But there is growing evidence that in New England and across the United States there are likely thousands of male victims of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking, far more than previously understood. “I didn't realize that I was a victim.”īates’ story is unusual only in that it is so rarely told: Boys and young men lured into the sex trade and victimized in ways the public generally assumes applies mostly to women and girls. “I really thought I was the bad person selling myself,’’ said Bates, now 26 and living in Worcester. His home - and an array of hotel rooms in Connecticut and Massachusetts - became a “revolving door” of sex buyers. No one did - and within two years, the tall, lanky youth was living alone in a dilapidated apartment, prostituting himself to get by. He secretly hoped his financially struggling single mother, or anybody, would notice what was happening and protect him.

The demands snowballed into riskier requests, and within months the gay Connecticut teen was trading sex for dinners out, designer sneakers and other luxuries.īates says he was lured by the attention and what appeared to be easy money. Unseen: The Boy Victims Of The Sex Trade, Part IĬhris Bates was 16 years old when he started selling nude photos of himself on the internet to adult men who pressured him for more and more images.