Most discourse about sex workers tends to focus on the women who work in the industry, while their male colleagues tend to be less visible or represented. Recognising how special and significant these conversations were, he decided to dedicate a whole body of work to portray their stories.
Payboy is a collection of portraits of the male sex workers Peijnenburg spent time with, taken with their collaboration in spaces they would usually meet clients. What is it like growing up in a city where sex work is such a visible part of everyday life?
Mees Peijnenburg: The culture and representation of the Red Light District has changed a lot this last decade. The government has created more regulations and a new set of rules. For instance, they have tried to monitor sex trafficking and avoid exploitation of vulnerable individuals. The culture of the Red Light District has always been very ambiguous to me.
It continues to be a manifestation of some sides of society perhaps not so visible in other arenas. On one side it is special and beautiful — a symbol of the progressive state of mind from years ago. But, on the other side, it is a very dark place where numerous sex workers come from specific circumstances and live under difficult conditions.
It is not always the safe environment it aimed to be, and the working relationships of this industry continue to be dodgy at best. As a young boy, this world was obviously very exciting, attractive, intriguing, and arousing. But it has also always been a very strange world to me too, a dark place.
