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Modern Whore
Born out of an irrepressible urge to share my own complex experience of sex work, Modern Whore is a book that defies common stereotypes and visual representations of the “prostitute.” It’s an honest and inside look at the funny, meaningful, disturbing, and erotic aspects of the world’s oldest profession.
Modern Whore is a creative memoir in the form of a collection of short stories, fiction and fairy-tale combined with film photography and the artistic vision of filmmaker Nicole Bazuin. Presented in 150-pages of vivid colour without pseudonym or pixilation, this book is an unabashedly feminist, sex-positive and imaginative autobiography unlike anything you’ve seen before.
Modern Whore is a creative memoir in the form of a collection of short stories, fiction and fairy-tale combined with film photography and the artistic vision of filmmaker Nicole Bazuin. Presented in 150-pages of vivid colour without pseudonym or pixilation, this book is an unabashedly feminist, sex-positive and imaginative autobiography unlike anything you’ve seen before.
148 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 112 reviews
October 26, 2022
Review There is an interesting parallel between whores and self-published authors. Both of them rail against bad reviews. The author says that men should be careful not to give prostitutes a bad review as it can affect their earning potential. The self-published author says the same.
Neither of them feel that if their sexual service or book is thought to be crap, that the purchaser of either should actually tell the truth about it. Rather they should prevaricate, lie or just not leave a review but let others be sucked in by what seems to be a potential really good experience. In other words they regard their future clients and readers as suckers! Getting money, for both of them, is more important than honesty.
Sure there are dishonest reviewers and trolls, but that's part of the game, isn't it? If they do it repeatedly we see it. When I look at someone's profile and I see they have an average of under 3, and a load of books rated at 1 star, I know they are fake, no one deliberately reads that many books they are going to hate. I would imagine it's the same for reviews of sex-workers.
That said, the book is interesting because the author comes from a well-educated middle-class background and went into sex work, became an escort, because she wanted to. She's a feminist - maybe this is fourth wave feminism - and communicates her political position well. The author is an excellent writer and there is a joie-de-vivre about her personality that comes across and I think would make any book she wrote enjoyable.
__________
Reading notes I don't know what to make of this yet. It's my car book, an audio book. The author seems to be absolutely full of herself and very self-righteous. She has no faults, everything from childhood on is a great decision. Maybe she will show herself a little more human as the book moves on.
Neither of them feel that if their sexual service or book is thought to be crap, that the purchaser of either should actually tell the truth about it. Rather they should prevaricate, lie or just not leave a review but let others be sucked in by what seems to be a potential really good experience. In other words they regard their future clients and readers as suckers! Getting money, for both of them, is more important than honesty.
Sure there are dishonest reviewers and trolls, but that's part of the game, isn't it? If they do it repeatedly we see it. When I look at someone's profile and I see they have an average of under 3, and a load of books rated at 1 star, I know they are fake, no one deliberately reads that many books they are going to hate. I would imagine it's the same for reviews of sex-workers.
That said, the book is interesting because the author comes from a well-educated middle-class background and went into sex work, became an escort, because she wanted to. She's a feminist - maybe this is fourth wave feminism - and communicates her political position well. The author is an excellent writer and there is a joie-de-vivre about her personality that comes across and I think would make any book she wrote enjoyable.
__________
Reading notes I don't know what to make of this yet. It's my car book, an audio book. The author seems to be absolutely full of herself and very self-righteous. She has no faults, everything from childhood on is a great decision. Maybe she will show herself a little more human as the book moves on.
August 16, 2022
Solid! Andrea Werhun's is an important voice to hear. She makes her points clearly and hilariously. The extended version of this book addresses activism and privilege more than the original, which was refreshing. However, the next book I read about sex work will be some sort of anthology from a variety of voices of different identities and experiences. Still, I'd say the author's own middle class, uni-educated background makes this is a great, approachable place to start for anyone who is new to or squeamish about the subject. The photos by Nicole Bazuin are gorgeous, poetic, sexy, and funny too! Glad to have this one on my bookshelf.
December 6, 2025
It was an interesting book with heavy, uncomfortable topics, but written in a way that made it easy and fun to read. Andrea Werhun was very brave to write this memoir. She also has a wicked sense of humour.
The writing was uneven, but the author deserves high rating for honesty, courage and advocating for the rights of sex workers. She was an escort and a striper, so she knows what she is preaching. Her life choices were highly questionable, but they were her own and she is unapologetic about them.
The pictures are well done and they create the feeling of having fun, even if the life of a sex worker, as she described it, is anything but.
The writing was uneven, but the author deserves high rating for honesty, courage and advocating for the rights of sex workers. She was an escort and a striper, so she knows what she is preaching. Her life choices were highly questionable, but they were her own and she is unapologetic about them.
The pictures are well done and they create the feeling of having fun, even if the life of a sex worker, as she described it, is anything but.
May 12, 2025
Werhun is a college-educated woman with a loving and supportive family who chose to pursue sex work, first as an escort, then as a stripper. She uses her power to fight for the legalization of sex work and for protections for sex workers. Protections equal to those for any other profession. We are absolutely on the same page. This book has some fascinating moments, and my thanks fo Andrea for giving me a clearer view of the day-to-day of a sex worker, and for doing so with both humor and bracing honesty. I do not underestimate the challenge inherent in doing so. All that said, I wasn't very impressed with Werhun's writing skill and found her voice to be rather adolescent for substantial portions of the book. Her insistence that she loved sex work was undercut by the cavalcade of stories about going down on smelly unwashed men, having men invade her vagina and asshole with fingers and dicks without her consent, of watching a man drink her pee, by her admission that when she quit drinking she had to keep smoking weed because stripping sober is terrible. We all do things we don't like in the course of employment, but I will take reformatting a spreadsheet any day. It really did feel like a 15 year old insisting that she loved wearing pants she couldn't breathe in, and screw you mom for saying they are too tight. The few times Werhum goes for more creative writing (especially her abysmal modern take on the story of St. Agatha) were truly bad. Very bad. There is a lot to like here, and I celebrate Werhun's advocacy on behalf of sex workers, but my 3 here is generous -- it would be a 2.5 if that were possible.
December 29, 2017
I have been anticipating this book for nearly two years and I was not disappointed. I could have read this in one sitting! Werhun is a terrific writer and brings the reader into her nuanced journey of sex work. It's not a pretty picture, but it's not a bad one either. It's both and that's what people need to reconcile with. I've done a lot of research into sex work for my play "Red/Rouge" and this book is a must for examining the escort world. This world is vastly different than being a street sex worker, but Werhun does note the difference and the hierarchy within the industry itself. At times poignant, hysterical, gross and shocking this book is absorbing from start to finish. Fill with titillating, provocative, beautiful and vulnerable photographs by Nicole Bazuin this book excites on every turn. I mean, you know what I mean, and also get your head out of the gutter, or don't it's your choice. Some of the fictional short stories were so incredible I could see them turned into a full novel or Werhun's own collection of fictional short stories. Lastly, just read the damn book!
October 11, 2022
just sounds like she is angry at herself and at the men that paid her. at one stage says she listens to the men, non judging. then goes on to judge them and finds most of them lacking. often making fun of their physical appearance. some funny moments, but those are pushed to the back when she gets on her soapbox. and she gets on it very very often.
really tried to complete the book, but gave up.
tedious.
really tried to complete the book, but gave up.
tedious.
November 5, 2024
3.5/5
interesting, but I wish she talked more about her friendships and relationships outside of her clients, i feel like there were so many other interesting stories between her relationships with her friends that were in the industry and out
interesting, but I wish she talked more about her friendships and relationships outside of her clients, i feel like there were so many other interesting stories between her relationships with her friends that were in the industry and out
October 15, 2022
I'm a better feminist after reading this.
(Worth saying: the pictures make it very Not Safe for Reading in Public.)
(Worth saying: the pictures make it very Not Safe for Reading in Public.)
