Sex work at a crossroads: men who sell sex to men in Macedonia

Abstract

This chapter focuses on male sex work in the Republic of Macedonia in the Balkan Peninsula in Eastern Europe. It offers an examination of factors shaping male sex work in the country. There are other locales also known as Macedonia, in particular a region in the north of Greece. While the meaning of Macedonia and what has been described as the Macedonian Question (that is, to whom the present Balkan state belongs, and what people and which lands it is composed of) forms the grounds of passionate discourse among historians, political scientists and nationalists (Ruggeri Laderchi and Savastano, 2013; Mitev and Stubbs, 2012; Febbrajo and Wojciech, 2010; Thiessen, 2007; Cowan, 2000), this chapter will only touch upon these issues in as much as they aid understanding of male sex work within this context. For millennia, Macedonia has functioned as a crossroads for travel and trade. A landlocked country in the south-centre of the Balkan Peninsula, in the southwest of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), it is cradled by mountains, has no sea but many lakes, and shares common borders with Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Kosovo. Were one to draw a straight line from Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, to Moscow, the line would stretch approximately 1,900 kilometres north east, traversing Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, the Ukraine and Russia. Today’s Republic of Macedonia came into being on September 8, 1991, when its people voted for independence from Yugoslavia (Ramet, 2013; Panev, 2005). Macedonia is populated largely by majorities of Slavic Macedonians and Albanians, with Roma, Turk, Slavic Muslim and other minorities. Its history as a meeting place and a crossroads is dotted with conflict between ethnic groups – particularly majority ethnic groups – and such conflicts have accompanied contemporary developments, including discord with its neighbours, notably Greece. Unlike other parts of the Balkan regions, such conflicts have not led to war, civil or otherwise (Gallagher, 2005: 78).