Customer Reviews

Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book at the bookstore by my office, and as is the case with all books I buy that I'm interested in, I started reading it immediately when I got on the train to come home. When I turned the page to the new chapter with its gigantic headline "Real Live Horny Girl Next Door", it occurred to me that the guy standing right next to me was reading every word over my shoulder and was now convinced I was a freak.

The author should probably take that as a compliment - I don't really care if he thinks I'm a freak, and he obviously cared enough to leer over my shoulder for my 45 minute commute home.

I wouldn't refer to myself as a prude in any sense of the word, but I admit I blushed a little bit as I started to read it. The language is necessar - after all, I can't describe my day at work without using the words "computer" and "rendering" (I work in 3D modeling at an architecture firm), so how could the author describe her job without a variety of different words of male genitalia? After you get past the first few pages of your own potential embarassment, all those "cock"s and "pussy"s are just words, as they should be, and the book reads smoothly. When describing a sexual act, it's easy to resort to overromanticizing on one end or an incredibly base vernacular on the other, channeling online erotica writers everywhere - thankfully our author doesn't do that for a second. Her job is her job, and she describes things just as they happen. It isn't sexy, but it isn't repulsive. Some people wait tables, she pretends to masturbate for money. We all put in our hours to make our rent, and this is no exception.

The book doesn't have any real conclusion, which seems to make a certain amount of sense as the writer is a blogger. It's more of an opportunity to glance into ten years of her life, as if you're reading the diary of a woman coming into her own and becoming comfortable with herself. It was a quick read and could be accomplished in a couple of open afternoons. The writer's style is easy to get into and offers a blunt, straightforward view into what it means to be a woman in the adult entertainment industry. If you're looking for smut, this isn't it, but if you're looking for an intelligently written account of a job few of us will ever experience, this is the book for your Saturday afternoon.

As a fellow ex-sex worker and aspiring writer, I am always interested in the perspective of other women in the adult entertainment industry. The author's perspective definitely reminded me of some of the women I have worked with as a pro domme -- punked out girls who first learn how to be femme when they realize it can earn them some cash, but who really have no passion or natural inclination for the work. She describes some pretty raunchy, degrading situations she gets herself into, seeming to not have any respect for her clients or herself as she performs acts that are completely unerotic and even disturbing to her. It's an us versus them approach that has very little sympathy or understanding for the men. She even describes picking clients pockets while lapdancing them! In my opinion, you get back what you dish out. If you expect sex work to be disgusting, despicable work then it will be. Definitely not my experience with it. But we each have our own story. This one was like rubbernecking a car wreck -- unpleasant but hard to turn away from.

I had to read this book since I have lived in Seattle for a year and a half now and I find it interesting to read about all the hidden places in the city!

This was definately a good read. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next and it kept me turning the pages but that was the only thing that made me give it four stars. To begin with, one thing I didn't quite understand was the naming of the chapters. All are named after songs and while some bear a slight resemblance to its contents, most do not. I am also not quite sure that I bought into the whole "It's okay for feminists to do this work because we get paid and thus have power". People get paid for working at McDonald's too and probably get about as much respect. The author also claims that she feels just great about herself and her work but that sounded hollow next to the more than frequent passages where she graphically describes her murderous rage toward her customers. I totally felt the depressive vibe that permeated this book. Nowhere does the author talk about having friends or family and it seems that when she is not working in the sex industry, she is at home watching television. The author is at pains to describe that she keeps her work personality seperate from her real personality but readers are not permitted to see that other reality, we are only led from seedy joint to seedy joint. Maybe in writing about the sex industry, she keeps her game face on. There were obvious passages where the author was conflicted about her work and I think that went a little way towards adding to the reality of working in such an industry. I also appreciated her humor, intelligence and the candid way in which she approached life in general.

This is a book about someone (Ms. Lewis) who has chosen to be part of a life style that a large percentage of average people would not look upon favorably (or worse.) But it is also a book that helps one understand the why's and who's of being a sex worker, and the fact that sex workers are human beings with feelings much like our own.

I loved this book, couldn't put it down. I related to Ms Lewis from a father's viewpoint. From beginning to end I was with her. The book so wonderfully describes her various feelings from when she began until the present. In a business that most people consider very negatively, she has accomplished a lot on her own. Her intelligence, independence, courage, the dangers, the concerns, her strong feelings, they sure do come through in the book..