February 28, 2023
3.8/5 - 10 years of pole-dancing to agency escorting—until Covid hits at 30. As a teen, she wanted to be the Canadian Prime Minister-slash-singer. Quickly realizing that’s quite the order, she opts for alt magazine-type writing and gets her own board on 4Chan by promoting it w/ lewds of her high school self. She’s typical of the time: thinking being anti-Capitalist and seeing Rotten-dot-com killings is top-tier entertainment. She meets her first BF online even though he’s a dumpy dork, she decides to take his virginity—only for him to say she should wear makeup and lose weight. Promptly dumping him, she’s glad to be rid of that mess only to stumble into another: her parents find her nudes folder on the family computer. She promises not to take anymore even though she’s discovered through traditional journals through them. All this before she’s 18.
The book is broken up into little essays. At 21, she becomes an escort named Mary Ann to sound like a mix of the virgin bearer and wannabe ingenue on Gillian’s Island. This fits her pretentious English major energy. She does write well, buttery and poetic, but with bubbly self-importance. She belittles anyone who questions her intentions to get into the industry yet seldom says what she likes or wants about it besides implying it’s just to appear different than civilian girls or abused colleagues. The best we get is her saying she’s a Scorpio surrounded by coke. She says she likes sex but in the beginning constantly avoids it. That’s also vague, which parts does she like?
There’s a list of SW acronyms for things like “cum on face,” the reviews she receives on Eros and the ones she’d retort w/ if given the chance. Ironic even the glowing reviews, she bitches how flabby the old men are or debates politics like it’s not a stupid idea. She has half a dozen appointments a day, sometimes changing up her fake bio as a painter. One client she goes to their moldy basement bedrooms minus a door and pledges “never again.” She learns some clients like the fit Mr. Wack treat each escort completely different: adoringly affectionate to intentionally abusive. Once she mentions her other clients, he makes the switch on her. He gets blacklisted everywhere, not that the receptionist always cares to note such.
Mary Ann works other jobs on top of this: comedian class or regular teacher, office worker, farmer, uni student even though she seems to make in a day escorting what I do in a paycheck. Rarely does she seem to actually go on dates rather than have men eat her out. Much of this book seems to be her documenting people complimenting her, which she admits are also often fake, Penthouse-titillating recounts so that more johns will solicit her. She’s more bored girlfriend experience than ecstatic pornstar. There’s a lot of sarcasm in the prose. The Holy Hooker short story is a cool lens for her to have people look at their prejudices slightly different. Oddly, her dad takes her job super easy and her religious, cautious mom often sobs about it though gives her the good advice of turning her experiences into creative writing.
One of her clients is a wheelchair-bound man named Paul, another a Penguin-looking doctor who claims he had a sexual relationship w/ his mom, Kinky Kyle who zip-ties her breasts before she pegs and yellow showers him, makes him chug it. Tyrant is another short story-esque piece that offers explanation for insecurity in disparaging men and compliment-hungry women, Madonna/whore complexes.
The first time she’s shown enjoying sex is 40% in w/ a classy couple in the country, then a local politician who sees her w/ his dying wife’s blessing. The fictional story about a raping god is obviously weird, a modern mythology turned into a Cinderella story since the rapist births a whore that makes a romantic out of another tyrant’s sweet son.
Halfway through the book, she becomes a stripper like she originally wanted since she’s more into performance art. This club divides into “extra”-centric rooms and regular lap dance spaces. She gives the obvious tip not to be intoxicated on the job, but constantly is—even if it’s not revealed until later. She quits one year after a Kickstarter to write the first version of this book and laments “no one told me there’s no money in publishing” which is laughable, especially when her goal was only selling one thousand copies a year.
It’s cool the strippers set up a “peer coalition” that gives water, condoms, and in-betweens to street-walkers. She seems much happier dancing even though it seems like 1/3 the money and men still force their fingers and worse in her during a dance. A big departure from the book is a story called Agatha about a girl lured into a premier’s car to sexually abuse. Confused but quick-witted, she winds up tricking him into castration. Then the author starts blues singing… It sounds good but is so disjointed. The Mind Flog chapter is fittingly foggy: seizing after molly and coke, getting her license suspended, blacking out and turning up in a hospital, getting stitches (surprised it’s still $5K for that in Toronto). Not sure what the point of this chapter is after preaching a bit about not doing such and making it all sound more unstable than if sprinkled about the narrative. She describes herself as too happy to need substances but we see mostly anger in this project. It makes sense: This is a venting book and we need drama, but we rarely see any pure fun on the clock. We don’t even see her performing on stage like she claims to love, no descriptions of the lights or cheering audience or moves. I believe she does love unexpected conversation w/ the guys but we only see the confrontational kind and she only Cali sobers up because her concussion/seizure condition.
The last ten minutes of the book is about how the baby stages of Covid whisk away money from gentleman’s clubs on top of it being after the holidays that leave men more broke. It should have been left on the cute ILY scene w/ a street-walker she helps out—not the repetitive, silly essay on how hoes are heroes. The mention of OnlyFans was shoehorned in when it should be saved for a focused, personal sequel. Then we get a few more goofy lists she wrote when she was 12 and 31 about who she wants to be and how SWers have “powers.” It just seems to seriously undercut the tone she was trying to end on, too fluffy. I’d delete the last three chapters.
My copy is from Audible, so alas I do not get to see the go-go photos this book was inspired by, but at least I can peep the short film it was made into.
The book is broken up into little essays. At 21, she becomes an escort named Mary Ann to sound like a mix of the virgin bearer and wannabe ingenue on Gillian’s Island. This fits her pretentious English major energy. She does write well, buttery and poetic, but with bubbly self-importance. She belittles anyone who questions her intentions to get into the industry yet seldom says what she likes or wants about it besides implying it’s just to appear different than civilian girls or abused colleagues. The best we get is her saying she’s a Scorpio surrounded by coke. She says she likes sex but in the beginning constantly avoids it. That’s also vague, which parts does she like?
There’s a list of SW acronyms for things like “cum on face,” the reviews she receives on Eros and the ones she’d retort w/ if given the chance. Ironic even the glowing reviews, she bitches how flabby the old men are or debates politics like it’s not a stupid idea. She has half a dozen appointments a day, sometimes changing up her fake bio as a painter. One client she goes to their moldy basement bedrooms minus a door and pledges “never again.” She learns some clients like the fit Mr. Wack treat each escort completely different: adoringly affectionate to intentionally abusive. Once she mentions her other clients, he makes the switch on her. He gets blacklisted everywhere, not that the receptionist always cares to note such.
Mary Ann works other jobs on top of this: comedian class or regular teacher, office worker, farmer, uni student even though she seems to make in a day escorting what I do in a paycheck. Rarely does she seem to actually go on dates rather than have men eat her out. Much of this book seems to be her documenting people complimenting her, which she admits are also often fake, Penthouse-titillating recounts so that more johns will solicit her. She’s more bored girlfriend experience than ecstatic pornstar. There’s a lot of sarcasm in the prose. The Holy Hooker short story is a cool lens for her to have people look at their prejudices slightly different. Oddly, her dad takes her job super easy and her religious, cautious mom often sobs about it though gives her the good advice of turning her experiences into creative writing.
One of her clients is a wheelchair-bound man named Paul, another a Penguin-looking doctor who claims he had a sexual relationship w/ his mom, Kinky Kyle who zip-ties her breasts before she pegs and yellow showers him, makes him chug it. Tyrant is another short story-esque piece that offers explanation for insecurity in disparaging men and compliment-hungry women, Madonna/whore complexes.
The first time she’s shown enjoying sex is 40% in w/ a classy couple in the country, then a local politician who sees her w/ his dying wife’s blessing. The fictional story about a raping god is obviously weird, a modern mythology turned into a Cinderella story since the rapist births a whore that makes a romantic out of another tyrant’s sweet son.
Halfway through the book, she becomes a stripper like she originally wanted since she’s more into performance art. This club divides into “extra”-centric rooms and regular lap dance spaces. She gives the obvious tip not to be intoxicated on the job, but constantly is—even if it’s not revealed until later. She quits one year after a Kickstarter to write the first version of this book and laments “no one told me there’s no money in publishing” which is laughable, especially when her goal was only selling one thousand copies a year.
