In addition, many researchers explain male prostitution in terms of individual psychosocial characteristics of those who practice it. Consequently, little is known about male prostitution as an occupational/professional career. Based on ethnographic research in the Netherlands, male prostitution is analyzed as a commercial service-oriented business with economic and social characteristics typical of other small and medium-sized businesses. The author contends that, seen from the inside, the core of male prostitution is formed by prostitutes for whom the occupation is a career. Male prostitutes appear to follow a code of behavior in order to protect their livelihood. Like any other profession, prostitution makes certain demands on the skills of those who practice it. In professional male prostitution, degrees of professionalism vary from the provision of sexual services in the simplest form to differentiated forms where sex is merely the side product of something else. Paradoxically, the modus operandi of prostitutes that is most in line with the prevailing image of prostitution and that forms the basis for the stigma attached to prostitution is, in reality, likely to provide the smallest income. 44 references