The history of male escorts is really a history of how society feels about women’s desire. Paid female companionship has been documented for centuries, yet men offering the same to women has often been hidden, mocked, or written out of the record. This is a researched look at how male companionship evolved, from early paid companions through the gigolo era to Australia’s modern, female-led agencies, and why that journey matters for women today.
Paid and patronised companionship is ancient, though the male-for-women version has always been the quieter side of the story. One of the clearest historical examples comes from eighteenth-century Italy, where a cicisbeo was a recognised male companion who attended a married woman in public, escorting her to social events with her family’s knowledge.
He was not a husband and not simply a friend, but a socially accepted role. The idea of a woman having a dedicated male escort is far from new. What changed over time was not whether such arrangements existed, but how openly they could be discussed.
For much of the nineteenth century, a respectable woman could not simply go out unaccompanied. The problem was real enough that North American hotels created the ladies’ ordinary, a women-only dining room, because women were not permitted to dine alone or without a male escort in the public rooms of most restaurants and hotels.
The first is thought to have opened at Boston’s Tremont House, with a New York version following in 1833. When a paid male escort could be the difference between seeing the town and staying home, a market was almost inevitable.
Image Source: HiLoBrow.com
The first widely recognised job resembling a modern male escort appeared with the dance craze of the early twentieth century. As the tango and the fox-trot swept Paris and then America, venues employed charming men to partner women who arrived alone. The French word for these men, gigolo, entered English in 1922 and quickly gathered glamour and scandal. We cover that story in detail in what a gigolo actually means.
The dancing partner soon became a business. In late 1935, a young New York Times classified-ad clerk named Ted Peckham founded the Guide Escort Service, offering women respectable, non-sexual male company for a set fee. As the cultural history site HiLoBrow records, he supplied vetted, presentable men bound by strict rules of conduct, expanding as far as London and Paris before New York authorities ended it in 1939, ruling he needed an employment agency licence the city made clear he would never be granted. He even published a 1940 book of applicant letters, Gentlemen in Waiting. It stands as one of the earliest examples of male companionship being organised, professionalised and openly marketed to women.
For much of the twentieth century the male escort lived mostly in the popular imagination, shaped by film and song. The 1980 film American Gigolo recast the figure as stylish and self-assured, and popular culture slowly softened the idea from something purely scandalous into something more human. Perceptions shifted, even if the stigma never entirely lifted.
The internet changed the shape of the industry. Where earlier eras relied on dance halls and personal networks, online platforms let companions be discovered directly. The first escort websites appeared in the mid to late 1990s, and within two decades digital platforms had transformed how the work was advertised and booked.
That visibility helped a long-overlooked market grow: women and couples. Australian-led research on male sex work, a global survey run from the Queensland University of Technology, has documented growing demand from women and couples worldwide, with the United Kingdom leading the shift and Australia part of the same trend. As more women gained financial independence and felt freer to name what they wanted, the demand came out into the open, and being a companion became a considered career choice, something we cover in our guide on how to become a male escort.
Australia now has one of the more progressive landscapes for this, helped by the decriminalisation of sex work across most states. You can read where the law stands in our guide to whether male escorts are legal in Australia.
The local story runs deeper than most people realise. Anna Grosman co-founded Aphrodisiac Male Escorts, which ran from 2012 to 2018, before creating Her Confidant, Australia’s female-led companionship agency built specifically for women. You can meet the companions, read a companion’s perspective on booking, explore the psychology behind why women book, or see what to expect the first time.
The agency’s own origin, by Anna’s account, began with a simple conversation among friends who were frustrated by the lack of quality, safe options for women seeking intimacy and connection without commitment.
“For most of history, a woman’s desire was something to manage or hide. I built Her Confidant so that in Australia, at least, it can finally be something she gets to choose.
— Anna Grosman, Founder, Her Confidant
Knowing this history does something useful. It shows that women seeking companionship is not new, not shameful and not strange. It is simply something that spent a long time in the shadows and is now stepping into the light, on women’s own terms.
Paid male companionship has existed for centuries in various forms. The recognisable modern version emerged with the professional dancing partners of the early twentieth century and the first escort agencies of the 1930s.
A gigolo traditionally lived off a woman’s ongoing support. A modern male escort or companion works professionally on a clear, booked basis. Our gigolo guide explains the distinction.
Both have existed, but services aimed specifically at women have historically been quieter and more stigmatised. That has changed significantly in recent decades, especially in Australia.
In most of the country, yes, with the detail depending on your state. See our full legal guide for the specifics.
The history of male escorts is a story of something slowly becoming acceptable to say out loud. Today an Australian woman can choose companionship openly, safely and without apology. If you would like to know more, you can get in touch with the Her Confidant team.