It’s cool the strippers set up a “peer coalition” that gives water, condoms, and in-betweens to street-walkers. She seems much happier dancing even though it seems like 1/3 the money and men still force their fingers and worse in her during a dance. A big departure from the book is a story called Agatha about a girl lured into a premier’s car to sexually abuse. Confused but quick-witted, she winds up tricking him into castration. Then the author starts blues singing… It sounds good but is so disjointed. The Mind Flog chapter is fittingly foggy: seizing after molly and coke, getting her license suspended, blacking out and turning up in a hospital, getting stitches (surprised it’s still $5K for that in Toronto). Not sure what the point of this chapter is after preaching a bit about not doing such and making it all sound more unstable than if sprinkled about the narrative. She describes herself as too happy to need substances but we see mostly anger in this project. It makes sense: This is a venting book and we need drama, but we rarely see any pure fun on the clock. We don’t even see her performing on stage like she claims to love, no descriptions of the lights or cheering audience or moves. I believe she does love unexpected conversation w/ the guys but we only see the confrontational kind and she only Cali sobers up because her concussion/seizure condition.
The last ten minutes of the book is about how the baby stages of Covid whisk away money from gentleman’s clubs on top of it being after the holidays that leave men more broke. It should have been left on the cute ILY scene w/ a street-walker she helps out—not the repetitive, silly essay on how hoes are heroes. The mention of OnlyFans was shoehorned in when it should be saved for a focused, personal sequel. Then we get a few more goofy lists she wrote when she was 12 and 31 about who she wants to be and how SWers have “powers.” It just seems to seriously undercut the tone she was trying to end on, too fluffy. I’d delete the last three chapters.
My copy is from Audible, so alas I do not get to see the go-go photos this book was inspired by, but at least I can peep the short film it was made into.
May 30, 2026
What an incredible read. Andrea is such a talented writer and an absolute legend. This book has made me laugh, it’s made me cry, it made me horny.
I have also learned so so much about the sex working industry and the rights it lacks and how to better support it.
I have also learned so so much about the sex working industry and the rights it lacks and how to better support it.
January 15, 2018
To start, let me tell you that this book is highly NSFW but so, so good. It's a fascinating look inside the life of an escort -- Andrea shows all sides of the job she chose to have for two years of her life; it's not all glamorous, and it's not all terrible. Most importantly, she uses this book as an opportunity to challenge prejudices and raise awareness about the reality of sex work and how society could better support those who are part of it. Would definitely recommend you read this -- because aren't you a little bit curious?
September 19, 2024
If she was trying to make her profession more legit and less disturbing, she didn’t. If she was trying to make her profession more appealing, she didn’t. If she was trying to make her profession seem fun, she didn’t.
And it had so many less than flattering pictures in it. I can’t believe those were her best… so I can’t imagine why some of them were chosen.
And it had so many less than flattering pictures in it. I can’t believe those were her best… so I can’t imagine why some of them were chosen.
April 16, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Если сравнивать эту книгу с книгой The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider’s Guide, то сравнение будет не в пользу Modern Whore. Несмотря на то, что многие люди пишут книги о своём опыте работы в той или иной области, не у всех комплексно получается передать картину увиденного и пережитого. Главы, в которых автор этой книги описывает непосредственно взаимодействие с клиентами, было интересно читать и, пожалуй, это самые удачные главы. Однако размышления автора на другие, не связанные с сексом, темы показались мне скучными и не интересными. Особенно скучно стало ближе к концу книги, когда, как мне показалось, либо автор исписалась, либо темы (истории из жизни) закончились либо пропал азарт.
Я понимаю, что книга была написана, в том числе с целью хоть немного улучшить общественную репутацию как секс-работниц, так и стриптизёрш и именно поэтому в книгу была добавлена тема, связанная с принуждением к сексу, однако мне не показалась данная тема не особенно интересной.
Stories can help us understand that the high risk we face for physical abuse, rape, and murder because of our work is a fundamental injustice we must all confront together.
Whether sex work is freely chosen or not, those who engage in it deserve our respect and kindness. Sex workers’ basic human rights need protection.
Дело не в том, что я не согласен с тем, к секс-работницам не применим термин изнасилование или принуждение к сексу, просто это выглядит в книге неестественно, как бы специально добавленным в книгу как некое обязательство. Такое чувство, что истории забавных и странных клиентов у автора закончились, но при этом нужно было чем-то ещё заполнить оставшуюся половину книги.
Вторая проблема - довольно поверхностных обзор даже тех историй, о которых можно было написать более подробно. Впрочем, возможно я и ошибаюсь. Просто когда мы видим такое название книги как Modern Whore, мы ожидаем прочесть текст, в котором бы раскрывалась данная тема, включая то, чем современная a whore отличается от не современной. Т.е. я не понимаю, почему было выбрано именно такое название, если в книги мы мало что встречаем связанного с a modern whore. Я не прошу давать историческую справку или проводить историческое сравнение, но... не совсем понятно, зачем была написана эта книга и что автор хотела сообщить читателям. Проблема в том, что в книгу добавлено понемногу из разных областей, из разных тем. Проблема книги в том, что в ней подробно не рассказывается ни о жизни современной девушки по вызову ни о современной стриптизёрше. Да, описание автор даёт, но очень фрагментарное из-за чего, в отличие от книги The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider’s Guide by Kaho Shibuya, не вырисовывается полная картина данной области и рабочих будней главной героини.
If one compares this book to "The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider's Guide" by Kaho Shibuya, the comparison is not in Modern Whore's favor. While many people write books about their experiences in a particular field, not everyone can comprehensively convey a picture of what they have seen and experienced. The chapters in which the author of this book describes interacting with clients were interesting to read and are probably the most successful. However, I found the author's reflections on other, non-sex-related topics boring and uninteresting. It became especially boring towards the end of the book, when, as it seemed to me, either the author had written herself out, or the topics (life stories) were over, or the excitement was gone.
I realize that the book was written, among other things, to at least somewhat improve the public reputation of both sex workers and strippers and that's why the topic of forced sex was added to the book, but I didn't find the topic particularly interesting.
Stories can help us understand that the high risk we face for physical abuse, rape, and murder because of our work is a fundamental injustice we must all confront together.
Whether sex work is freely chosen or not, those who engage in it deserve our respect and kindness. Sex workers’ basic human rights need protection.
It's not that I disagree that the term rape or forced sex doesn't apply to sex workers, it's just that it seems unnatural in the book, as if it was deliberately added into the book as some sort of obligation. It feels like the author ran out of stories of funny and weird clients, yet needed something else to fill the remaining half of the book with.
The second problem is the rather superficial overview of even those stories that could have been written about in more detail. However, I may be wrong. It's just that when we see a book title like Modern Whore, we expect to read a text that covers this topic, including how a modern whore differs from a non-modern one. That is, I don't understand why such a title was chosen if we don't see much in the book related to a modern whore. I'm not asking for a historical reference or historical comparison, but .... it is not clear why this book was written and what the author wanted to communicate to the readers. The problem with the book is that it adds a little bit at a time from different areas, on different topics. The problem with the book is that it doesn't go into detail about the life of a modern call girl or a modern stripper. Yes, the author gives a description, but it is very fragmentary, which, unlike "The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider's Guide", does not give a complete picture of the industry and the working life of the protagonist.
Если сравнивать эту книгу с книгой The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider’s Guide, то сравнение будет не в пользу Modern Whore. Несмотря на то, что многие люди пишут книги о своём опыте работы в той или иной области, не у всех комплексно получается передать картину увиденного и пережитого. Главы, в которых автор этой книги описывает непосредственно взаимодействие с клиентами, было интересно читать и, пожалуй, это самые удачные главы. Однако размышления автора на другие, не связанные с сексом, темы показались мне скучными и не интересными. Особенно скучно стало ближе к концу книги, когда, как мне показалось, либо автор исписалась, либо темы (истории из жизни) закончились либо пропал азарт.
Я понимаю, что книга была написана, в том числе с целью хоть немного улучшить общественную репутацию как секс-работниц, так и стриптизёрш и именно поэтому в книгу была добавлена тема, связанная с принуждением к сексу, однако мне не показалась данная тема не особенно интересной.
Stories can help us understand that the high risk we face for physical abuse, rape, and murder because of our work is a fundamental injustice we must all confront together.
Whether sex work is freely chosen or not, those who engage in it deserve our respect and kindness. Sex workers’ basic human rights need protection.
