Chris 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.
The demands snowballed into riskier requests, and within months the gay Connecticut teen was trading sex for dinners out, designer sneakers and other luxuries. Bates says he was lured by the attention and what appeared to be easy money.
He secretly hoped his financially struggling single mother, or anybody, would notice what was happening and protect him. No one did β and within two years, the tall, lanky youth was living alone in a dilapidated apartment, prostituting himself to get by.
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. In Massachusetts alone, more than boys have been referred to the state Department of Children and Families since for concerns they were victims of commercial sexual exploitation β about 15 percent of the total number of referrals, according to state data.
An additional youth were identified as trans or non-binary, state data shows. The state just started collecting this data in , and it is widely considered to be an undercount. Definitive data is still lacking but recent studies show boys and young men are being exploited at much higher rates.
