Also this issue: Cloaking Devices Susan Fenton and Anne Seidman create revealing work that plays hard to get. -Robin Rice Paradise Redefined -Susan Hagen First Friday Focus Politics Unusual -A.D. Amorosi Becoming: Shakespeare -Debra Auspitz The Outside In -Sam Adams Anatomy Lessons -Meredith Broussard The (Un)Beat(en) Generation -Paul Burress

October 3- 9, 2002

books

Blue Books

Sex-A-Phone: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl’s Tracy Quan talks dirty.

Talking with the “sex worker literati.”

by Alex Richmond

A new literary wave is crashing down. It’s sexy, but not erotica; storytelling, but not necessarily plot-driven. Mostly, it’s just linear, detailed descriptions of the author’s experience as a sex worker. Three of the so-called “sex worker literati,” Veronica Vera, David Henry Sterry and Tracy Quan, have produced works that are comic, touching, perhaps a little shocking, and above all thought-provoking. They’ll be reading from their respective works at Barnes & Noble on Oct. 8.

Different variations on the memoir reigned at different periods of history. The wrenching personal accounts dissecting terrible childhoods, diseases and addiction have already come; why shouldn't the sex worker have a turn? David Henry Sterry, who was an actor and writer in Hollywood before he wrote his novel, Chicken, Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent (Regan Books, $24.95), has his explanation for the upsurge. "It seems that as each type of social dysfunction comes to the fore, a different type of society is revealed. There's a whole generation of sex workers coming out, and people are ready to hear their stories. It's not just about sex work. It's about the sociological ramifications of sex work and how sexuality is changing in our society."

In Strip City, which recounts her experience as a pole dancer, Lily Burana recalls how when she first started stripping, you had to go to specialty stores to buy your outfits -- now you can go to TJ Maxx. You can see dancers plainly presented on MTV at any hour of the day. "That's evidence to me of what's happening in our culture," Sterry continues. "Strippers are mainstream. Shake a tree and a Catholic pedophile falls out." Porn star Jenna Jameson recently made a mint from her memoir. Child porn actress-turned-non-porn actress Traci Lords just sold her memoir, too.

Another question that springs to mind is: which came first? The sex worker or the writer? For most, it's the latter; the former didn't come about until puberty. Tracy Quan was a prostitute who posed as a copy editor to hide her real job from family and friends. She adapted her salon.com column, The Secret Life of Nancy Chan, into a novel, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl (Crown, $22), which was recently optioned by Sex and the City's Darren Star.

Quan cites her three favorite books about the sex industry as The World of Suzie Wong, Belle de Jour, and Moll Flanders, all written by men. "I think the pro-sex feminist impulse right now doesn't appreciate that aspect of history," she says. "I think we need to recognize that [the fact] these fiction narratives about prostitutes [are] written by guys is something worth wondering about. I wish The World of Suzie Wong would be reissued. It's never gone out of fashion in Hong Kong. Activists rail about it, but it's fascinating. It's about colonialism, prostitution, the lifestyle. Those are my influences. What if Suzie Wong had written her own novel? All these things were playing around in my head as I wrote [Diary]."

Quan continues, "I don't identify with people that say society is holding us back.' You know how pro-sex feminists say that by experiencing sex you're rebelling against the paternalistic system? I don't identify with that. I always felt I could do whatever I wanted. If we didn't operate in a world with pretty serious boundaries, God knows what would happen."

Of course, people in the sex business aren't accustomed to obeying boundaries. Veronica Vera, author of Miss Vera's Cross-Dress for Success: A Resource Guide for Boys Who Want to Be Girls (Random House, $12.95), was on porn sets as a journalist back in the days of Plato's Retreat. She was writing her memoirs when she was asked to help a man keep femme for a weekend -- a 38-year-old attorney who went by the name Sally Sissyribbons. "We went to a ball called Dressing for Pleasure -- it was a big success," she recalls. "I adopted some cross-dressing clients, and realized maybe this will provide my income while writing this book." She placed an ad in the now-defunct newspaper The Transvestian, and the phone started to ring. Men wanted to look like real women. "They were all going through their sexual evolution, as I was. We all deserve to discover who we are, as long as we aren't hurting anyone else." She got an idea: a finishing school for men who wanted to be women. Now the school is 10 years old, and staffed with a faculty of 10, including makeup artists, a dean of high heels, and a dean of dos for hair. The students spend a few hours to a few days there. And after writing two books that serve equally as resource manuals, gender studies texts and fun, functional guides, Vera is finally getting around to publishing her memoir from her days in the biz.

No matter how different the sex worker literati may be from each other, they all agree: The publishing business is much rougher than the sex trade. For Quan, "the sex business is the kinder, gentler industry. People say they found themselves being eaten and ground up in the sex industry. Publishing is more quote-unquote brutal. You get a lot more second chances in the sex industry than in publishing. If the first book comes out and doesn't do well, or gets attacked, it's very devastating to your reputation. In the sex industry, you can just go to another town and change your name. Or you can stay in town and just change your name and phone number! As long as you're willing to do the work, it's a pretty forgiving industry. I'm glad I switched, but I realized I couldn't just fool around in publishing -- all these different deadlines need to be met."

Sterry laughs, "The publishing people are not as nice as the people in the sex biz! I'd rather be hanging out with the sex workers!" Luckily, now you can hang with both.

Sex Worker Literati Panel, Tue., Oct. 8, 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St., 215-665-0716.

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there