Houseboy

Historically, houseboy was a British Empire term for a male housecleaner. He was usually, but not always, an native person who worked for a British family living in the colony. A female housecleaner was called a housegirl. Both sexes often were required to wear a uniform.

Houseboy was also used as an American slang term originating in World War II for a native boy who helped a soldier perform basic responsibilities like cleaning, laundry, ironing, shoe-shining, running errands, and the like. The British English term for this occupation was Batman (military).

A houseboy in gay male culture is a young man who performs domestic work, where the employment normally has an erotic, not necessarily sexual, aspect.[1][2]

The houseboy became a plot device or stock character in literature and film.

• The cartoon character Mr. Magoo had a houseboy.
• The Houseboy, a 1973 stage play by Irving Wardle, filmed for ITV in 1982.
• The Houseboy, a 2007 LGBT film starring Nick May.
• Houseboy is the name of a diary-form novel written by Ferdinand Oyono that criticizes the morality of colonialism.
• Bachelor Father, a 1957–62 American TV series starring John Forsythe and Sammee Tong as his Chinese houseboy.

• Housekeeper (domestic worker)
• Fagging (boarding school)
• wikt:Garçon, the French word for "boy", also used as an occupational title
• House officer, previously "houseman", various grades of doctor in British hospitals
• House negro, as opposed to Field hand, under Slavery in the United States