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A number of men who appeared in “Cowboys in Paradise,” a controversial film documenting the lives of Bali's "Kuta Cowboys," have denied allegations that they are gigolos who service foreign tourists.

One of the men, Arnold, told SCTV that, “We are not gigolos, we are surfing instructors.”

Arnold was featured at the beginning of the movie trailer sharing his repertoire of pick up lines for the female tourists.

Arnold alleged the film maker Amit Virmani had lied to them, saying that though he had agreed to appear in the video, he did not know it was a film about male prostitution.

“I didn't know that it was for a gigolo movie. Amit told me it would only be for holiday documentation,” he said.

Arnold said “Cowboys” had damaged the reputation of the beach boys. Their surfing businesses had suffered accordingly because local tourists did not want to hire them for surfing lesson.

“We are thinking of suing Amit Virmani but we have no money to hire a lawyer,” he said.

As news of the documentary spread across Web sites nationwide on Monday, the chief of Kuta Beach security operations, I Gusti Ngurah Tresna, said his officers had questioned 28 men with muscular bodies on the beach.

“They were working as [vendors]. We questioned them because they had no ID. They were mostly dark-skinned and had great bodies,” Tresna said. “This raid was no joke. We do take such allegations seriously and we do not legalize such activities.”