The plotline frequently focuses on the crisis of leaving the trade or the street ("one last trick"), or on making enough money for an important use (a medical treatment, a gift).
In contrast to the previous depictions, the male prostitute has also sometimes been portrayed as an idealized rebel living outside the law and free of bourgeois conventions.
This almost Nietzschean image of the hustler as moral and sexual outlaw owes much to the writings of Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs and John Rechy (among others).
The portrayal of the client or "john" of male prostitution in popular culture is far less codified than that of the hustler and runs the gamut from the lonely married man, the self-hating in-the-closet guy, the exploitative or endearing businessman, and even the serial killer.
The following television programs feature a hustler as a main character: The following photographers, in their work, frequently use the image of the male prostitute: