25 May 2023
A taboo-breaking and radically honest account of love, friendship and sex work.
A Stylist ‘Non-fiction You Can’t Miss’ selection for 2023
‘Addictive, intimate . . .’ VICE
‘[Prostitute Laundry] is so beautiful and so heartbreaking. It’s a book that makes me feel a little less alone.’ New York Times Book Podcast
‘Stunning writing … everything from high end sex work to the emotional labour of long-term relationships for women.’ Arifa Akbar, author of Consumed
This serial memoir follows Charlotte over the course of several years as she falls in and out of love, muses on the nature of sex work and the value of beauty, discovers hidden emotional complexities and contemplates leaving her profession. Growing out of a series of confessional letters sent by the author to a small but devoted mailing list, her candid, unstinting and sometimes heart-breaking meditations have gained thousands of subscribers and a cult status.
Prostitute Laundry is a deeply thoughtful book about sensuality, money, and identity – how those forces can break us, and how they can make us whole again. By turns philosophical, funny and explicit, this is an affecting, immediate account of one life lived to its fullest.
Read the sneak peak below.
Searching
Bleak Week
February 8, 2014
This week, my most frequent regular said he’d come up with an idea. One of us would give the other explicit sexual instructions (that the other was free to refuse) but the one being instructed couldn’t do anything spontaneously. They simply had to obey. He said I could choose who took which role and that was easy—I said he should be in charge. It’s no secret that many sex workers hate the ubiquitous “tell me what you want to do” client line.
But I wasn’t off the hook yet. Because he added that whoever obeyed this time would have to instruct next time, and then he proceeded to cheat. “Put your hand on my hand and guide me,” he said with his fingers between my legs. “Put your hands on my head and guide me,” he said later. He asked for 69 by prefacing it with, “I know you don’t like this”—or “I know this isn’t your favorite,” maybe, which is so mildly stated that it’s almost a lie—“but since I’m the one deciding . . .”
I thought about this for days. Normally he is someone I like and feel warmly toward, but the fond regards now felt poisoned by reality: he hires me, I do what he wants. Why did he preface the request with admission of his knowledge? Why not pretend he forgot? Why announce the irrelevancy of my pleasure or desires when it comes to his own enjoyment? This is a man who has said he loves me, with whom I’ve spent copious amounts of time since we met three years ago.
I tried to think of an instance when I’d done something like that to someone else, and I succeeded. Years ago, when my boyfriend and I were still relatively new, I asked him to let me go down on him for a while even though I knew he didn’t really like it. I wanted to convince him to like it and I thought I had a decent chance of pulling it off. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t ask it of him again. I wish I knew then what I know now, which is to trust another person’s knowledge of their body enough to not force sensation, no matter how much you might like stimulating them that way. I was in my early 20s at the time.
There are lots of examples of men ignoring what I tell them I don’t like, and those men are not all clients. But they are men in their 30s, 40s, 50s, beyond. They should have learned better a long time ago. It happens with anal penetration, with receiving oral. Normally I endure more than I deny at work. But if I see an opportunity for discussion or just can’t take it anymore, I’ll say, “I don’t really like that” or “That doesn’t feel good.” It’s very rare that this makes anyone stop. Even outside of work, when I immediately tell guys not to go down on me, they’ll try to dive between my legs and change my mind. If only they knew how many other mouths have tried, I think, forgetting that even then they wouldn’t be dissuaded.
My boyfriend has a habit of pinching or sucking on my nipples whenever I’m topless around him. I sleep naked, and I change clothes in front of him. We shower together. I know, without fail, that in these circumstances he’s going to reach for my nipples in spite of the fact that I’ve told him many times not to do it and that I don’t like it, in spite of me crossing my arms over my chest, actively resisting him, moving away, whining “no” while it happens. This is from someone I’ve been with for many years. He knows what I do for work, but perhaps makes no connection between what I tolerate there and what I tolerate at home. Or, the more probable option—feels entitled because of what I allow at work.
I don’t like being this pessimistic and cynical and angry about sex, especially when I used to sincerely love it, but I don’t have many moments of sexual joy. The ones I try to create can backfire and seem not worth the risk, leaving me more disenchanted than I was before. A few months ago I managed the mundane rape attempts of a very large, condom-less man who didn’t even pay me for my troubles. It wasn’t traumatic, but it was a frustrating, stupid waste of time and energy that deepened my bitterness.
The way I feel about sex corresponds with the way I feel about (straight) men in general, and vice versa, which makes it all the more fatiguing. I hate dwelling on this evidence, but it keeps accumulating. Fairly frequently, a man says he loves me, but then communicates that his urge to use my body in a certain way is more important than any displeasure it brings me, more important than my right to say no. “Why don’t you care when I say I don’t like it?” I should ask. “Why does my unhappiness enhance your pleasure, or impact it so negligibly that it’s still worth it?” But I don’t think I would ever get an honest answer. At least not one I couldn’t already arrive at on my own.