Remember George Rekers, the anti-gay activist and Baptist minister whom& Miami New Times caught procuring the services of a male escort from RentBoy.com in 2010? Well, what do you know, RentBoy.com's annual award show, appropriately called "The Hookies," is coming up, and the organization thought briefly about giving an honorary award to Jo-Vanni Roman, Reker's favorite rentboy, but decided against it because, you know, he sort of broke the first rule of being an escort.
From Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto's blog:
Rentboy's director Sean Van Sant tells me they even considered giving Jo-Vanni an award that night, but he may have broken the escort code of conduct by revealing the client's name, so that disqualified him.As it turns out, not only is there not an award for best whistleblower, there's not an award for best blower of any kind, which kind of seems odd for an escort award show. Then again, the very idea of an escort award show is sort of odd in the first place.
I guess there's no category for Best Blower of Whistles.
"That kind of story scares clients away," said Van Sant, "and Rentboy is based on confidentiality. It's not our business to expose anybody."
To be fair, Roman didn't directly out Rekers and actually seemed somewhat protective of him in his original interview with New Times.
The Hookies take place this Friday in New York City, and Musto hints that Roman, master of the long stroke, may still be making an appearance at the show as a presenter.
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