Дело не в том, что я не согласен с тем, к секс-работницам не применим термин изнасилование или принуждение к сексу, просто это выглядит в книге неестественно, как бы специально добавленным в книгу как некое обязательство. Такое чувство, что истории забавных и странных клиентов у автора закончились, но при этом нужно было чем-то ещё заполнить оставшуюся половину книги.
Вторая проблема - довольно поверхностных обзор даже тех историй, о которых можно было написать более подробно. Впрочем, возможно я и ошибаюсь. Просто когда мы видим такое название книги как Modern Whore, мы ожидаем прочесть текст, в котором бы раскрывалась данная тема, включая то, чем современная a whore отличается от не современной. Т.е. я не понимаю, почему было выбрано именно такое название, если в книги мы мало что встречаем связанного с a modern whore. Я не прошу давать историческую справку или проводить историческое сравнение, но... не совсем понятно, зачем была написана эта книга и что автор хотела сообщить читателям. Проблема в том, что в книгу добавлено понемногу из разных областей, из разных тем. Проблема книги в том, что в ней подробно не рассказывается ни о жизни современной девушки по вызову ни о современной стриптизёрше. Да, описание автор даёт, но очень фрагментарное из-за чего, в отличие от книги The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider’s Guide by Kaho Shibuya, не вырисовывается полная картина данной области и рабочих будней главной героини.
If one compares this book to "The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider's Guide" by Kaho Shibuya, the comparison is not in Modern Whore's favor. While many people write books about their experiences in a particular field, not everyone can comprehensively convey a picture of what they have seen and experienced. The chapters in which the author of this book describes interacting with clients were interesting to read and are probably the most successful. However, I found the author's reflections on other, non-sex-related topics boring and uninteresting. It became especially boring towards the end of the book, when, as it seemed to me, either the author had written herself out, or the topics (life stories) were over, or the excitement was gone.
I realize that the book was written, among other things, to at least somewhat improve the public reputation of both sex workers and strippers and that's why the topic of forced sex was added to the book, but I didn't find the topic particularly interesting.
Stories can help us understand that the high risk we face for physical abuse, rape, and murder because of our work is a fundamental injustice we must all confront together.
Whether sex work is freely chosen or not, those who engage in it deserve our respect and kindness. Sex workers’ basic human rights need protection.
It's not that I disagree that the term rape or forced sex doesn't apply to sex workers, it's just that it seems unnatural in the book, as if it was deliberately added into the book as some sort of obligation. It feels like the author ran out of stories of funny and weird clients, yet needed something else to fill the remaining half of the book with.
The second problem is the rather superficial overview of even those stories that could have been written about in more detail. However, I may be wrong. It's just that when we see a book title like Modern Whore, we expect to read a text that covers this topic, including how a modern whore differs from a non-modern one. That is, I don't understand why such a title was chosen if we don't see much in the book related to a modern whore. I'm not asking for a historical reference or historical comparison, but .... it is not clear why this book was written and what the author wanted to communicate to the readers. The problem with the book is that it adds a little bit at a time from different areas, on different topics. The problem with the book is that it doesn't go into detail about the life of a modern call girl or a modern stripper. Yes, the author gives a description, but it is very fragmentary, which, unlike "The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked: An Insider's Guide", does not give a complete picture of the industry and the working life of the protagonist.
October 7, 2025
Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin just released a feature-length documentary of the same title that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was a great film and prompted me to read the original work - a creative memoir supplemented with photography, short stories, poetry, and a fun design that kept me turning the page. I loved reading about Werhun's experiences as an escort and stripper in Toronto, often knowing the part of town she is talking about or where a photo was taken on the street (the Harvey's she poses in front of as a support worker is down the street from me!).
I'm fascinated about why the world's oldest profession is still stigmatized - if there wasn't a market for sex, would there still be sex workers? Werhun is unapologetic in telling her story and is transparent about the blatant abuse she has experienced (making my jaw drop and head shake). Through it all, I'm inspired, and if Andrea Werhun ran for Prime Minister, I'd support her.
I'm fascinated about why the world's oldest profession is still stigmatized - if there wasn't a market for sex, would there still be sex workers? Werhun is unapologetic in telling her story and is transparent about the blatant abuse she has experienced (making my jaw drop and head shake). Through it all, I'm inspired, and if Andrea Werhun ran for Prime Minister, I'd support her.
February 26, 2023
An interesting perspective on sex work. I was somewhat uncomfortable with the author’s repeated use of what I think of as sex worker slurs (i.e. whore) but acknowledge that she has earned the right to call herself whatever she wants to—perhaps it is a form of reclamation. I found the book very entertaining and the author’s narration of the audiobook was great.
October 11, 2024
This is literature at it’s finest. Required reading for anyone who has paid for sex work.
“Many writers feel they don’t have any other options-they must write, or they will die. Have you ever met a more miserable workforce? Writers love waxing poetic about the tortuous miseries of writing. Is there such a thing as a happy writer? At least I like whoring.” -page 238
“Many writers feel they don’t have any other options-they must write, or they will die. Have you ever met a more miserable workforce? Writers love waxing poetic about the tortuous miseries of writing. Is there such a thing as a happy writer? At least I like whoring.” -page 238
June 19, 2026
Enjoyed this book and I flagged so many quotes. I love me a sex positive story and people who fight for others' rights to freedom of sexual expression. In it she expresses her dream to see the decriminalization of sex work in her lifetime. I hope for that too.
June 13, 2022
(The edition that I read was much longer, 306 pages, as well as hardcover... however, this was the only one goodreads had available).
February 17, 2025
La leí porque Mikey Madison lo leyó para Anora.
June 23, 2026
Shameless and witty self-promotion, AW does not take herself too seriously…, and she is stone-cold gorgeous. Photos and text form a clever and parodic unity. Andrea (I mean, the book…) well worth looking at…
July 10, 2026
Sort of interesting but a bit overly intellectual. This is not someone desperate for cash but clearly someone well educated, progressive, and proving a point with her line of work, so I feel like everything has to be taken under that context versus truly marginalized individuals. Don't read this on a plane like I did.
September 27, 2026
Modern Whore — Andrea Werhun
One-Sentence Recall
A candid millennial account of sex work that is most revealing not when Werhun argues for its normalization, but when she exposes how completely differently the sex worker and the client can experience—and later remember—the exact same encounter.
One-Minute Reboot
Andrea Werhun recounts her experience working as an escort and stripper, deliberately presenting sex work as work rather than automatically as exploitation or victimhood. The economics are easy to understand: escorting offered dramatically higher compensation for her time than conventional employment, making the decision to enter the profession economically rational even before considering questions of sexuality or empowerment.
More interesting is what happens inside the transaction. Werhun constructs a professional persona, “Mary Ann,” partly as role-playing and partly to protect her actual identity. Clients encounter an attentive, accommodating woman capable of manufacturing affection, interest, sexual enthusiasm and emotional intimacy. Yet Werhun's own recollections of these men can be radically different from theirs. Clients who remember chemistry and connection may appear in her telling as pathetic, repulsive, irritating or simply unremarkable customers. The juxtaposition sometimes feels like two accounts of completely different events.
That gap becomes the book's most memorable insight. Sex may nominally be the product, but especially in the Girlfriend Experience, much of the actual value being purchased is attention, acceptance, affection and the temporary experience of being genuinely desired. Simply “renting the body” leaves much of the potential value of the transaction on the table.
Werhun wants to expand the acceptable social conception of sex work: it can be voluntary, economically rational and professional rather than necessarily an expression of victimhood. That case is often convincing. Less convincing is her tendency to interpret questionable or self-destructive choices as evidence of agency and empowerment. The resulting memoir is simultaneously illuminating about sex work and revealing about the young author constructing a heroic narrative around her own life.
Story / Argument Spine
Werhun enters sex work and discovers that it offers an extraordinary economic return compared with conventional young-adult employment. She develops the professional identity of Mary Ann, learns how to manage clients and their expectations, and becomes skilled not merely at providing sex but at creating the emotional environment surrounding it.
Her stories dismantle the abstraction of “the prostitute” and replace it with the mundane realities of a service business: customers, pricing, boundaries, performance, unpleasant encounters, repeat business and emotional management. Married men and other clients bring their own needs and moral compromises into the room. Werhun does not accept responsibility for their infidelity: she provides the service, while responsibility for promises made to spouses remains with the men who made them.
