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Reading Wednesday - Paying for it
Chester Brown’s Paying For It, his autobiographical account of being a john, is a bit of a Canadian comics classic, and I had wanted to read it for a while. Sook-Yin Lee (former VJ, eclectic Canadian artist/personality), who was his girlfriend at the beginning of the book and has remained an indefatigable supporter, decided to bring the comic to the screen. The film came out this spring, and I wanted to read the comic before seeing it. Finally it came through the holds queue recently.
I have never read any reviews of the book so I might be retreading known territory, but here goes:
I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it’s a book that came out in 2011, and much of the story happens from 2000 to 2004. It now feels a bit dated in terms of opinions on sex work, even though it was quite ahead of its time outside of sex worker/activist circles. I was a looooot less informed about sex work back then and it would have been as educative to me if I had read it then as the constitutional challenge brought on by sex workers/advocates against the Government of Canada in 2011 (and their ultimate victory) has done to bring more visibility to the issue in the greater public. In general it is espousing decriminalization as the best way to deal with sex work, and I’m board with that.
On the other hand, I wish that the book’s last appendix, written by Seth, another comic artist who was a friend of his: “I often jokingly refer to Chet as ‘the robot’. Chester seems to have a limited emotional range compared to most people. [...] Chet’s pretty hard on the idea of romantic relationships. [...] the idea that Chester Brown and Joe Matt* discussing the nature of romantic love is not unlike two blind men painting a sunset. [...] his opinion [...] is a little too tied to the libertarian party-line about the sanctity of property rights.” It would have granted a colour to the earlier part of the book that was needed.
Brown’s emotional coldness and ideological bent against romantic relationships (they’re “evil!”) eventually sink his case. He goes on at length about how they’re only trouble (even though he’s only been in 3 when he was younger, and it’s unclear how long they were though the one to Lee seems to have been quite serious). He sometimes ascribes to romantic relationships faults that are more related to marriage. He obviously also criticizes that institution, but that’s very easy to do when you start against love, basically. You’re only left with the contractual part, which, you know.
The main part that’s bothering me is that Brown describes four incidents where he had doubts as to whether the sex worker was working out of her own will. Every time he finds a reason to think that the worker must have been there willingly, after all. But most of these are weak reasons. In two of the cases, it’s quite clear to me that Brown should have backed out. He depicts himself as having backed out of a few other encounters, letting sex workers keep their money, even though sex was not had, because someone turned him off, or some other minor reason. He talks about how he cares that the sex workers engage willingly in the work, but when push came to shove, in borderline cases, you would think “without a reasonable doubt” would have been the primary assessment criterium. Not only that, most of the events in the book happened from 6 to 10 years before publication, a long period during which Brown could think more about sex work and what he was portraying. The 6 year gap to publication have led to enough thought that the book has a Chomskyian twenty three (!!) appendices, containing more text than the comic itself, and not once does Brown express doubt about the 4 cases. If anything, a few of the appendices discuss human trafficking, legalized prostitution in Nevada (the infamous Mustang Ranch) and regular pimping, and basically Brown says that with decrim, women are free to leave when they want. His case for decriminalization is totally demolished by his lack of care for sexual exploitation when he had probable encounters with it, even though he knows that it happens. I think 3 of the four cases mentioned are with women where he also has doubts as to whether they were even 18, and he is assuaged by getting told by the women that yes they are 18, when he asked them if they were. Like come on. He cared more about how his friends thought they would be depicted in the book than about that. And what about other episodes where he might not have picked up cues?
So on one hand the book makes a good case for decrim, but in the end I feel how it’s made is hugely embarrassing for Brown, if that was an emotion he was able to feel, which seems doubtful. And he binds his political case so closely to his own actions that in the end, it gets thoroughly weakened. At least half of these appendices should have been dropped, too…
Oh yeah and I think I forgot to write, regarding romantic relationships, that Brown doesn't address polyamory at all. Not surprising, but his thing about marriage being a liberty-infringing contract is blown up by ENM. Anyway...
I have never read any reviews of the book so I might be retreading known territory, but here goes:
I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it’s a book that came out in 2011, and much of the story happens from 2000 to 2004. It now feels a bit dated in terms of opinions on sex work, even though it was quite ahead of its time outside of sex worker/activist circles. I was a looooot less informed about sex work back then and it would have been as educative to me if I had read it then as the constitutional challenge brought on by sex workers/advocates against the Government of Canada in 2011 (and their ultimate victory) has done to bring more visibility to the issue in the greater public. In general it is espousing decriminalization as the best way to deal with sex work, and I’m board with that.
On the other hand, I wish that the book’s last appendix, written by Seth, another comic artist who was a friend of his: “I often jokingly refer to Chet as ‘the robot’. Chester seems to have a limited emotional range compared to most people. [...] Chet’s pretty hard on the idea of romantic relationships. [...] the idea that Chester Brown and Joe Matt* discussing the nature of romantic love is not unlike two blind men painting a sunset. [...] his opinion [...] is a little too tied to the libertarian party-line about the sanctity of property rights.” It would have granted a colour to the earlier part of the book that was needed.
Brown’s emotional coldness and ideological bent against romantic relationships (they’re “evil!”) eventually sink his case. He goes on at length about how they’re only trouble (even though he’s only been in 3 when he was younger, and it’s unclear how long they were though the one to Lee seems to have been quite serious). He sometimes ascribes to romantic relationships faults that are more related to marriage. He obviously also criticizes that institution, but that’s very easy to do when you start against love, basically. You’re only left with the contractual part, which, you know.
The main part that’s bothering me is that Brown describes four incidents where he had doubts as to whether the sex worker was working out of her own will. Every time he finds a reason to think that the worker must have been there willingly, after all. But most of these are weak reasons. In two of the cases, it’s quite clear to me that Brown should have backed out. He depicts himself as having backed out of a few other encounters, letting sex workers keep their money, even though sex was not had, because someone turned him off, or some other minor reason. He talks about how he cares that the sex workers engage willingly in the work, but when push came to shove, in borderline cases, you would think “without a reasonable doubt” would have been the primary assessment criterium. Not only that, most of the events in the book happened from 6 to 10 years before publication, a long period during which Brown could think more about sex work and what he was portraying. The 6 year gap to publication have led to enough thought that the book has a Chomskyian twenty three (!!) appendices, containing more text than the comic itself, and not once does Brown express doubt about the 4 cases. If anything, a few of the appendices discuss human trafficking, legalized prostitution in Nevada (the infamous Mustang Ranch) and regular pimping, and basically Brown says that with decrim, women are free to leave when they want. His case for decriminalization is totally demolished by his lack of care for sexual exploitation when he had probable encounters with it, even though he knows that it happens. I think 3 of the four cases mentioned are with women where he also has doubts as to whether they were even 18, and he is assuaged by getting told by the women that yes they are 18, when he asked them if they were. Like come on. He cared more about how his friends thought they would be depicted in the book than about that. And what about other episodes where he might not have picked up cues?
So on one hand the book makes a good case for decrim, but in the end I feel how it’s made is hugely embarrassing for Brown, if that was an emotion he was able to feel, which seems doubtful. And he binds his political case so closely to his own actions that in the end, it gets thoroughly weakened. At least half of these appendices should have been dropped, too…
Oh yeah and I think I forgot to write, regarding romantic relationships, that Brown doesn't address polyamory at all. Not surprising, but his thing about marriage being a liberty-infringing contract is blown up by ENM. Anyway...
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