A propos of my last post, ("Tantric Dirty Stuff") where I complained that people were downloading Dry Hustle sample chapters and then not buying the book, a reader remarked that maybe most of the people downloading free chapters are men, and there was really nothing to turn them on in the first 50 pages except a slammin' good story and unforgettable characters and brilliant writing. I contacted Smashwords to change the free excerpt to later in the book, where we have the masturbating-while-watching-a-game-show scene. But Smashwords said they limit the sample to the beginning of the book, so.
I was musing today about many women's enduring fantasy of being a hooker. What if I had to give myself to strange men, one after another, who made me do things against my will and generally degraded me? (Actually, I don't have this particular fantasy, preferring to imagine myself molested at sword-point by pirates. This is described in greater detail in my song "Can I Get On Top This Time," one of the mp3's offered for free download on sarahkernochan.com.) Luis Bunuel made a classic movie about the whore perplex called Belle Du Jour. Catherine DeNeuve, a bored trophy wife, falls into a secret life as a call girl during the daytime. She is numb in her normal life, whereas being used by her male customers breaks through her catatonia and forces her to feel something. I guess living the easy life makes you yearn for abuse.
While "researching" Dry Hustle, I was aware that I was crossing into similarly dangerous territory, although at least I wasn't selling my body. But I was manipulating men's expectations of sex by pretending to be horny, and I definitely had the sense that I was degrading myself - that I was flirting with the subterranean culture of con artists as well as developing a twisted psyche and some upended values. Yet I had to pull myself back, because my fascination was too strong. Move another inch, and you're lost: over the rim into the lower depths. Or, to bring back the pirates, another step and you fall off the plank, to the mercies of the crocodiles below.