Eventually family conflict, particularly a promise to her mother, becomes part of Werhun's explanation for leaving escorting, although the promise feels more like one component of a more complicated transition than the decisive cause the narrative sometimes makes it appear. She subsequently works as a stripper, continuing the broader exploration of sex work, performance and identity.
Memory Hooks
• Mary Ann: the constructed escort identity—a professional role as well as a firewall protecting Werhun's real identity.
• Two realities: the client's recollection of a meaningful, intimate encounter beside Werhun's sometimes radically different recollection of performing for an unpleasant customer.
• The Girlfriend Experience: evidence that emotional simulation can be at least as economically important as the sexual act itself.
• The client reviews: particularly memorable because they reveal how successfully a customer can mistake professional performance for spontaneous connection.
• The economics: conventional low-paid work versus the enormous hourly premium available through escorting makes the initial decision far easier to understand.
• Married Johns: Werhun rejects moral responsibility for their infidelity; the customer, not the service provider, owns the promises he made to his spouse.
• The promise to her mother: important to Werhun's narrative of leaving escorting, but probably a cleaner explanation in retrospect than the complete explanation at the time.
Big Ideas Worth Remembering
1. Sex work can be economically rational without therefore being psychologically benign. These are separate propositions. Werhun makes the first case extremely well; her tendency to blur it into the second is considerably less persuasive.
2. Manufactured intimacy may be the premium product. For many clients, sex is only part of what is being purchased. Attention, affection, conversation, acceptance and the experience of being desired may constitute much of the actual value. A transaction involving only physical access to another person's body may therefore leave much of that value unrealized.
3. The same encounter can produce two incompatible realities. The client may remember authentic chemistry while the sex worker remembers successful performance. Neither memory needs to be fabricated afterward: the two participants were experiencing different transactions while occupying the same room.
4. Sex work contains an unusual information asymmetry. Part of the client's purchase depends upon not knowing what the provider actually thinks of him. The worker's professional skill therefore includes concealing precisely the information that could destroy much of the value of the service. Werhun's juxtaposition of client perceptions with her private reactions makes this unusually visible.
5. Agency and self-delusion can coexist. Rejecting a simplistic victim narrative does not require accepting every decision a person voluntarily makes as healthy or empowering. Werhun can simultaneously possess genuine agency, make rational economic decisions, make destructive personal decisions, and subsequently construct a flattering narrative explaining all of them.
Why It Matters
The book succeeds at moving sex work out of abstraction. Whatever one's prior moral or political position, it becomes harder to think about prostitution merely in terms of bodies and sexual acts after seeing the amount of emotional labor involved. The commodity is partly fantasy, and maintaining that fantasy requires considerable interpersonal skill.
It is particularly useful for understanding the Johns. Werhun provides access to something the client normally cannot see: what the woman accommodating him and making him feel desirable may actually be thinking. The contrast between the client's perceived relationship and the provider's private reality is more revealing than Werhun's explicit arguments about empowerment.
What the Book Got Right
Werhun makes a convincing case that voluntary sex work can represent a rational economic choice. Comparing the compensation and flexibility with ordinary low-wage employment makes the attraction obvious without requiring a larger ideological argument.
She is also persuasive in refusing to inherit the moral responsibility of married clients. If a man has made commitments to his spouse and secretly hires a sex worker, the breach of those commitments belongs primarily to him. Treating the provider as the moral agent responsible for preserving someone else's marriage misidentifies where that obligation resides.
Most importantly, the book exposes the enormous difference between delivering sex and delivering an experience of intimacy. The latter requires reading the client, protecting his ego, displaying interest and constructing a temporary reality in which desire and affection appear reciprocal. That insight survives long after the individual anecdotes fade.
What Has Aged Less Well / What Did Not Work
The weakness is less Werhun's behavior than the certainty with which she interprets it. Her youth is evident in the tendency to aestheticize questionable choices and then incorporate them into a heroic personal narrative. There is a persistent “main character” quality: experiences become episodes in the story of Andrea Werhun discovering and asserting Andrea Werhun.
This produces a self-aggrandizing tone that can become irritating. Self-destructive or simply bad decisions are too readily reframed as expressions of courage, liberation or agency. The problem is not that Werhun lacks agency; clearly she has it. It is that agency does not transform every freely chosen decision into a good one.
There is consequently a layer of self-delusion beneath some of the empowerment narrative. Werhun is considerably more convincing when describing what happened than when explaining what everything meant. The raw observations about sex work, clients and money often carry more intellectual weight than the interpretation she places around them.
Personal Reflection
This was an interesting rather than transformative read. The strongest contribution was hearing the profession described candidly from inside it, particularly the private assessment of customers hidden behind the accommodating professional mask.
The economic argument was entirely credible. Sex work can offer such an extreme compensation differential over ordinary employment that choosing it need not require psychological pathology, coercion or an elaborate ideological explanation. Other sex workers can reach the same conclusion for entirely pragmatic reasons.
What remains most useful, however, is the insight into purchased intimacy. A John may believe he is buying sex while actually placing much greater value on being listened to, accepted and temporarily desired. Werhun inadvertently demonstrates just how valuable that illusion can become—and how completely the provider's internal experience can diverge from the client's.
Strong Ideas Worth Remembering
The client is not necessarily buying sex so much as an experience in which sex makes emotional acceptance believable.
A successful Girlfriend Experience requires the provider to hide information—especially her true assessment of the client—that could collapse the fantasy he is purchasing.
Economic rationality, personal agency and self-destructive behavior are not mutually exclusive categories.
The most revealing account of a commercial sexual encounter may require hearing both participants separately, because each may sincerely describe what sounds like an entirely different event.
The Thing to Remember
Years later, remember the two versions of the same encounter. He leaves believing that for an hour there was chemistry, affection and perhaps even genuine connection. She leaves remembering the performance required to make him believe it. Modern Whore is most valuable in the space between those two realities: sex is the obvious commodity, but intimacy—and the carefully protected illusion that it is reciprocal—may be what the customer is really paying for.
Review written with assistance and input by ChatGPT.
One-Sentence Recall
A candid millennial account of sex work that is most revealing not when Werhun argues for its normalization, but when she exposes how completely differently the sex worker and the client can experience—and later remember—the exact same encounter.
One-Minute Reboot
Andrea Werhun recounts her experience working as an escort and stripper, deliberately presenting sex work as work rather than automatically as exploitation or victimhood. The economics are easy to understand: escorting offered dramatically higher compensation for her time than conventional employment, making the decision to enter the profession economically rational even before considering questions of sexuality or empowerment.
More interesting is what happens inside the transaction. Werhun constructs a professional persona, “Mary Ann,” partly as role-playing and partly to protect her actual identity. Clients encounter an attentive, accommodating woman capable of manufacturing affection, interest, sexual enthusiasm and emotional intimacy. Yet Werhun's own recollections of these men can be radically different from theirs. Clients who remember chemistry and connection may appear in her telling as pathetic, repulsive, irritating or simply unremarkable customers. The juxtaposition sometimes feels like two accounts of completely different events.
That gap becomes the book's most memorable insight. Sex may nominally be the product, but especially in the Girlfriend Experience, much of the actual value being purchased is attention, acceptance, affection and the temporary experience of being genuinely desired. Simply “renting the body” leaves much of the potential value of the transaction on the table.
Werhun wants to expand the acceptable social conception of sex work: it can be voluntary, economically rational and professional rather than necessarily an expression of victimhood. That case is often convincing. Less convincing is her tendency to interpret questionable or self-destructive choices as evidence of agency and empowerment. The resulting memoir is simultaneously illuminating about sex work and revealing about the young author constructing a heroic narrative around her own life.
Story / Argument Spine
Werhun enters sex work and discovers that it offers an extraordinary economic return compared with conventional young-adult employment. She develops the professional identity of Mary Ann, learns how to manage clients and their expectations, and becomes skilled not merely at providing sex but at creating the emotional environment surrounding it.
