Melissa, an ex-sex worker writing for xoJane, sums up the problem with trying to place clients under one umbrella:The guys I met while selling sex were grown up versions of the boys I went to high school with. It is an admirably frank portrayal, but sometimes the honesty slips into the uncomfortable. In the extensive appendices (there are 23), he tackles everything from “Drugs” and “Violence” to “Power” and “Self Respect.” These are complex and charged issues, ones not easily settled.
Chester Brown didn’t want his book to be called Paying for It, but as the title of a “comic strip memoir about being a john” it seems pretty fitting.Not only for its obvious sense, in which “it” is clearly “sex,” but also in its other, metaphorical sense of paying the price for an apparently blameworthy act.
He rejects pity and shaming as appropriate responses, and shows why prostitution is normal, or why it should be seen as such.Perhaps this, then, is the real reason for Brown’s discomfort with his book’s title: there should be no double meaning there, no coyness or embarrassment or sly wink to the audience. There are awkward moments of erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation, and even moments of comedy.
Although in Canada, Brown’s homeland, the Supreme Court has recently ruled that laws including the prohibition of brothels and public communication with clients are too sweeping, in France and New York, among others, legislation and policymakers are increasingly figuring the prostitute as victim, and the client as criminal, in paid sexual encounters. Similarly, if you prefer to read, the site links back to Project Gutenberg. If you're a fan of audiobooks, Gutenberg links to Listen in your browser or download the book to your device or PC.
It’s what Brown wants prostitution to be: not just decriminalised, but socially acceptable, unremarkable.On this score, Brown doesn’t fully convince. […] Just as there’s no one typical sex worker, there’s no typical “John.”And, it might be added, there is no typical type of sex work (street-walking, escorting, brothels—their similarities end after the selling-sex part) or way of having sex, either.Illustrating his argument that “paid sex is pretty much the same as unpaid sex,” the sex that Brown has in the book is fairly bog-standard. The latter might be applicable to sex slaves, but it is important to distinguish these women from those who have chosen sex work through their own free will, a distinction most abolitionists refuse to make (the Trafficking Court in New York saves all women from “their own poor choices”[1]). The callous and dehumanizing nature of review websites makes them a controversial subject for sex workers and feminists alike; particularly gruesome excerpts from reviews are being used as a campaign tool for abolition in France,[2] while sex workers themselves are divided over whether they appreciate the publicity or dislike the invasion of privacy. This stigma silences sex workers as effectively as its accompanying taboo does johns, only the consequences of sex workers’ marginalization are much more severe than the johns’.Brown’s book, by bringing these hidden stories out into the open and showing some of the realities for both clients and sex workers alike, goes some way to lifting the stigma from the shadowy world of prostitution. But if “it” is the standard coy replacement for “sex,” sex is no longer the unmentionable act it once was. FOR SALE - Springfield, IL - I am paying cash for back issue comic books from any year. ManyBooks will ask which file you prefer to set as a default. He dismisses arguments with a gently articulated ease sometimes bordering on flippancy. If you've looked for free books before, you might've noticed that most, though not all, are classics.
Brown does a good job: through cartoons, anecdotes, quotes from an extensive reading list, and responses to feminist theorists, he sets out a clear and sustained argument for decriminalization (no laws, no one getting arrested—as opposed to legalisation, which would mean laws regulating prostitution). Rather than display a patronizing acceptance of “prostituted women,” Brown leads his readers along the complicated path towards a genuine support of prostitution.