We have already discussed female prostitution in ancient times when we detailed the different classes of prostitutes in Sumeria and prostitution in Rome. So, today we are going to deal with male prostitution in these same cultures.
In Rome the important thing was not who you slept with, but the role you played in the relationship, active or passive.
The Romans are so depraved that they no longer pay to submit, they pay to be submitted... the true Romans are less and less (Juvenal)
So, although male prostitution was not as numerous as female prostitution, it was not difficult to find a young gigolo* with which to satisfy your needs (whether you were a man or a woman). Male prostitution was exercised in public baths, in taverns and in the statio cunnulingiorum , places where gigolos met to offer oral sex for a few coins. And of course, there were also several categories:
Pathici :passives
Ephebi :teens
Fellators :fellators
Spadons :with penis but without testicles. According to the poet Juvenal they were the most sought after by Roman ladies.
Amasii :for long relationships
Among the Sumerians, all those who practiced prostitution enjoyed prestige and social position. It was one more job, with the addition of being considered extremely important, since the goddess Inanna she was, in turn, the courtesan of the gods. It was a prostitution for religious reasons and a way of serving the faithful in the temples who, logically, received an amount for the services provided for their "maintenance". Just as the wives were not offended by their husbands going off on brown peaks with a prostitute/priestess, they were not scandalized by their respective sleeping with a gigolo in the temple. On the contrary, they considered it normal and something to be proud of if the couple had been with someone of high status. And who were these gigolos?
Assinum :They were men who dressed and put on makeup as women (transvestites) to serve other men. The Sumerians accepted homosexuality although with a certain humor and ridicule -lesbianism was not spoken of-.
Ishtarium :they could be men or women, the men attended to the women and they to the men, and they belonged to the high-level sacred clergy. Obviously they only slept with rich people and people with a lot of power.
(*) I use gigolo simply as a masculine synonym for prostitute, not with the literal meaning of the term.
Source:Inventions of the Ancients