Tag Archive | Gerald Hannon

Gerald Hannon celebrates 25 years in the sex trade NEWS / UPDATE: Audio from Hannon’s touching speech

Nov29

UPDATE – Nov 28: Twenty years ago Gerald Hannon described himself as a satisfier of human need, whatever that need may be, in a poetic love letter to sex work.

He read the essay on stage at his retirement party Bone Weary: A Fond Farewell to the Sex Trade at Goodhandy’s Nov 25.

“Prostitution has been the splendid discovery of my middle years,” he says.

Nov 27: As Gerald Hannon cheerily welcomed friends to his retirement party at Goodhandy’s Nov 25, video of a younger Hannon, wearing only a balaclava while masturbating, appeared on a screen behind him.

The backdrop to Hannon’s party, Bone Weary: A Fond Farewell to the Sex Trade, included a video montage of images from Hannon’s life during his years as a sex worker, put together by friend and video artist Peter Kingstone.

“They’re not all of me jerking off,” Hannon grinned. “There’s soft-core videos, art films, gay wrestling. There’s another of me on a pogo stick. I’m fully clothed in that one.”

Gerald Hannon celebrates 25 years in sex work at Goodhandy’s Nov 25.
(Andrea Houston)

Sex work: a smart money-making option for journalists

Nov26

BY ANDREA HOUSTON – Gerald Hannon almost convinced me to go into sex work. 

I recently visited the award-winning Toronto journalist and retiring sex worker at his cozy Maitland Place apartment ahead of his big retirement party at Goodhandy’s tonight (Nov 25), and to research another story. We got talking about why he started selling sex in the first place.

Hannon entered the oldest profession for the oldest reason of all: money. “I had just left The Body Politic after 15 years. You don’t save any money working there, so I was broke.”

At the time, he was living communally in a house with five other men. “I wanted to live on my own. And I decided to be a freelance writer, which, as you know, that takes a while.”

Worried about what to do for income, he spoke to a friend, activist and sex worker Danny Cockerline (great name for a sex worker). “I was whining to him about how I’m going to make it as a journalist.”

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