Cory

When Cory, 28, visited India (one of the 30 countries he’s been to) he found that no one glanced away when he met their gaze. In Vancouver, though, “they either think you want to have sex with them or rob them.” After taking history and political science at Queen’s in the late-’90s, Cory became an erotic masseur. Seven years later—as a high-end, mostly Internet-based escort—his work has taken on the aspect of a spiritual mission (“You have to have self-love or else you get abused”), even while it pays the bills. AIDS anxiety, he says, has created a climate of fear in which people aren’t open to be themselves. More than half his clients are straight and married men. In his well-appointed condo overlooking the North Shore mountains (complete with 40-inch flatscreen TV) Cory opens a bottle of Shiraz and waxes poetic on his work. While “people have the Hollywood image of a hooker getting raped or gay-bashed,” he sees the sex trade as a therapeutic way to help closeted men come out; getting paid to receive oral sex, he says, is just one of the amazing bonuses.

Money made: $200-plus/hour Number of clients per week: Four First trick: 27 years old Weirdest request from a client: One guy sticks money on my body and then I get to keep it Where you see yourself in 10 years: Rich and retired, writing my memoir