Ms Lewis style of writing carried me along from experience to experience. It is fascinating to hear about the various places she has worked and the people she worked with. It gave me such mixed feelings of knowing what one goes through and realizing that underneath it all is a woman who wants and needs times of love and closeness and caring.

The book is beautifully written, never doubt it. Every so often she'd have me laughing at the way she described something. Throughout the book she conveyed how scary it was each time she applied for a new job, how unsure of her abilities she was at times. It was very interesting to learn of what goes on in various types of sex work as I have never before heard in such detail.

Most startling and yet something that one might not be surprised about if given some thought is the way the author feels about her clients/customers......... realizing that for the sex worker, it is a job, one that pretty much requires shutting out the feelings that one in love would have.

I am really glad I read this book for it let me understand that those we might avoid are just as human as we are, just as wise, just as caring.

It may be strange to call this book fun, but aren't we all fascinated in the behind-the-scenes of the adult industry? This book tells one woman's experience in a straightforward and unapologetic way. From the peep show to the "release massage" we get to peek into a forbidden world from the sex worker's point of view.

Lewis doesn't spend a lot of time boo-hooing about her past or circumstances that brought her to adult work. Instead, she expresses a true curiosity that let to a career that, while it has its definite downsides, is a career that gave her freedom and allowed her to be true to herself.

I want to know what happened next!

Lewis's insistent voice mesmerized me instantly, modulating with skill between straightforward and smart, funny and angry, analytical and lyrical. Her memoir takes us through ten years in the sex industry, from her beginning as a wide-eyed "new girl" in Seattle to her stint in boozy New Orleans in the last few months before she evacuated for Hurricane Katrina.

As a narrator, Lewis is engaging and empathetic. As a commentator on the lives of sex workers, she's open and incisive. *Indecent*'s final judgment of the sex industry isn't simple-minded or single-sided: Lewis presents the conflicted sentiments of a stripper towards the (empowering; degrading; freeing; narrow; challenging; mindless) job that pays her rent with honesty that's as fascinating as it is clear-eyed.

The PW review above is ridiculous -- could the reviewer really have thought that a sex industry professional dishing about the realities of her job was going to be a work of "titillating erotica"?

Ms. Lewis describes what it's like to make a living by creating and selling fantasies. The truths she tells here are hilarious and fascinating, sometimes sad. (I can only imagine how dismaying they'd be to the people who pay to believe those fantasies!) This is the inside scoop on an unusual and challenging profession, written in a skillful, easy, entertaining style that makes the book hard to put down. Highly recommended!

This is the first of the 'stripper books' I've read that takes the reader into the grind of the daily existence of a worker in the sex industry. There are no pretensions on Lewis's part. She's in it to make money, and she lays her mercenary nature out there for the reader. To her, each customer is simply a bag of money to be shaken loose of as much of its lucre as possible. The writing is funny and charming. Lewis enjoys what she does, even if there are bad days, and it shows.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. While there are many unanswered questions (aren't there always in biographical books?) this book does a remarkable job of laying it on the line and being a good story. No fancy whistles or hidden morality lessons (except for don't be a pig if you're going to see a working girl), just an entertaining and almost voyeuristic read.

As is typical of a young male, I spent some time in my youth at various strip clubs. Most were while I was in college and were located in the infamous Boston "Combat Zone", which has since been redeveloped into "respectable" property. While in the establishments, I must say the last thing I ever thought about was how I was perceived as a customer. The author of this book, however, made me realize how I was viewed, and it isn't pretty.

Reading this book, I came to realize that the women who work in this industry do so for a number of reasons, most of which never enter the conscious thoughts of average males. The book made me realize, for the first time, that these women were not there because they were too stupid or lazy to do "real" work, but rather because they enjoyed the freedoms the jobs provide. A number of other reasons surfaced in the book, but you'll have to read it to find them out.

The book was a fascinating transition of a young woman from a barista at a coffee house into a proud, dignified worker who controlled her own fate. I highly recommend this book so as to get a look inside the industry, but also to see how young women can work in an industry, known for exploitation, without being exploited.