers of feet in adjacent cubicles. A urinal sniffer could normally be identified by their overly clean-cut appearance, their overt sexual propositioning, poor taste in shoes and pants, tan lines on their finger where their wedding ring has been removed, or absence of the smell of alcohol.

Commodore noun: unmarked police car. Evidence that D’s were in the vicinity. The New Zealand Police bought the first of these vehicles in 1980 -81. Often the cars were naively parked near beats and inadvertently alerted workers to police activity or potential entrapment. In many small towns, regulars knew number plates of these vehicles, c. f. ghost car, U. S. slang [Rogers, 1972].

Carmen’s International coffee lounge 86 Vivian St. cup code male: saucer on top of a cup. transsexual, transvestite or drag queen: cup on its side straight: cup upside down on the saucer

1982 Quinns Tony’s Adam’s Zodiac Discretion Angelo’s Brett’s boys Heart & Soul WFF

1990 s Cover Boy Rich & Famous Buddies Adonis Matador

off site on site client worker private operator double time agency

off site car-go, battler, tima moll, rental box, call boy, dilly boy, Kleenex, KFC, street chicken, jail bait, bog trade, water front boy on site house boy client steamer, punter, john, trick, aunty worker queen, pension book crowd, overripe fruit commercial, trade, rent, hustler, merchandise, juvie, school bag, hockey box, call boy, pro, COD, private operator rental box, as-pro, venereal boy. street-solicitor double time agency minder, hock, purple Bob