Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Works of Scarlot Harlot

by First Last, Carol Leigh

A declared feminist activist, Carol Leigh refers to herself as a life artist, an "autobiographical journalist ... using myself and my life as an example, employing the image of whore in order to reclaim female sexual symbolism." Scarlot Harlot, Leigh's alter ego, is a clown, a burlesque-drag-queen whore — decked out in southern belle American flag attire. Taking her political messages onto the street, she presents short, spontaneous guerrilla pieces relating to prostitution, AIDS, and other feminist issues. 150 photographs enhance this performance artist's outrageous look at the world.

Genres: Sex Work, Feminism, Queer, Nonfiction, Sexuality, Memoir, Anthologies

100 pages, Paperback

First published June 9, 2002

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really is a collected works. I think you might be disapointed if you had never heard of Scarlot Harlot and were expecting maybe essays or something. It's really a grab bag, good and bad of some essays, columns, poems, plays, photos, interviews with her and others she's conducted etc. Sort of a retrospective of her work.
I like her a lot and appreciate she presents sex work in a nuanced way--it's not the totally unexamined boosterism of a lot of stuff i seem to read, or a totally negative view either. She seems to see prostitution as a difficult way to make good money that can make people very vulnerable to violence or various types of abuse. In other words, a crappy job like any other in some ways. She clearly likes the work and is devoted to destigmatizing it which is a totally worthwhile endeavour.

[G · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unrepentant Whore could have been brilliant. Certainly there are a lot of misconceptions and interesting things to say about the sex work industry. Its author dropped out of an MFA program in poetry, moved to San Francisco, and turned to sex work as a way to pay the bills--surely a compelling story lies in there about why a well-educated, middle class white woman would choose this illegal, stigmatized career. Unfortunately, author Carol Leigh has avoided writing anything particularly compelling or brilliant.

The book is written and assembled in something of a stream of consciousness fashion - a reduced narrative of Leigh's life is interposed with her poetry, song lyrics, interviews, photographs of her breasts, newspaper clippings, and previously published articles.

My favorite sections, far and away, are Leigh's interview with former brothel owner Rebecca Rand. Rebecca is absolutely fascinating: a former prostitute herself, she used a formidable business acumen to rise to run and eventually own a network of her own brothels before eventually being charged under racketeering laws in St. Paul. She comes across as a smart, businesslike, intensely competitive free market capitalist. I was spellbound by her responses, and I want to read her book, if she ever writes one.

Leigh, meanwhile, seems to serve as a cautionary tale about spending too much time in San Francisco. There's a huge amount of repetition in the book, probably a result of its compilation from previously published articles, and for every interesting bit of legal complexity or report of sex worker oppression there is a wildly irrelevant note about her favorite pagan goddesses or the topless picnic she had in Berkeley or photographs from the beauty competition she lost.

In the end, this was a mildly useful book to read, and considerably educational about the hardships faced by sex workers and their families. The problems with criminalizing prostitution, and the pitfalls of legalization were interesting and provided an often lacking perspective on the issue. In general I'm glad the book exists, but I wish Leigh had replaced 150 pages of fluff with content.

[Guido Colacci · Rating 5 out of 5]

empowering book...

[Annamarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty interesting book. Scarlot Harlot has been an activist for longer than I've been alive and there's a lot of history documented in here. That said, the writing was a bit scattered and hard to follow at times. There are long chatty interviews typed up verbatim (for page after page after page) but then there would also be an excerpt just long enough to see what S.H. had to say without any of the other relevant conversation. Still, overall I did enjoy this one and I want to track down some of the flicks listed in the videography.