Her stories dismantle the abstraction of “the prostitute” and replace it with the mundane realities of a service business: customers, pricing, boundaries, performance, unpleasant encounters, repeat business and emotional management. Married men and other clients bring their own needs and moral compromises into the room. Werhun does not accept responsibility for their infidelity: she provides the service, while responsibility for promises made to spouses remains with the men who made them.
Eventually family conflict, particularly a promise to her mother, becomes part of Werhun's explanation for leaving escorting, although the promise feels more like one component of a more complicated transition than the decisive cause the narrative sometimes makes it appear. She subsequently works as a stripper, continuing the broader exploration of sex work, performance and identity.
Memory Hooks
• Mary Ann: the constructed escort identity—a professional role as well as a firewall protecting Werhun's real identity.
• Two realities: the client's recollection of a meaningful, intimate encounter beside Werhun's sometimes radically different recollection of performing for an unpleasant customer.
• The Girlfriend Experience: evidence that emotional simulation can be at least as economically important as the sexual act itself.
• The client reviews: particularly memorable because they reveal how successfully a customer can mistake professional performance for spontaneous connection.
• The economics: conventional low-paid work versus the enormous hourly premium available through escorting makes the initial decision far easier to understand.
• Married Johns: Werhun rejects moral responsibility for their infidelity; the customer, not the service provider, owns the promises he made to his spouse.
• The promise to her mother: important to Werhun's narrative of leaving escorting, but probably a cleaner explanation in retrospect than the complete explanation at the time.
Big Ideas Worth Remembering
1. Sex work can be economically rational without therefore being psychologically benign. These are separate propositions. Werhun makes the first case extremely well; her tendency to blur it into the second is considerably less persuasive.
2. Manufactured intimacy may be the premium product. For many clients, sex is only part of what is being purchased. Attention, affection, conversation, acceptance and the experience of being desired may constitute much of the actual value. A transaction involving only physical access to another person's body may therefore leave much of that value unrealized.
3. The same encounter can produce two incompatible realities. The client may remember authentic chemistry while the sex worker remembers successful performance. Neither memory needs to be fabricated afterward: the two participants were experiencing different transactions while occupying the same room.
4. Sex work contains an unusual information asymmetry. Part of the client's purchase depends upon not knowing what the provider actually thinks of him. The worker's professional skill therefore includes concealing precisely the information that could destroy much of the value of the service. Werhun's juxtaposition of client perceptions with her private reactions makes this unusually visible.
5. Agency and self-delusion can coexist. Rejecting a simplistic victim narrative does not require accepting every decision a person voluntarily makes as healthy or empowering. Werhun can simultaneously possess genuine agency, make rational economic decisions, make destructive personal decisions, and subsequently construct a flattering narrative explaining all of them.
Why It Matters
The book succeeds at moving sex work out of abstraction. Whatever one's prior moral or political position, it becomes harder to think about prostitution merely in terms of bodies and sexual acts after seeing the amount of emotional labor involved. The commodity is partly fantasy, and maintaining that fantasy requires considerable interpersonal skill.
It is particularly useful for understanding the Johns. Werhun provides access to something the client normally cannot see: what the woman accommodating him and making him feel desirable may actually be thinking. The contrast between the client's perceived relationship and the provider's private reality is more revealing than Werhun's explicit arguments about empowerment.
What the Book Got Right
Werhun makes a convincing case that voluntary sex work can represent a rational economic choice. Comparing the compensation and flexibility with ordinary low-wage employment makes the attraction obvious without requiring a larger ideological argument.
She is also persuasive in refusing to inherit the moral responsibility of married clients. If a man has made commitments to his spouse and secretly hires a sex worker, the breach of those commitments belongs primarily to him. Treating the provider as the moral agent responsible for preserving someone else's marriage misidentifies where that obligation resides.
Most importantly, the book exposes the enormous difference between delivering sex and delivering an experience of intimacy. The latter requires reading the client, protecting his ego, displaying interest and constructing a temporary reality in which desire and affection appear reciprocal. That insight survives long after the individual anecdotes fade.
What Has Aged Less Well / What Did Not Work
The weakness is less Werhun's behavior than the certainty with which she interprets it. Her youth is evident in the tendency to aestheticize questionable choices and then incorporate them into a heroic personal narrative. There is a persistent “main character” quality: experiences become episodes in the story of Andrea Werhun discovering and asserting Andrea Werhun.
This produces a self-aggrandizing tone that can become irritating. Self-destructive or simply bad decisions are too readily reframed as expressions of courage, liberation or agency. The problem is not that Werhun lacks agency; clearly she has it. It is that agency does not transform every freely chosen decision into a good one.
There is consequently a layer of self-delusion beneath some of the empowerment narrative. Werhun is considerably more convincing when describing what happened than when explaining what everything meant. The raw observations about sex work, clients and money often carry more intellectual weight than the interpretation she places around them.
Personal Reflection
This was an interesting rather than transformative read. The strongest contribution was hearing the profession described candidly from inside it, particularly the private assessment of customers hidden behind the accommodating professional mask.
The economic argument was entirely credible. Sex work can offer such an extreme compensation differential over ordinary employment that choosing it need not require psychological pathology, coercion or an elaborate ideological explanation. Other sex workers can reach the same conclusion for entirely pragmatic reasons.
What remains most useful, however, is the insight into purchased intimacy. A John may believe he is buying sex while actually placing much greater value on being listened to, accepted and temporarily desired. Werhun inadvertently demonstrates just how valuable that illusion can become—and how completely the provider's internal experience can diverge from the client's.
Strong Ideas Worth Remembering
The client is not necessarily buying sex so much as an experience in which sex makes emotional acceptance believable.
A successful Girlfriend Experience requires the provider to hide information—especially her true assessment of the client—that could collapse the fantasy he is purchasing.
Economic rationality, personal agency and self-destructive behavior are not mutually exclusive categories.
The most revealing account of a commercial sexual encounter may require hearing both participants separately, because each may sincerely describe what sounds like an entirely different event.
The Thing to Remember
Years later, remember the two versions of the same encounter. He leaves believing that for an hour there was chemistry, affection and perhaps even genuine connection. She leaves remembering the performance required to make him believe it. Modern Whore is most valuable in the space between those two realities: sex is the obvious commodity, but intimacy—and the carefully protected illusion that it is reciprocal—may be what the customer is really paying for.
Review written with assistance and input by ChatGPT.
May 30, 2025
Good read! Feel like it was a bit jumbled at parts, but generally was entertaining and unique perspective about the modern sex industry.
September 23, 2026
all the whores to the front!!!!
February 7, 2023
LOOOVEEEEE!!! Andrea Werhun is a goddess and Nicole Bazuin is a visionary. Reading the second edition of modern whore transcends reading and becomes an ~experience~.
October 8, 2025
Recently watched and enjoyed the film "Anora", of which Werhun was a consultant for, and when I found out that she had written a book about her own experiences as a sex worker I had to check it out. One thing that surprised me about the book, and something which I wasn't expecting beforehand, were all the color photographs of Werhun herself, sometimes wearing clothing and sometimes not, meant to illustrate and provide a little color to some of the experiences and ideas she talks about in the novel. If my review was based entirely on just the writing in the memoir, I think this book would have been at three stars; but the photos do add a lot to this work, not only because Werhun is very attractive but because the photos themselves were really high quality in terms of color, lighting, Werhun's costuming, the quality of the paper, etc. If someone wanted to be a little risqué I would say that this would make a great coffee table book.
In terms of the writing itself, at first I would have criticized Werhun for not providing a more scandalous view of the sex industry. Usually, seeing these stories, we expect to see people struggling with drug addiction, violence, and trauma; maybe someone picking up Werhun's work is hoping to see an exposé of all her worst moments. But Werhun makes a great point towards the end of the novel that nobody has any right to ask another person to dredge up their very worst experiences in order to provide light entertainment; that somehow, in the sex industry, it's become completely normalized for a person to expect the worst, for these complete strangers to then ask a worker to tell them about it, and then for that complete stranger to be annoyed when they don't get what they want. It's really something I had never thought about before but when it comes to women in that line of work, nobody is expected to have a polite filter which is considered normal in every other type of job. That's not to say that Werhun didn't have any negative experiences, and she does share a few in the memoir, usually involving clients grossly overstepping her boundaries, but she makes it clear that this novel isn't meant to be trauma porn for sickos to gloat over.
