In today’s Sunday Sun, Valerie Gibson has a nice article about Xaviera Hollander. The article was triggered by Xaviera’s new book, dealing with her current situation, and the passing of her mother and father.
It brought back memories of when I was a teenager, and the affect that she had on my thinking. Her first book, The Happy Hooker, was my first “exposure” to a prostitute. Xaviera was sophisticated, exotic, highly sexual and with one exception, entirely in control of her own life.
That exception, was the deportation proceedings initiated against her by the Canadian government. She was fighting the order while on her book promotion tour. I remember her being interviewed on the local radio station, and I went to the book signing. She asked if I was still a virgin, and when I responded in the affirmative, told me how much she liked being a young man’s first woman. She had to travel to Toronto immediately after the signing, however…..
We are “supposed” to think of prostitutes as victims, and their clients as villainous oppressors.
Well, it was too late for me. I was a well read renaissance liberal before I hit twenty, and had already concluded that our sexual ethics were a tool to oppress women, used by the church, and those who wanted to maintain the patriarchical family as the only acceptable social structure.
And Xaviera was part of that. Today I judge an escort, not by the fact that she is an escort, but by how good of an escort she is. J
I like the last paragraph in Valerie’s article:
“Ah, yes,” she [Xaviera] says. “Everything in life is being a whore, isn’t it? All give and take,” and laughs in her Happy Hooker style – throaty, intimate, and very sexy.
It brought back memories of when I was a teenager, and the affect that she had on my thinking. Her first book, The Happy Hooker, was my first “exposure” to a prostitute. Xaviera was sophisticated, exotic, highly sexual and with one exception, entirely in control of her own life.
That exception, was the deportation proceedings initiated against her by the Canadian government. She was fighting the order while on her book promotion tour. I remember her being interviewed on the local radio station, and I went to the book signing. She asked if I was still a virgin, and when I responded in the affirmative, told me how much she liked being a young man’s first woman. She had to travel to Toronto immediately after the signing, however…..
We are “supposed” to think of prostitutes as victims, and their clients as villainous oppressors.
Well, it was too late for me. I was a well read renaissance liberal before I hit twenty, and had already concluded that our sexual ethics were a tool to oppress women, used by the church, and those who wanted to maintain the patriarchical family as the only acceptable social structure.
And Xaviera was part of that. Today I judge an escort, not by the fact that she is an escort, but by how good of an escort she is. J
I like the last paragraph in Valerie’s article:
“Ah, yes,” she [Xaviera] says. “Everything in life is being a whore, isn’t it? All give and take,” and laughs in her Happy Hooker style – throaty, intimate, and very sexy.
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