Advertisement
Chester Brown: Nothing like that. Everyone seems to be receptive to the book.
Advertisement
There's a spiritual dimension of prostitution: it's sex, and there is always potential for a spiritual connection in sex. It's two people uniting. In that, there's always the possibility of transcendence.The title is interesting because, as you point out, the Hebrew word for 'feet' is a euphemism for penis.
I guess the first time I learned about that euphemism was when I read [Jane Schaberg's] The Illegitimacy of Jesus, which was an important book for Mary Wept. One of the things I learned is that the Hebrew word for 'feet' was a euphemism for 'penis.' The author of The Illegitimacy of Jesus mentioned that in reference to the story of Ruth. I've seen that in works by biblical scholars and confirmed that euphemism was in use in the Bible. The title Mary Wept refers to the anointing of Jesus: Usually, when men were anointed in the Bible it was on the head. For a person to be anointed on the feet is a bit unusual. And that seems to be calling attention to something, so I'm speculating that the ceremony in which Jesus was anointed has a sexual component.
Advertisement
Even if I didn't have a commitment to sex worker rights, if I had come up with that theory I would find it interesting enough to put out into the world regardless of my opinions about prostitution. But in my case, the two go together. I probably did notice those curious features in the Biblical stories because of my interest in sex work. Other scholars who look at this material weren't focusing on the subject the way I did, or weren't attuned to thinking about whether Jesus was well disposed toward prostitution. So my perspective had me looking at the material in a way that most other people wouldn't.I have a definite bias. I'm not sure I'd call the book didactic, but pointing out what I think is in the Bible does help make the case, or further my argument, that prostitution should be decriminalized. The main point of this book is that I think Jesus actually thought prostitution was a good thing, and that Christians later tried to cover up the fact that Jesus had close associations with various prostitutes.
Not that much, to be honest. When I started paying for sex, however, was a big change in my life. When I did do that, I was out with my friends and family almost immediately. Publishing Paying For It and becoming more public was a further step, but it didn't feel that significantly different.
Advertisement
I know she does not have romantic feelings for me. She cares for me in the way that one would for a friend, but she doesn't want to live with me, or have babies with me, or get married to me.I've never asked for a discount, and in fact have chosen to raise the rate at the rate of inflation. She has never asked me to do that but I decided on my own to do that and she always thanks me when I do so.
Advertisement
Since Paying For It, I did give a romantic relationship a try again with a very nice woman who became romantically interested in me. It didn't work out. But you never know how things will go. I'm hoping I learned my lesson that romance does not work for me. I guess I thought that publicly admitting that I was paying for sex would mean that no woman would want to get involved with me romantically. I've since seen that was not the case. There are still women out there who would find me attractive and be willing to have a relationship with me, so as far as 'never again,' I was wrong. In that recent romantic relationship, I was reminded of why I don't like being in relationships, even if the woman I'm involved with is a great person.
Four or five months, and I still see her regularly now as friends.Did you stop seeing Denise?
No, I continued to see Denise and the woman that I was in the romantic relationship with knew about it. I was completely honest with her, and she accepted that because she'd read Paying for It and understood the situation, but as you can imagine things did not work out well. I'd hoped they would. She seemed okay with it, but she ended up getting jealous. I had to make a decision to choose between Denise and the woman I'd got romantically involved with, and I chose Denise.
Advertisement
Denise is a babe, she's wonderful. She was 30 when I first started seeing her, she'd be in her 40s now.One of your longest non-paid sexual relationships was with Canadian broadcaster, musician, filmmaker, and actress Sook-Yin Lee.
Sook-Yin and I were romantically involved for three years, and then the total time that we lived together would have been nine years. We met when she was in a band called Bob's Your Uncle, and the sound person in the band really liked my work, and he introduced Sook-Yin to it. She read it and loved it, and on a Bob's Your Uncle tour she got in touch with me. We met, and hit it off and became boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a great relationship. I still really love Sook-Yin, and I see her all the time. But it didn't work out romantically and whatever. She's still a wonderful person.What does she think of the book? She tweeted about the book and called it 'obsessed' with prostitution and sex-workers' rights.
She enjoyed it—I can't remember specifically what she said. Her boyfriend [poet and multi-instrumentalist Adam Litovitz] was super helpful as far proofreading the book. I guess she intended 'obsessed' to be positive. I'm happy that she likes the book, and it's terrific that I ended up with such supportive publishers. I guess there are challenges to marketing a book like this.Prostitution only became an illegal act in Canada in 2014, when the Conservatives passed Bill C-36 criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. The aim of that was stated to be protecting prostitutes. How does that make you feel?
It's a horrible law. Everyone in the sex worker rights community thinks it's bad. It harms sex workers in various ways. They still have to be secretive about their work because they don't want their clients being arrested. Denise has no interest in seeing me end up in prison. That would result in decreasing her income and that would be a negative thing for her.
Advertisement
In all those instances, like when you talk about the women who I mentioned that had cellulite, something like that is an observation. I'm talking about the reality of what was happening. I found that woman absolutely beautiful, and the fact that she had cellulite didn't mean she wasn't beautiful, so making certain observations like that could be perceived as negative but it actually wasn't for me. About the younger girls—I was choosing not to see older women because I couldn't see what they looked like. I was going from text in an escort ad. So I figured I'd be more likely to get an attractive women if I chose ones who were younger.
Advertisement
It's certainly benefitted my life and opened up my life, and it probably has made me in some sense a better person. It's certainly enriched my life.
They could be right. I've read a lot of people's opinions on who Jesus was and because the gospels are so contradictory and in certain ways fake, it's easy to read almost anything into Jesus, and interpret the material to justify whatever position you're coming from. It could be that's what I'm doing here. But before people completely dismiss what I'm saying, like if I'm incorrect about why I think Mary was a prostitute, they have to explain what's really going on in the genealogy of Matthew, which was the trigger for me that made me think that, or why the alternate version of the parable of the talents, what's going on there, and provide a better explanation. I hope that there will be some debate about this. If people can disprove what I'm saying, that's great. I'm happy to see the debate happen.And actually the sex workers probably feel like the money they're getting benefits their lives. Sex worker clients are seen so negatively in our culture that I think it's worth pointing out that negative perception is overblown and in a lot of cases incorrect. Which isn't to say that there aren't bad people who pay for sex.Being a john isn't necessarily a good thing. It's about how you treat other people. A john who at least treats the sex workers he encounters with courtesy and politeness isn't a bad thing.Follow Julia Wright on Twitter.