Customer Reviews

Assuming the Position: A Memoir of Hustling

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is not what I would call "quality prose". At times, it reads like a pompous college paper. I found particularly annoying Whitaker's propensity for throwing in quotes from famous figures and for using fancy words (e.g. mendacity, censorious, ennui, modus operandi, etc.) It seemed to me that he was trying to sort of compensate for his "dirty" past by showing off his intellectual side, which he indomitably possesses. What I also found annoying was the fact that the book lacked a clear well-crafted structure. Basically, we have an alternation of quasi-erotic stories with ramblings, masquerading as honest self-revelations, on the author's struggle with his own feelings. To that, you can also add a bunch of diary entries that serve as mere "filler". Frankly, this book is just another cheap commercial trick. On one hand, it aims at pandering to people's desire for quick trills. On the other hand, it aims at achieving the required, in the publishing world, dose of sentimentality taken for honesty. I think that the book would have had a different effect had the author revealed the true extent of his hustling. He doesn't really do so. Either the publisher did not want too much inappropriate information to come out or the author himself saved it so that it wouldn't completely (it already does to some degree) jar with his cultivated interests (classical music, philosophy, and literature).

Though some people find the book "disarmingly frank", I find it a bit insincere at certain points. Towards the end of it, the author says that he has become "less promiscuous" than he was before. That, I guess, implies that there was still some promiscuity going on around the time the book was released. So did Rick Whitaker completely change? The author wants us to think he did. Do I think he did? I don't know. I also still don't know why he really went into hustling. To make money or to spite his former boyfriend, Tom (we never found out why Tom left him)? Or perhaps Rick Whitaker was just a narcissistic self-indulgent gay man who craved attention. If that is so, then the whole book would have a different spin. Sex would be no longer a way for the author to satisfy his "needs" but rather a way for him to feed his ego. This is my take on the book. (...)

I don't really know what I expected. Prostitution is, after all, an act so loaded with emotional baggage that it's hard to imagine anyone ringing any new changes on the subject. Unfortunately Whitaker seems about as involved in his narrative as he was in his tricks, and that makes for unfortunate reading. The book alternates between a kind of laundry list of sex and drugs, and some fairly unsurprising rambles on why he does what he does. It's not badly written, but it's just not awfully engaging or particularly enlightening for anyone who really wants to get down to the whys and wherefores of prostitution. Oh...and it's not particularly sexy either....

After reading this book, and then some of the reviews, it's clear to me that the reviewers are far more jaded and cynical than the author. An addictive "type," if there is such a thing, Whitaker fell into prostitution. He tells about it. Now, if readers are disappointed the author doesn't come up with some tremendous mea culpa, expressing overwhelming regret for what happened, that's their hang-up. If you want to know what the life of a hustler must really be like -- told by someone as merciless in his assessment of others as he is of himself -- then this is your book. It strips away the fantasy, so don't go looking for an idealized portrait of a messy business.

This admirable attempt at finding meaning in casual prostitution is not wholly successful. Turning to prostitution after his novel was rejected for publication, the author ultimately succeeded in finding a subject that would get a book deal. But the payoff for the reader is slim -- flat prose, little insight.

From MOLL FLANDERS to PRETTY WOMAN, the fascination with the world's oldest profession shows no signs of waning. Rick Whitaker's account of his brief stint as a sex professional servicing male clientele is an honest, if slight (a mere 179 pages, with lots of white space) addition to this ever-expanding body of literature. I say "honest" provisionally because I believe it was Whitaker's intention to be as frank as possible. However, as a reader, I felt I was being cast into the role of Whitaker's therapist who was only being granted access to what Whitaker was ready to see and reveal about himself. Although this is not exactly a sanitized story, I couldn't help feeling that he was gingerly stepping through his story, picking episodes that weren't too grim (he wants our approval, not our pity) and speaking of his ex-profession in a way that is not judgmental (like a former alcoholic, he is "recovering," not "reformed"). Written ("collated" may be the better word here, considering the number of verbatim diary entries he includes) after only one year away from Whitaker's last act of prostitution, the reader senses Whitaker's lingering vulnerability--the kind of tenderness one feels when poking a healing wound. There seems to be a plea for acceptance. I felt--again, like a therapist might--that I wa being asked to offer him my bottomless patience and unconditional good will. There is something a little sad about the way Whitaker peppers his story with quotes from the likes of Oscar Wilde and Andrew Marvell and with reminders of his love for classical music. It feels like an appeal for us to see him as a person who--though handsome and dionysiac--still has a mind, good taste, and resonant soul. And in the end, it may be these touches that make his story convincing and interesting.