I think one critique I could make about this book is that Werhun, especially towards the end of the novel, when it deals with her time as a stripper up until the beginning of the covid pandemic, starts falling back far too often on monetary reward as justification for her work. I think it was in my reading of the book "A Sand County Almanac", written by ecologist Aldo Leopold, where he mentions that in reading any kind of academic paper on environmentalism, the researchers couldn't simply say that an environmental measure was good because it was good but that it was good because it would somehow increase the profit of xyz industry, provide more jobs doing abc somewhere else, or prevent this much economic damage, etc. Leopold (I think) noted that there was something inherently wrong with this sheepish 'tacking on' of an economic reason to do something that you felt was morally right and required no further justification. That somehow we as a society started to constantly measure the value of something based on economic output and efficiency. I think Werhun falls into the same trap as the novel progresses. In the early part of the memoir, which deals with her time as an escort, she talks about her most enjoyable experiences being with working with the disabled or widowers who were essentially out of the traditional dating game altogether. But then by the end of the novel, it becomes all about the money, for example at one moment when an unsavory client enters into her club and gets into a private room with a fellow stripper, she only waits until the end of his session to kick him out because as a general rule, 'you don't mess with someone else getting that money'.
That's not to say that I think that Werhun should have devoted herself to some sort of sex-based charity work or not have been able to make a living doing a difficult job. But there is definitely something of a vibe-shift as the memoir progresses where, by the end, we see Werhun alternate between smoking weed in her club's breakroom and then going out on the floor to look for clients aiming to get paid no matter how offensive their body odor, grabby or sad they are. I do agree with Werhun that sex work should be legalized and hopefully, with legality, the sense that this whole thing is just people consensually taking advantage of each other will go away. I'm sure this feeling Werhun creates isn't the type of trauma porn some people were hoping for. It's a much more mundane feeling of going to a county fair and getting ripped off by the food prices, or walking onto a used car lot and trying to haggle with the salesperson. It's just the cost of doing businesses. But this sterile commercial feeling ends up clashing with the artistic and aesthetic values Werhun sometimes brings up in her allusions to femininity and sexuality. However, I don't think this feeling is something you can ever get away from, and I think the film "Anora" also manages to capture the problems associated with mixing business and pleasure beautifully. Overall, if you enjoyed the movie, I think it's worth checking out this book as well.
In terms of the writing itself, at first I would have criticized Werhun for not providing a more scandalous view of the sex industry. Usually, seeing these stories, we expect to see people struggling with drug addiction, violence, and trauma; maybe someone picking up Werhun's work is hoping to see an exposé of all her worst moments. But Werhun makes a great point towards the end of the novel that nobody has any right to ask another person to dredge up their very worst experiences in order to provide light entertainment; that somehow, in the sex industry, it's become completely normalized for a person to expect the worst, for these complete strangers to then ask a worker to tell them about it, and then for that complete stranger to be annoyed when they don't get what they want. It's really something I had never thought about before but when it comes to women in that line of work, nobody is expected to have a polite filter which is considered normal in every other type of job. That's not to say that Werhun didn't have any negative experiences, and she does share a few in the memoir, usually involving clients grossly overstepping her boundaries, but she makes it clear that this novel isn't meant to be trauma porn for sickos to gloat over.
I think one critique I could make about this book is that Werhun, especially towards the end of the novel, when it deals with her time as a stripper up until the beginning of the covid pandemic, starts falling back far too often on monetary reward as justification for her work. I think it was in my reading of the book "A Sand County Almanac", written by ecologist Aldo Leopold, where he mentions that in reading any kind of academic paper on environmentalism, the researchers couldn't simply say that an environmental measure was good because it was good but that it was good because it would somehow increase the profit of xyz industry, provide more jobs doing abc somewhere else, or prevent this much economic damage, etc. Leopold (I think) noted that there was something inherently wrong with this sheepish 'tacking on' of an economic reason to do something that you felt was morally right and required no further justification. That somehow we as a society started to constantly measure the value of something based on economic output and efficiency. I think Werhun falls into the same trap as the novel progresses. In the early part of the memoir, which deals with her time as an escort, she talks about her most enjoyable experiences being with working with the disabled or widowers who were essentially out of the traditional dating game altogether. But then by the end of the novel, it becomes all about the money, for example at one moment when an unsavory client enters into her club and gets into a private room with a fellow stripper, she only waits until the end of his session to kick him out because as a general rule, 'you don't mess with someone else getting that money'.
That's not to say that I think that Werhun should have devoted herself to some sort of sex-based charity work or not have been able to make a living doing a difficult job. But there is definitely something of a vibe-shift as the memoir progresses where, by the end, we see Werhun alternate between smoking weed in her club's breakroom and then going out on the floor to look for clients aiming to get paid no matter how offensive their body odor, grabby or sad they are. I do agree with Werhun that sex work should be legalized and hopefully, with legality, the sense that this whole thing is just people consensually taking advantage of each other will go away. I'm sure this feeling Werhun creates isn't the type of trauma porn some people were hoping for. It's a much more mundane feeling of going to a county fair and getting ripped off by the food prices, or walking onto a used car lot and trying to haggle with the salesperson. It's just the cost of doing businesses. But this sterile commercial feeling ends up clashing with the artistic and aesthetic values Werhun sometimes brings up in her allusions to femininity and sexuality. However, I don't think this feeling is something you can ever get away from, and I think the film "Anora" also manages to capture the problems associated with mixing business and pleasure beautifully. Overall, if you enjoyed the movie, I think it's worth checking out this book as well.
March 4, 2025
Absolutely vile.
Didn't finish.
Could only get through about 1/4 of it and even that was gag inducing.
Didn't finish.
Could only get through about 1/4 of it and even that was gag inducing.
May 21, 2025
No sympathy for this woman. She definitely has some issues.
November 14, 2023
“I listened to Patti Smith’s Easter album every morning to get myself to the office. Patti, my living hero, spoke directly to me, the baby, the black sheep, the whore. Do you like the world around you? She asked. Are you ready to behave? From the subway station, I trudged along the snow-narrowed sidewalk. Another day of pretending to be a normal woman. After work, released from the grey crunch of rush hour, I would arrive home, like clockwork, in tears. It did not make sense to work this hard—and suffer this much—for so little money and for someone else’s dream. Nightly panic attacks became my reality. Normal, I confirmed in my bones, was code for miserable. Ironically, three months working in an office was more traumatic than the two years I’d spent as an escort. I quit.”
Beautifuly and lovingly crafted, with high production values, written with verve and style, and lots of heart, including some fantastic short-form fiction, this book will be one to cherish. To say nothing of the nudes: That the author is a beautiful woman who graces the pages of the hardcover with a vast number of professionally produced photos in different stages of nakedness and sensuality, doesn’t hurt. Ah, and the audiobook! Also a triumph. Andrea Werhun could definitely have a career, or at least maintain a side hustle, reading audiobooks. Her reading of this one is peerless.
“Touch, intimacy, warmth, pleasure, laughter, relaxation, connection: feeling good is our birthright. Feeling good is the altar upon which the sex worker worships, the service they happily and dutifully provide. A fine calling—making people feel good for a living? Sounds good to me! So, why is it still a crime?”
So, another memoir by an escort. Why do I read these books, when I find one? Firstly, because they tend to be excellent and fascinating. Also because of Maggie McNeill, whom I discovered in the Internet decades ago and find consistently to still be the best essayist alive. She was (is?) an escort. That got me interested.
Then, Brooke Magnanti. The Secret Diary of a Call-Girl is an unmitigated literary delight and everything Magnanti wrote since has been brilliant. She was forced to out herself and that has complicated her life, but she still writes occasionally and is always compelling and relevant.
Of all that I’ve read on the subject so far, upon reading Modern Whore, the trilogy I currently propose is:
* “The Secret Diary of a Call-Girl” by Belle de Jour, a picaresque chronicle of a licentious and free life;
* “Puta y Livre” by Valérie May, work biography, manifestation of personal independence and political manifesto; and
* “Modern Whore” by Andrea Werhun, this book, a celebration of being alive and an evaluation of the choices that must be made to give meaning to life.
