It's hard to explain certain things, and after a while it's easier to not talk to anyone outside much at all. I thought that as a prostitute, I would no longer be inside a dream; I'd be flung, newly sharp and capable, into life. Actually, I discover, the opposite is true. Prostitution is a complex, shared dream where everyone agrees to not wake up, for just a little longer....Via Hit and Run, which has a lot of comments, but I anticipate better comments here.
I buy a ticket for France. I have to quit my job because I like it too much.
No one still "in life" will talk about it, and it seems like those who left will only talk about the bad side. But as I walk away from prostitution and drug addicts and gain back my own life and body, I know I'm losing something too. I lose nothingness.
Abandonment has always led to advanced creativity.
November 12, 2005
"Prostitution isolates you, with all its little ways that people not in it don't understand, much in the way some religions do, or drug addictions."
So writes Lisa Carver in an essay called "I Was a Teenaged Prostitute and It Was Kind of Great." Carver, who was nineteen when she took up prostitution, writes:
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This is what the film world calls "edgy." But color me cynical. I think she took up whoring precisely to write about it--meta-whoring? And did she leave "the life" because she liked it too much or because she had enough to shop her story to lit/film agents?
I think Pat and Starless have nailed it. Obviously, she did this to have an "experience" which she could write about. How many drug-addicted streetwalkers keep diaries and have pubishing deals?
And don't forget to check out the DVD companion: "Lisa has coughed up a visual aid to the paperback version of Drugs Are Nice in the form of a DVD, and whether she's passed out on the sidewalk, pissing in a bucket on stage and wallowing in filth, you never saw a cuter, more f****d-up doll screaming for help."
Help? I know this is all arty and introspective, but come on. This isn't about prostitution; it's life as performance art. It's post-punk Plimpton.
And I think Ann put up that link to the other site's comments just to dare us to go look, knowing it would make us appreciate what we've already got here.
I don't think there's anything wrong with doing something so you can write a book about it. Everyone remembers Gloria Steinem working as a Playboy bunny to get an inside view. Barbara Ehrenreich did that book about working for minimum wage. Or is it that we expect women to take a more sociological or feminist attitude? Male writers often do something that they are curious about or thrilled by with the hope of getting a book out of it. What's the problem? (Other than that you disapprove of the sexual/illegal activity.)
I agree with fxklm; the Althouse commenters have dropped the ball here.
I don't care that she did it or wrote about it; I object to her shtick, that she just was compelled to do this because she's so sexy and edgy, and then suddenly woke up and said, golly, maybe I should write about this!
Gloria Steinem was honest about her Bunny experience--it was the effort of a feminist to expose sexism. Miss Thing IMO is far from honest. But I guess that's the way we want it, or agents want it, which in a funny way makes her still a whore.
PatCa: Apt observation. But then, I wonder: Is it really worse? "Miss Thing" had sex with "Frankenstein." If she did that for her book.... why are we condemning her? I'm not disrespecting Steinem. She had her agenda, and it was a good one. But for Carver... what did she do wrong to set you against her? I can only think of one thing: the essay is insufficiently well written!
The problem with prostitution is that it turns sexuality into a capitalistic commodity that privileges male dollars over female autonomy. "Give me some money, and I'll let you degrade me". There is little love, little bonding, little of that which distinguishes human sexuality from animal sexuality.
The tragedy of Ms. Carver's situation is not her choices or her self-promotion; nothing wrong with self-promotion, because Parnassus isn't going to come looking for you. The tragedy is that she is apparently completely cut off from the spiritual and philosophical tradition of the West that says she is more than a vagina or a mouth or a rectum oriented to male sexual pleasure. She shows no sign of understanding that she is a full and complete human being.
Pat, Starless and Robert - Yes.
My opposition to prostitution is not so much because "It's wrong and you shouldn't!" as much as "It's degrading, damaging and dehumanizing" to everyone involved. There are lots more ways to hurt yourself than physically. At the end, her experience has made her empty, lonely and dissatisfied.
There's nothing wrong with self-promotion or trying something to write about it. But I think this crosses a line, like a performance artist mutilating his body. We don't need any more glorified self-destruction. It's not interesting, pretty or cool. It seems just ugly and sad. As a parent, I can't imagine wishing this for my child.
Where are the commenters saying that the Europeans have a healthier attitude towards sex and that legalized prostitution shouldn't be a big deal?
The thought of directly paying, or being paid for sex has never crossed my mind, it really just seems bizarre.
But I don't think prohibiting an exchange between adult private parties of an activity that without money being transacted would otherwise be legal has been wise or productive.
Legal and regulated is a lot safer for all involved when it comes to paid sex. The moral judgements are a side issue in my opinion. I wouldn't pay not due to moral compunction, but rather for reasons of ego and self-regard.
If my charms, intellect and looks fail to attract someone to me than why would I want to exchange fluids with them?
And as far as this particular person, she does come across as just a navel-gazing thrill seeker who is basically the female equivalent of an illegal base-jumper who videos himself jumping off of private buildings while trying to stay ahead of the cops and trying to justify their behavior with pop-psychology nonsense.
I actually think she's a pretty good writer. I hope she continues writing and gets her proverbial s*** together in the meantime.
Miklos, good point, she is the Ultimate Unreliable Narrator. She is playing us. She lied about her intent and perhaps, too, her drug use, all to attract more middle class clients...er, book buyers. Unfortunately, Nerve doesn't question that.
She's manipulating us, denying that she had an agenda going in. That's my problem with it. Either call it "fiction" or call it a lie. There's nothing in between. Had she written a novel, I would be okay with it.
Show of hands: How many people think prostitution should be decriminalized?
(Raising hand.)
LOL, Slocum. SMC.
LIsa "Crystal" Carver is a fairly well-known writer who emerged of in the early 90's 'zine scene and is a pillar of GenX hipster culture. Zine's were essentially blogs in dead tree format). Her zine Rollerderby became a magazine and has been collected in book form.
Lisa is well known for her wackiness, positive attitude, extremely un-pc attitude, and overall charm. She is not a cynical person. She is fearless, and I admire her. She has a certain cheerful determination to make the best of life and have fun doing it. She seems free of the anger and arrogance that I despise in so many writers, especially of the Riot Grrrl type on Salon. She is infinitely preferable to the clever immaturity of Sarah Vowell, who is so poular with the npr/nytimes set.
One of my favorite pieces by her is a short essay about the History Channel and the relationship between bookish scholars and the bloodthirsty barbarians that they so clearly love.
Prostitution is about constant repeating attempts to control the Dark Father, and since a man is never more controllable than after ejaculation, it works. It leads, of course, to contempt for the male. Long-continuted contempt for either sex is not a positive, though we all find doses of it bracing, but until we men stop acting like Dark Fathers, some women will need this. It also follows that if you don't wish to be controlled, you have to decouple ejaculation from orgasm.
I wound up 18 years as a bachelor last summer, and took a second wife who is the 'apple of my eye.' In those years I never commerced with a professional, nor yet (once it became clear) with amateurs who were using sex as an adjuvant to position or security. It was too much like 'hunting' within high-fence enclosures. If you know the outcome in advance, if the evening's end is fore-ordained, the pleasure and excitement seep away; there is no point in finishing where there is no doubt what the finish will be.
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