Sarah Katherine Lewis, Indecent
There are a number of books about stripping and other sex work, a small explosion of which were published in the past year or so. Most of these follow a certain formula: a third wave feminist or postfeminist college graduate straps on some platforms and spends one year dancing in an expensive gown club or taking calls from an elite escort agency. Then she quits and writes a book about it. "Whee! Look at me! I took off my clothes! I'm so empowered, and such a rebel against my nice-girl background! I can be a feminist too!"
Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It As a Girl For Hire, by Sarah Katherine Lewis (markedformetal), stands out in a number of pleasant ways from the crowd of sex-work books. Lewis entered the industry because she was sick of food service work, not because she was sick of her high-powered desk job (or needed a subject for her master's thesis). Ten years after her first terrified day in the "lingerie modeling" branch, Lewis is still an adult worker. And unlike most of the authors, whose clients never get within six feet or see their exposed pink bits, Lewis does what she has to do to pay her rent: grinding crotches, getting licked, and dealing with a veritable ocean of foul-smelling semen.
Not that she's writing this to titillate -- nor, one hopes, are you reading it that way. The reason it matters is that the other writers' work experience is the equivalent of being a server at the Russian Tea Room or the Four Seasons: hard work, no doubt, but worlds removed from the exhausting, disgusting, degrading ordeal that is the Friday night shift at Waffle House. The analogy barely scratches the surface: it hardly does justice to the distinction between gyrating on a squeaky-clean platform, doused in glitter and wearing a G-string and pasties and having men put down money for the privilege of sitting six feet away, versus feigning enjoyment and arousal in a filthy back room while a grossly malodorous man gropes your nude body and moans about wanting to do revolting things to you.
The former is the province of a fortunate few who are well-spoken, thin, relatively young, middle class (no tattoos, good teeth), urban and savvy. The latter is what's available to everyone else. The former is titillating, and it gets the writers published. The latter is appalling, and it's the story that Lewis tells without batting a single eyelash. Allowing those few privileged, slumming graduate students to claim the story of the whole industry erases the endless violations of most sex work. In so doing, it does a grave disservice to the women who work in the industry because they must -- and who have no choice but to do the "extras" and "dirty work" that the high-end gown-club women are able to avoid by virtue of their unmarked, middle-class bodies. Lewis's voice is sorely needed.
One of the most refreshing aspects of Indecent is that it doesn't try to maintain complete consistency or take a definite stand or position: a Verdict on the Adult Industry. Some days Lewis feels sexy and powerful, other days remote and appalled. At times she points out quite reasonably that no one would ever do this for any reason other than money, while at others she describes craving the thrill of mastering a new segment of the industry, or wanting to maximize her earnings not because she must but because she can. She notes rather wistfully that stability, marriage and children have become the norm for women of her age, but revels in the freedom of living unattached and being able to pick up and go on a moment's notice.
Although some might call this disjointed or incoherent, to level such a charge is to miss the point. The apparent chasm between self-professed "sex-positive third-wavers" (sex work as empowerment) and so-called "sex-negative second-wavers" (sex work as exploitation) is not particularly germane to the actual experience of being a career sex worker. What Lewis shows so well is that on a day-to-day basis, that experience is sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both at once, and frequently "none of the above": merely menial and tiring. It's precisely this complexity -- the glamor and seediness, the sensuality and apathy, the feigned emotion and brutal exploitation, the high payoff and uncountable cost -- that makes the industry such a juggernaut.
Lewis, too, is a juggernaut in her own right, whip-smart, powerful, articulate, strong, working the system with the best of them. Her battles with and within the adult industry make for an edgy, gripping read that refuses easy answers.
Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It As a Girl For Hire, by Sarah Katherine Lewis (markedformetal), stands out in a number of pleasant ways from the crowd of sex-work books. Lewis entered the industry because she was sick of food service work, not because she was sick of her high-powered desk job (or needed a subject for her master's thesis). Ten years after her first terrified day in the "lingerie modeling" branch, Lewis is still an adult worker. And unlike most of the authors, whose clients never get within six feet or see their exposed pink bits, Lewis does what she has to do to pay her rent: grinding crotches, getting licked, and dealing with a veritable ocean of foul-smelling semen.
Not that she's writing this to titillate -- nor, one hopes, are you reading it that way. The reason it matters is that the other writers' work experience is the equivalent of being a server at the Russian Tea Room or the Four Seasons: hard work, no doubt, but worlds removed from the exhausting, disgusting, degrading ordeal that is the Friday night shift at Waffle House. The analogy barely scratches the surface: it hardly does justice to the distinction between gyrating on a squeaky-clean platform, doused in glitter and wearing a G-string and pasties and having men put down money for the privilege of sitting six feet away, versus feigning enjoyment and arousal in a filthy back room while a grossly malodorous man gropes your nude body and moans about wanting to do revolting things to you.
The former is the province of a fortunate few who are well-spoken, thin, relatively young, middle class (no tattoos, good teeth), urban and savvy. The latter is what's available to everyone else. The former is titillating, and it gets the writers published. The latter is appalling, and it's the story that Lewis tells without batting a single eyelash. Allowing those few privileged, slumming graduate students to claim the story of the whole industry erases the endless violations of most sex work. In so doing, it does a grave disservice to the women who work in the industry because they must -- and who have no choice but to do the "extras" and "dirty work" that the high-end gown-club women are able to avoid by virtue of their unmarked, middle-class bodies. Lewis's voice is sorely needed.
One of the most refreshing aspects of Indecent is that it doesn't try to maintain complete consistency or take a definite stand or position: a Verdict on the Adult Industry. Some days Lewis feels sexy and powerful, other days remote and appalled. At times she points out quite reasonably that no one would ever do this for any reason other than money, while at others she describes craving the thrill of mastering a new segment of the industry, or wanting to maximize her earnings not because she must but because she can. She notes rather wistfully that stability, marriage and children have become the norm for women of her age, but revels in the freedom of living unattached and being able to pick up and go on a moment's notice.
Although some might call this disjointed or incoherent, to level such a charge is to miss the point. The apparent chasm between self-professed "sex-positive third-wavers" (sex work as empowerment) and so-called "sex-negative second-wavers" (sex work as exploitation) is not particularly germane to the actual experience of being a career sex worker. What Lewis shows so well is that on a day-to-day basis, that experience is sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both at once, and frequently "none of the above": merely menial and tiring. It's precisely this complexity -- the glamor and seediness, the sensuality and apathy, the feigned emotion and brutal exploitation, the high payoff and uncountable cost -- that makes the industry such a juggernaut.
Lewis, too, is a juggernaut in her own right, whip-smart, powerful, articulate, strong, working the system with the best of them. Her battles with and within the adult industry make for an edgy, gripping read that refuses easy answers.