An
Unwinnable
Game
a memoir.
An
a memoir.
a memoir.
My three years in what the streets of America call The Game -- the subculture and lifestyle of prostitution -- and why I couldn't win.
in three parts:
The Game
The pimp-prostitute culture, manipulation and coercion, rules, and hierarchy.
The Self
The impacts on sexuality, sense of identity, and "normal" life; the psychological aftermath.
The Argument
A rejection of the assumptions society makes about prostitution and its harms, consent, and entitlement.
A book about...
why people stay exploited even while they still have the chance to leave, why escape is not the happily-ever-after ending many imagine it to be, and what people get wrong about the realities of prostitution.
While deeply personal, this isn't simply an account of what happened to me. If you're expecting a misery memoir -- or even the stereotypical spicy "escort diary" -- with all of the graphic details, you'll be disappointed.
It's an examination of how a subculture teaches people to accept its rules and what happens when the boundaries between one's real self and "work" identity blur as reluctant submission gets marketed as consent. What does growing from teen to young adult in a transactional sexual world do to a person's understanding of identity, sex, choice, and other people? What happens when a choice made freely becomes impossible to leave? And at what point does a choice stop being meaningfully voluntary?
While deeply personal, this isn't simply an account of what happened to me. If you're expecting a misery memoir -- or even the stereotypical spicy "escort diary" -- with all of the graphic details, you'll be disappointed.
It's an examination of how a subculture teaches people to accept its rules and what happens when the boundaries between one's real self and "work" identity blur as reluctant submission gets marketed as consent. What does growing from teen to young adult in a transactional sexual world do to a person's understanding of identity, sex, choice, and other people? What happens when a choice made freely becomes impossible to leave? And at what point does a choice stop being meaningfully voluntary?