Front cover for Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery

By Anne M. Butler
Published in 1987 by the University of Illinois Press

Butler’s Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery survey of Old West prostitution begins by examining the prostitutes themselves.  Who were the women who became prostitutes?  The short answer to this question is much the same then as now: poor women without reliable friend or family networks.

The book continues by examining prostitutes’ cohorts such as colleagues and family.  Contrary to the popular notion of prostitutes forming a tight sisterhood, Butler paints a portrait of prostitutes as being almost singularly selfish.  While a casual observer might expect prostitutes to band together to improve their lives collectively, given the poverty and chaos that marked prostitutes’ lives it is hardly surprising that they valued short term interests instead of long term thinking.

Butler continues her analysis by examining the complex and contradictory relationships prostitutes had with police officials, the court system, and the US military.  These officials often tolerated, if not actively encouraged, the practice of prostitution while simultaneously forcing prostitutes to live on the haggard existences on the fringes of society.

My only lament is that there was not enough information about non-prostitutes to allow for any sort of comparative analysis.  Nor does Butler give any time to discuss how societal attitudes have changed over time.  By failing to consider prostitutes’ status and place in society was not the result of prejudices against the poor, women, or particularly poor women, it is difficult, if not impossible to conclude that the difficulties prostitutes faced were not the result of those biases.

For instance Butler mentions that rapes of prostitutes were rarely prosecuted.  Since Butler did not supply more information about society as a whole, I was left to wonder how often rape was prosecuted regardless of the victim’s social, economic, or occupational status.  Were rapes more likely to be prosecuted if the victim was affluent? Simply poor but not a prostitute?   A resident of a big city in the northeastern US?  While Butler devotes lots of time to the awkward relationship that prostitutes had with police and governmental officials, she does not stop to examine if prostitutes simply did not report the crime of rape to officials.

In a similar vein, it is difficult to discern whether the difficulties prostitutes endured in the Old West were the result of their occupation or a general animosity towards poor women.

Despite this shortcoming, the book serves as an interesting spotlight into the Old West generally as well as the prostitutes of the time.

Ladies of the Lamplight front cover

By Kay Reynolds Blair
Published in 1971 by Timberline Books

I’m not sure if this is the least dirty book in the Library’s holdings, but I am sure though that it is the only one my mother would approve of. I know this not because mom was fond of ladies of questionable virtue. Instead, I know this because mom bought this book while we were on vacation when I was still in elementary school. While a wiseacre might suggest that I was doomed from the start, I will think of it as a belated (and unmentioned) present. But I digress.

Containing short biographies of the women who lived in and around the mining boom towns of Colorado after the Civil War, Ladies of the Lamplight is an entertaining remembrance of those women whose stories are often forgotten by more “respectable” histories and historians. My only complaint was that this little booklet was far too short – I would have really enjoyed more and/or longer stories of the ladies discussed.

Poker Alice

Though Ladies of the Lamplight isn’t dedicated solely to telling the stories of prostitutes in the old west, most of the women described were involved in prostitution in some form or fashion for at least part of their lives. Feminists reading this work might blather incessantly, as is their wont, about how that was indicative of women’s lower social status in the patriarchy and further decry that the world is works in much the same way today.  But that misses the point entirely.  What makes the women described in Ladies of the Lamplight noteworthy decades after their passing wasn’t their flaunting of gender conventions, it was their flaunting of social conventions altogether.

Even though Poker Alice wasn’t associated with prostitution or bawdy houses (at least so far as this book is concerned) I couldn’t help but reproduce her photo.  If Alice makes you horny, you are a sicker person than I – Godspeed in finding true love, you sicko.

The Pleasure’s All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive front cover

by Joan Kelly
Published in 2006 by Carroll & Graf

This book opened my eyes to the mere existence of professional submissives.   No doubt I’m naïve, but while I’m familiar the concept of a professional Master/Mistress (I’ve met several), being a professional submissive always seemed too risky a proposition. At least that’s certainly the impression I have gleaned from repeated reading of memoirs of ordinary hookers and true crime books.  I can’t help but wonder where professional submissives would fit in the pecking order of sex workers. My best guess is that, like with mainstream sex workers, independents have a higher status than agency girls in turn who have a higher status than street workers.  But that’s just a guess.  At any rate, they certainly are much less visible than other categories of sex workers. If Kelly’s book accomplishes nothing else, she single-handedly has raised the profile of professional submissives not just in my mind, but the alternative sexuality consciousness.  For that feat alone she deserves kudos.

Readers hoping for shocking descriptions of sexual depravity won’t be entirely disappointed, but for the most part the interests of Kelly’s clients are, to a full-fledged pervert like me, fairly tame.  The most shocking part for me was her admission that the sight of an extremely well endowed man’s cock excited her immensely. You’ll have to read the book to learn the rest, but it did confirm what men always know and women usually lie about: size really does matter.

Why the book is short on the lurid, I don’t know. It does not seem likely that it was because her clients simply lacked any other outlet for their kinky explorations. Nor do I think they were simply too shy to share their more extreme desires. (I have often found myself suprised to hear others openly talk abour kinks I would be loathe to ever admit to. Similarly, I’m often surprised to hear about the kinks that folks would rather die than discuss.) What seems more likely is that in order to engage in edgier play one needs to have a more intimate relationship with their partner than one can have in a professional session (I’m sure those familiar with the requests made of professional Masters/Mistresses might quibble with that point, but the difference is that it requires much less commitment to have something done to you, than it does to do to someone else. The notable exception is your average sociopath, though they are notoriously poor negotiators.)

I suppose it’s also possible that lurid descriptions of scenes aren’t included because Kelly simply didn’t include them perhaps out of the fear it would hurt her credibility.  The credibility of a memoir is always suspect. People’s recollections tend to paint themselves in the best (or occasionally worst) possible light. This is especially true when for memoirs about illicit activities. That said, Kelly’s account seems fairly credible to me with one exception: early in her career as a submissive she describes a humiliating encounter with a client who cancelled a session appointment to play with a more attractive colleague.  Though I’m familiar with the magic of photography and makeup, looking at Kelly’s photo on the cover and in pictures from her book tour reveal her to be very attractive (my crappy scan notwithstanding). I find it hard to believe that she would passed over because of her looks.

The only flaw in this book is its extremely abrupt ending.  While it was refreshing that Kelly didn’t proffer any regrets about her career turning the book into a morality tale or try to eloquently defend the choices she made, when I got to the last page I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a final chapter that was omitted.  Perhaps rather than an omission, the final chapter in Kelly’s memoir has to be written. Abrupt ending aside, The Pleasure’s All Mine is a great book that every kinky person should read.