What you won't get from ASSUMING THE POSITION is a gleeful romp through the world of prostitution (read Hollander's THE HAPPY HOOKER for that), a gritty sense of time and place (turn to Rechy's CITY OF NIGHT), an insightful analysis of our society's ambivalent attitudes toward sex and the varieties of sexuality (if this has been written, I'd like to know about it), or a literary masterpiece (try Crane's MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS). What you will get is a touching portrait of a life in transition. That we, as readers, have no clear picture of where this life will ultimately wind up may be somewhat disconcerting. That it reminds us that the same thing is true of our own lives, is equally disturbing. But then, isn't having one's conventional understanding of the world disturbed one of the reasons we read books in the first place?

I picked this book up for cheap thrills and was surprised to discover a writer of directness, intelligence, honesty, and good sense. This may be the "How Proust Can Change Your Life" of gay male hustling--Whitaker explicates a familiar subject and uncovers pertinent and rather profound principles of life.

His experiences in the sex trade comprise a sort of "pilgrim's progress"--the tao of prostitution--and, yes, some of the experiences are quite sexy, too.

At one point I worried that the book was leading up to an obligatory denunciation of everything-that's-destroying-the-very-fabric-of-America, but I need not have concerned myself. Whitaker is above the just-say-no crap.

The book is nonjudgmental, intuitively grasping the needs and desires that lead one to certain choices in life. There are plenty of ways to prostitute oneself in life, and plenty of soul-devouring addictions--not all of them illegal or even disreputable, but all comparable in their impact on the human spirit.

Without fanfare, the book imparts its moral lessons to readers who have a mind open to them, a mind unconvinced that virtuous living entails making no mistakes or building hedges against experience.

For me, the book was a neat surprise. The writer actually has something to say, and he says it with modesty and wisdom.

I had a roommate who was a call boy. He would come home high on cocaine, rambling incoherently about this "celeb" and that celeb who had paid him for his services. My roommate never made much sense, but his ramblings were always interesting in a pathological sort of way. Rick Whitaker's experience with the profession is vastly more coherent, but I'm not sure if it is more interesting. Nonetheless, he is a remarkably talented writer, and I look forward to hearing more from this surprisingly sensitive and intellegent young man. Most importantly, he breaks stereotypes with this book, and he broke my heart with his honesty. I think I fell in love while reading this....

It's a shame Rick Whitaker didn't take longer to write this book, which was published only a year after he stopped hustling. Some of the insights, and the prose, indicate he could have shed real light on a difficult, provocative subject. As it is, the book seems hurried (journal entries, which should have been reworked and woven into the narrative, are thrown in helter skelter), pretentious (Whitaker keeps quoting other, greater writers, whose stature he clearly aspires to...don't quote, write it yourself!) and, yet, in the end, it does have genuine power and weight. The author has had a tough life (an unloving father, a flighty mother, drug addictions) and is mature enough not to ask for pity. His insights into his own alienation and addiction are on the money. What may have tripped him up is his haste to come become a big time author. He admits that he couldn't get his novel published, and this book seems like his hasty answer to trying to launch a career. Since lots of people are jealous of people who can get published or paid for having sex (read some of the reviews below), he left himself open to getting slammed for opportunism. He deserves to be slapped on the wrist, but also encouraged. Despite its flaws, this is a sad, disturbing book that looks at some parts of the human heart most of us shy away from. Whitaker should maybe forget about trying to become a star, take a job of some sort (his idolatry of outlaws seems foolish at his age) and work on his writing. Perhaps the next book, with more time spent on the prose and insights, will be the one he is clearly capable of producing. Finally, this is reccommended for anyone who thinks male hustling is "glamorous." It comes across about as glamorous as working in a slaughterhouse, only with slightly better pay.

I picked this up whilst doing some research for a film I am making on Rent Boys and expected a depressing and salacious read. What I got instead was a gentle, insightful book that was at times poetic, and always a pleasure to read. As a gay man with some experience on the scene, I though the author described perfectly the impulses and emotions that lead you into behaviour that could be labelled sex addiction. Whenever faced with the plethora or remarkable sights and experiences that can just seem to drift passed you as a gay man I have always uttered the response "Life is Complex". Well I think this book fully describes the complexity. In a way it reminded me of "Bright Lights Big City"....but whereas I found that book rather sad in its litany of excess, this has a wistful, laid back quality that always seems positive even when describing the negative. This is one of those rare books...like the Tales of the City series, that I think I will find myself reading again and again.

This is a very disappointing book. I happened to hear Whitaker interviewed on NPR and found him so compelling I could not wait to read his book. Other reviewers on this page have itemized most of the problems, and I agree with them. What bothered me most was Whitaker's constant need to show how erudite he is: every few pages contain a lengthy quote from a philosopher. I was looking forward to an intelligent person's view of hustling from the inside, something I have not encountered before. Whitaker is definitely very intelligent, but the book comes across as thin, lacking the kind detail and keen observations I had hoped for. He touches on major issues: loneliness, detachment from his father, etc, but only seems to scratch their surface. As an educated gay man who had a lengthy period of promiscuity myself, I was curious to see what Whitaker had to say about why we might behave in these ways. He does answer the question, but too superficially and in too pretentious a style.