Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. While there are many unanswered questions (aren't there always in biographical books?) this book does a remarkable job of laying it on the line and being a good story. No fancy whistles or hidden morality lessons (except for don't be a pig if you're going to see a working girl), just an entertaining and almost voyeuristic read.

Lewis's insistent voice mesmerized me instantly, modulating with skill between straightforward and smart, funny and angry, analytical and lyrical. Her memoir takes us through ten years in the sex industry, from her beginning as a wide-eyed "new girl" in Seattle to her stint in boozy New Orleans in the last few months before she evacuated for Hurricane Katrina. As a narrator, Lewis is engaging and empathetic. As a commentator on the lives of sex workers, she's open and incisive. *Indecent*'s final judgment of the sex industry isn't simple-minded or single-sided: Lewis presents the conflicted sentiments of a stripper towards the (empowering; degrading; freeing; narrow; challenging; mindless) job that pays her rent with honesty that's as fascinating as it is clear-eyed.

The PW review above is ridiculous -- could the reviewer really have thought that a sex industry professional dishing about the realities of her job was going to be a work of "titillating erotica"? Ms. Lewis describes what it's like to make a living by creating and selling fantasies. The truths she tells here are hilarious and fascinating, sometimes sad. (I can only imagine how dismaying they'd be to the people who pay to believe those fantasies!) This is the inside scoop on an unusual and challenging profession, written in a skillful, easy, entertaining style that makes the book hard to put down. Highly recommended!

This is a book about someone (Ms. Lewis) who has chosen to be part of a life style that a large percentage of average people would not look upon favorably (or worse.) But it is also a book that helps one understand the why's and who's of being a sex worker, and the fact that sex workers are human beings with feelings much like our own. I loved this book, couldn't put it down. I related to Ms Lewis from a father's viewpoint. From beginning to end I was with her. The book so wonderfully describes her various feelings from when she began until the present. In a business that most people consider very negatively, she has accomplished a lot on her own. Her intelligence, independence, courage, the dangers, the concerns, her strong feelings, they sure do come through in the book.. Ms Lewis style of writing carried me along from experience to experience. It is fascinating to hear about the various places she has worked and the people she worked with. It gave me such mixed feelings of knowing what one goes through and realizing that underneath it all is a woman who wants and needs times of love and closeness and caring. The book is beautifully written, never doubt it. Every so often she'd have me laughing at the way she described something. Throughout the book she conveyed how scary it was each time she applied for a new job, how unsure of her abilities she was at times. It was very interesting to learn of what goes on in various types of sex work as I have never before heard in such detail. Most startling and yet something that one might not be surprised about if given some thought is the way the author feels about her clients/customers......... realizing that for the sex worker, it is a job, one that pretty much requires shutting out the feelings that one in love would have. I am really glad I read this book for it let me understand that those we might avoid are just as human as we are, just as wise, just as caring.

It may be strange to call this book fun, but aren't we all fascinated in the behind-the-scenes of the adult industry? This book tells one woman's experience in a straightforward and unapologetic way. From the peep show to the "release massage" we get to peek into a forbidden world from the sex worker's point of view. Lewis doesn't spend a lot of time boo-hooing about her past or circumstances that brought her to adult work. Instead, she expresses a true curiosity that let to a career that, while it has its definite downsides, is a career that gave her freedom and allowed her to be true to herself. I want to know what happened next!