Tyler Stoddard Smith

I don't know why, but when I first picked up this book I thought it was going to be one of those dryish intellectual histories about sex which seem to be like, everywhere. I guess I have been trained by all those times when I pick up something about sex and it's like, "A Serious Look on..." which is understandable if I'm reading about sexual minorities or women's lives but damn, every single time? It's like the camera is panning towards softly blowing curtains, forever. Especially with a subtitle like "A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession" and a cover picture of like, a medieval woodcut. Practically screams, "I'm a bit bashful about the whole sex thing, sorry."

But instead it is like a very long cracked.com list. and I love cracked.com! A cracked.com "6 things you didn't know about prostitution" that is 250 pages.

Here are two things I learned:
1. There is a whorehouse kinda near Area 51 which is sci-fi/alien themed, called The Alien Cathouse. Yes, there do appear to be hos body painted green, and the bar has a "Quark's Bar" sign. I went to the website, and it is disappointing, actually :(
2. Mary Jane "Bricktop" Jackson. She stabbed any guy who dissed her with her specially made double-stabby knife (a blade at each end, like darth maul). There was a man who called her a whore, that's a stabbin'. Then there was a guy who told her and her friends to stop using foul language at the bar they hanging out in, so he got a stabbin'. Then there was this really tall guy (like 7 feet), they argued over what direction he might fall after she stabbed him, so she stabbed him to prove she was right (he fell forward). And then this story:

After going to prison for a bit for the foul language stabbin', she met prison guard John Miller. John Miller had lost an arm, and replaced it with a iron ball and chain (!!!). These two, knowing that they had found in each other a soul mate, took to luring johns to secluded areas where they will be beaten with their pants down (by a man with with a freakin' MACE ATTACHED TO HIS ARM). One day, Mr Miller thought he should show Bricktop who's boss by whippin' her. HA! Bricktop took control of the whip and started whippin' his ass. When he tried to hit her with his mace arm, she grabbed it! and started draggin him around the room by his ball. Then he tried to stab her, but come on. Bricktop stabbed him. She went to jail, but only served a few months of her sentence until the civil war broke out, then I guess I governor of Louisiana was like, fuck it, and let 'em all out. And she was never heard from again.… (mer)