There are currently countless other books by sex workers; most of the ones I read are actually quite good and utterly fascinating, but considering this as genre, the ones mentioned above are literary canon.
Some more quotes from Modern Whore.
“If I can make a buck reading a man a book, why wouldn’t I? Likewise, if a person can pay their rent—in a pandemic—by masturbating on camera, why shouldn’t they?”
“Whoring is a means of survival, yes. When faced with the option of working more hours for less money with no control over their schedule, the sex worker may feel “forced” to preserve their dignity and return to whoring.”
“Yeah, so, I’m a hooker. A bona fide, two-syllabled who-oore. Slutty and paid, that’s me. People who fuck for free? I don’t know them. Listen, you’re not a soup kitchen. You’re not a thrift store. You’re not a charity. You’re a million dollars on two legs. You don’t have to give it away for nothing because you feel bad for these guys. R-E-S-P-E-C-T yourself and have some self-worth! So, I get paid and I have fun. Save a little, spend a lot. Whatever. I want everyone to know I’m using these peak youthful-charm years to my fullest advantage. I’m proud—so what? I don’t waste my time doing shit for money that not only bores me but makes me barely enough to eat a scrap of bologna every now and then. No. I wouldn’t be proud working an acceptable job if it meant I couldn’t live the good life. My life. Being a hooker means I can have fun and get paid at the same time. Dick is dick. Feels good whether the body attached is young, old, ugly, wrinkly—even stinky I’ll get over if the price is right. I love fucking, and I love getting paid.”
“Despite the odds, we are here. Every sex worker is the hero of their own journey. With the spirit of the femme vitale as our guide, we will use our joy, beauty, creativity, strength, and fierce determination to fight for our right to survive—not just for us, but for the whores that are yet to come. The world needs us. More of us. We’re alive and always will be. Love is our driver. And we will win.”
Beautifuly and lovingly crafted, with high production values, written with verve and style, and lots of heart, including some fantastic short-form fiction, this book will be one to cherish. To say nothing of the nudes: That the author is a beautiful woman who graces the pages of the hardcover with a vast number of professionally produced photos in different stages of nakedness and sensuality, doesn’t hurt. Ah, and the audiobook! Also a triumph. Andrea Werhun could definitely have a career, or at least maintain a side hustle, reading audiobooks. Her reading of this one is peerless.
“Touch, intimacy, warmth, pleasure, laughter, relaxation, connection: feeling good is our birthright. Feeling good is the altar upon which the sex worker worships, the service they happily and dutifully provide. A fine calling—making people feel good for a living? Sounds good to me! So, why is it still a crime?”
So, another memoir by an escort. Why do I read these books, when I find one? Firstly, because they tend to be excellent and fascinating. Also because of Maggie McNeill, whom I discovered in the Internet decades ago and find consistently to still be the best essayist alive. She was (is?) an escort. That got me interested.
Then, Brooke Magnanti. The Secret Diary of a Call-Girl is an unmitigated literary delight and everything Magnanti wrote since has been brilliant. She was forced to out herself and that has complicated her life, but she still writes occasionally and is always compelling and relevant.
Of all that I’ve read on the subject so far, upon reading Modern Whore, the trilogy I currently propose is:
* “The Secret Diary of a Call-Girl” by Belle de Jour, a picaresque chronicle of a licentious and free life;
* “Puta y Livre” by Valérie May, work biography, manifestation of personal independence and political manifesto; and
* “Modern Whore” by Andrea Werhun, this book, a celebration of being alive and an evaluation of the choices that must be made to give meaning to life.
There are currently countless other books by sex workers; most of the ones I read are actually quite good and utterly fascinating, but considering this as genre, the ones mentioned above are literary canon.
Some more quotes from Modern Whore.
“If I can make a buck reading a man a book, why wouldn’t I? Likewise, if a person can pay their rent—in a pandemic—by masturbating on camera, why shouldn’t they?”
“Whoring is a means of survival, yes. When faced with the option of working more hours for less money with no control over their schedule, the sex worker may feel “forced” to preserve their dignity and return to whoring.”
“Yeah, so, I’m a hooker. A bona fide, two-syllabled who-oore. Slutty and paid, that’s me. People who fuck for free? I don’t know them. Listen, you’re not a soup kitchen. You’re not a thrift store. You’re not a charity. You’re a million dollars on two legs. You don’t have to give it away for nothing because you feel bad for these guys. R-E-S-P-E-C-T yourself and have some self-worth! So, I get paid and I have fun. Save a little, spend a lot. Whatever. I want everyone to know I’m using these peak youthful-charm years to my fullest advantage. I’m proud—so what? I don’t waste my time doing shit for money that not only bores me but makes me barely enough to eat a scrap of bologna every now and then. No. I wouldn’t be proud working an acceptable job if it meant I couldn’t live the good life. My life. Being a hooker means I can have fun and get paid at the same time. Dick is dick. Feels good whether the body attached is young, old, ugly, wrinkly—even stinky I’ll get over if the price is right. I love fucking, and I love getting paid.”
“Despite the odds, we are here. Every sex worker is the hero of their own journey. With the spirit of the femme vitale as our guide, we will use our joy, beauty, creativity, strength, and fierce determination to fight for our right to survive—not just for us, but for the whores that are yet to come. The world needs us. More of us. We’re alive and always will be. Love is our driver. And we will win.”
July 13, 2025
I loved "Modern Whore." I first learned about it when we went to see Sook-Yin Lee's movie "Paying for it", which was the adaptation of the graphic novel written by Chester Brown. In the graphic novel, Brown starts sleeping with sex workers. In the movie, his long term sex worker girlfriend, is played by Andrea Werhun. At the screening, someone asked, "How did you get Andrea Werhun to be in this?"
I was intrigued, because I had never heard of her, so that was an instant google. Andrea Werhun is from Toronto. She has been an escort (go to men's places to have sex), and worked for years as a stripper. She has also been involved in streetwork outreach for sex workers, and has become a consultant on films including "Anora". Sook-Yin was familiar with her work, and asked her to be in "Paying for it."
Andrea starts her book by writing about her own interests, literature and sexuality. She decided to become an escort because she could make good money, choose her own hours and it allowed her a lot of flexibility. She shares several stories of encounters with johns. Some are funny and sweet or romantic even, while some are scary. She tells her mom she will quit being an escort after two years. But she can't find fulfilling, flexible work- so she decides to work on the stripper's pole. This whole section is interesting- she talks about clients, about how things work in a strip bar, about the other stripper etc. As someone who has been concussed, I really appreciate her story about concussion/drinking.
This book was pretty eye-opening for me and I learned a lot. I also agree with Werhun that sex workers deserve employment insurance, access to medical, and other worker protections, including protection from rape. The book I had included pictures of Werhun as well. I think the book may have started in a more zine-like format. The pictures were shot by her good friend Nicole Bazuin. Some were cute little pin-up shots, and some were a little sexier/darker. Werhun has beautiful breasts.
Many recommendations for Modern Whore.
I was intrigued, because I had never heard of her, so that was an instant google. Andrea Werhun is from Toronto. She has been an escort (go to men's places to have sex), and worked for years as a stripper. She has also been involved in streetwork outreach for sex workers, and has become a consultant on films including "Anora". Sook-Yin was familiar with her work, and asked her to be in "Paying for it."
Andrea starts her book by writing about her own interests, literature and sexuality. She decided to become an escort because she could make good money, choose her own hours and it allowed her a lot of flexibility. She shares several stories of encounters with johns. Some are funny and sweet or romantic even, while some are scary. She tells her mom she will quit being an escort after two years. But she can't find fulfilling, flexible work- so she decides to work on the stripper's pole. This whole section is interesting- she talks about clients, about how things work in a strip bar, about the other stripper etc. As someone who has been concussed, I really appreciate her story about concussion/drinking.
This book was pretty eye-opening for me and I learned a lot. I also agree with Werhun that sex workers deserve employment insurance, access to medical, and other worker protections, including protection from rape. The book I had included pictures of Werhun as well. I think the book may have started in a more zine-like format. The pictures were shot by her good friend Nicole Bazuin. Some were cute little pin-up shots, and some were a little sexier/darker. Werhun has beautiful breasts.
Many recommendations for Modern Whore.
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