Esparanza said he identifies himself as an escort and although the line is thin, he said there is a difference between what he does and actual prostitution. “I am a very sexual person, I like to have all kinds of sex. When I meet a client I am not selling sex or my body, I am selling my time. Just like a therapist or wedding planner, people pay to spend time with me. If we end up having sex then that’s that, but I certainly don’t expect that to always be the case.”

His plan is to work his way up in the sex scene in Los Angeles and eventually gain enough popularity to charge larger amounts and be invited to all the fun escorting events. “If you get famous enough you even get to fuck porn stars.”

Despite the stars in his eyes and certainty that he will be the next big thing (he tells me that he already is in one department but that was not confirmed), not all escorts become well known enough to charge large amounts of money for their time. In fact, according to Daniel Rodriguez, some escorts used Rentboy as a means of survival.

“Each individual person [on Rentboy] sets their own rates, the market kind of also has a lot to do with it because when you first go on to back page or any listing site the first thing you are going to do as an advertiser is look to see what everyone else is doing,” said Rodriguez, Interim Director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, Los Angeles chapter. “You’re going to look to see what kind of pictures they have up, you’re going to look to see what kind of text they have up, look to see what they are charging and you kind of go from there. So most people on Rentboy I would say were in the $150-$300 range per hour.

Rodriguez, who advertised on the site for seven years and knew the owners personally, remembers when he first started on the site. “I first heard about [Rentboy] when I was 18, at the time I met someone who was like a sugar daddy type and he told me about the site.”

Even after learning about Rentboy, Rodriguez said he did not start advertising until a few years later, about which time it started to gain popularity not just because it was one of the first gay escort advertising sites, but because of the benefits of joining. Rodriguez explains; “From what I know Rentboy started about 18 years ago it was just a place guys could advertise, and for the longest time it was like — it gained popularity off of A: street based work and B: like the original back pages of like magazines and newspapers and stuff.”

When Rodriguez started escorting — or offering companionship as he sometimes calls it — seven years ago he did not know much about the site. “When I got to New York City about six years ago I went to a couple of the [Rentboy] events and started meeting the guys that worked in the office and that was right before Hawk came on board.” At the time, Rodriguez said that the founders had a unique outlook on the escorting business and integrated that into Rentboy. “At that time they really had this really cool culture of community and getting to know each other.”

It was at the New York City Black Party some years ago that Rodriguez met Van Sant and Davids, and mentioned how competitive the New York scene was. He told the owners that he was competing with 300 other guys. That is where the Rentboy philosophy came in to play.

“They were — from that very first meeting — they were very quick to say those guys aren’t your competition they’re your colleagues. Just from that very first interaction with them it was a different culture.” According to Rodriguez, Davids and Van Sant didn’t want advertisers to see each other as competition they wanted them to network, and to know each other. “They talked about how networking and knowing each other was one of the ways we could keep each other safe.” And in the escorting and companionship business, safety is key.

Sex Workers Outreach Project, SWOP, is, according to their mission statement, “a national social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of sex workers and their communities, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education and advocacy.” The mission statement also explains that SWOP is a multi-sate network of sex workers and their advocates who “address locally and nationally the violence that sex workers experience because of their criminal status.” Rodriguez explained that SWOP is “big into harm reduction” and advocates for the rights of sex workers. The organization also is instrumental in instructing various organizations on how to deal with issues sex workers may face.

“For example in Sacramento they have a really good chapter that has been running for a while and they have agreements with different hospitals on how to handle trafficking victims in an emergency room setting. They do these training for doctors and nurses and the techs, they do talks at different universities about different sex worker issues,” said Rodriguez.

He added that SWOP does more than educate and advocate for the rights of sex workers. “[We also set] sex workers up with various harm reduction initiatives, so things like testing and legal aid for different reasons.” However, Rodriguez wants to make it clear that there is nothing “in the language in SWOP that promotes prostitution but it’s definitely identified as either being sex workers or trafficking victims getting them set up with different kinds of resources to meet their needs.” But sometimes those needs get unmet because they are unreported.