[jackbl]

The unglamorous side of male modeling P3
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In the fashion industry, the catwalk isn’t at all easy for new comers to strut.

S.M, with the height of 1.82 m, is a promising face.

After 4 years striving for a vedette position on the catwalk, M told Tuoi Tre he could never forget the painful experience when he first stepped on stage.

In 2009, M, 18, first appeared as a model at a spa for gay men when he was a freshman at a college in Ho Chi Minh City.

“That show had 10 male models,” M recalled.

“Each performed 3 scanty pant designs. Though I wore a mask, I felt extremely confused and anxious.”

M said the models that day were required to dance for 4-5 minutes while audiences howled, whistled and screamed.

Some even physically harassed him and the wage was terribly low, only VND 200,000 (US$10), M said.

One year later, M won a spinoff prize at a local modeling contest and was invited to another show at a homosexual bar.

“I got VND2million for only an hour performing,” he said.

“For a new model like me, that wage was irresistible.”

But M didn’t know his decision would cause serious consequences.

A friend of M’s teacher at PL Model Company came to that show and told his teacher what he was doing there. As the result, his teacher got angry and canceled all shows he got for M for a year.

“I was shocked,” M said.

T, another aspiring model, didn’t have it easy either.

In 2007, T accepted an invitation for a half-naked photo shoot for a company’s advertising which has tormented him ever since.

The young model accepted the offer without payment since he thought it would promote his image in the industry.

During the shooting, T was asked to take off all his clothes with the explanation that the company needed to take a lot of pictures to pick up the best ones.

“After the shooting, I felt I had lost something precious,” T said.

As he feared, the company later used the photos for a gay’s website instead of advertising.

“My company finally heard about the mess,” T said. “I did not know how to explain.”

T said in this competitive environment, it’s hard to find someone to understand him.