Charlotte Shane > Quotes

“The great delusion of men everywhere, that their disregard for other people makes them interesting”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“It was in his office, though, where he told me he’d never had anal sex. His cock was very large, but anal was so trendy and ubiquitous that I thought it impossible that there was anyone left in America who hadn’t tried it.”
― Charlotte Shane, Coming and Crying

“I've never been sure how to define 'in love.' It's like a measuring rope that keeps changing length. When Brandon's lie broke my heart that night in his bed, I thought, 'I'll never love anyone like this again,' and I haven't. I've never intensely cared for any man in a way that feels identical to how I cared for another. I found George because I was yearning to replace Ethan, and look what happened. I just added another love to the list. The mistake is in thinking there is only one spot. You divot the sand and the tide fills it in and then you create another pocket while the tide drains itself out. Same properties. Different shapes. It's never the same.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“It started to hurt less because it mattered so much less.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“I smiled the private smile of the corrected fool”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“I was gathering more insights into how George operated. He was a hustler for sure. That was obvious to me pretty early on. But his style is a little like mine; he disguises it with a charisma that feels trustworthy and probably *is* trustworthy, but edited for maximum effect. It's about disarming someone with your sincerity, which is legitimately sincere but also strategic, selective. Almost everyone does that — balances their personality to serve themselves given whatever the moment demands — but some people are really good at doing it and really good at hiding it.”
― Charlotte Shane

“I read too much as a child; I believe now that I can bookmark unrealized events in my life to return to them later.”
― Charlotte Shane, N.B.

“I am still capable of feeling used. I am still capable of having a sexual experience that makes me feel like my entire life has been a mean joke.”
― Charlotte Shane

“That's how to cultivate obsession even if you're only trying for reassurance. Document it. Keep touching it. Make sure it's really there.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“I saw that he stayed on alert, looking out for a woman who was worth looking at. He didn’t intend to do harm with his habitual judgment. He didn’t recognize that his attitude was capable of inflicting harm. Yet he felt entitled to do as he did, and entitlement is aggression compressed like a barbed spring beneath an expectation. He taught me that women could never escape male notice and evaluation, not even married mothers on a Sunday morning, weeding their front yards.”
― Charlotte Shane, An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

“There is a way to touch another person that tells them: “All of you is good, none of you is wrong, no part of you does not deserve acceptance.” I know what that touch feels like, and it breaks open an inner yolk. You can actually feel the giving way inside, the slow flood filling your heart. When I find someone who hasn’t had that touch in a long time, giving it to them doesn’t feel kind, it just feels decent.”
― Charlotte Shane

“McLennan worked a lot with Ashley Dupré, a fact she plays up from the start of her book, The Price: My Rise and Fall as Natalia, New York’s #1 Escort. Ashley is described as young and guileless, not a savvy schemer like McLennan; her secret is that she has “the glow,” and “a near-perfect body” including a “beautiful coochie” that would make her the city’s next escort phenomenon.”
― Charlotte Shane, An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

“There's no point fighting for something circumstances aren't ready to give you.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“In the past, I thought I should put serious effort into being less materially attached, to train myself to like expensive things less. Now it was happening organically and almost violently, with full conviction.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“Roger also began to talk about retirement, though he claimed that his coworkers, family, and I (“everyone” he mentioned it to) reacted to this with tacit disapproval, which he interpreted to be financially motivated. For me it was, but probably not as he thought; I simply didn’t see how we’d spend time together if he didn’t have work as his excuse for getting away. Perhaps his lack of concern about that obstacle was proof that he was formulating a plan for how to manage anyway. He always had a solution to those sorts of challenges. But I wondered if his wife’s lack of enthusiasm was a mirror of mine: not about the lost income, but the prospect of his spending more time at home.”
― Charlotte Shane, An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

“I wanted to press the bruise once more to see how much pain was still pooled below the surface. I don't mean I wanted it in the sense of desire. Rather, I intended to do it through the force of primal habit.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“I had no male friends now, though I did have a strong community of intelligent, supportive, funny women and I felt confused as to why they weren't enough for me,”
― Charlotte Shane

“I'm sorry,' I told him one night over dinner. I was genuinely embarrassed, not least of all because I was sure I'd said it before. 'Sometimes I love you too much to listen to what you're saying.”
― Charlotte Shane, Prostitute Laundry

“MY SENSE THAT I wasn’t sexually appealing could have kept me from sex work, but instead, I think, it drove me to it. I wanted so badly to be proven wrong. Optimism kept peeking up like the sun, rising in answer to every night of self-doubt. I visited Manhattan a few times in high school, and the remarks I received on the street there felt not like harassment but appreciation. It wasn’t quite being offered a modeling contract at the mall, but it was an indication that outside my small town, I could receive a different reception. The attention of the right men might transform me, or rather, reveal me.”
― Charlotte Shane, An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

“I’ve still never held a job with a yearly salary or learned how to apply artful makeup.”
― Charlotte Shane, An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work