Paying for it [Tapa dura]

After eight years of waiting, we are finally graced with a new comic by Chester Brown. Brown's oeuvre is rich and varied, covering such diverse topics as outrageous, scatological farce, introspective childhood memoirs, Bible adaptations, surreal fiction (complete with it's own language) and historical biography. Throughout the course of his career, Brown has challenged Bible scholars and the psychological community, to name a few. In this new book, Brown uses autobiography to challenge prostitution laws and their morality in general. Never one to back down from controversy, Brown takes a hands-on look at the profession by not only reading up on said subject, but perusing several prostitutes over the course of a decade. These encounters are depicted in a rather cold and stoic style, neither romanticizing nor sensationalizing them. Brown uses clear, concise facts to show his experiences and he succeeds rather admirably.

Brown has obviously had it with the notion of "romantic love", yet still wants to have sex. He decides to peruse the services of a prostitute, yet has no idea how to go about this task. After cruising streets he believes prostitutes would hang out, he goes online to find one. He has quite a few encounters with different ladies... some with regularity, some only once. He encounters many problems... fear he might get assaulted, concern for their working conditions, age, etc... wrestling with certain moral dilemma, even feelings of attachment that comes up for one of the ladies. Brown pulls no punches and doesn't hesitate to portray himself badly. He's particularly hung up about age, as a woman in her late 20s is deemed "too old". That Brown can be brainwashed by mass culture in this way (young=better) is one of many instances that shows Brown is not operating from some moral high ground. The same can be said for his inability to hold on to a "romantic" relationship. He reminds me of Cerebus author Dave Sim in this way... "I've failed in romance, so there must be something wrong with romantic love." Despite this faulty logic, Brown comes off as totally sympathetic.

Besides taking you on his journey with prostitutes, Brown also has an ulterior motive for writing this book. He believes prostitution should be decriminalized. This, I believe, is where Brown gets into a rather dicey area. Brown is a Libertarian (once running for some office in Canada) and has literally swallowed their party line lock, stock and barrel. His take is the government should not regulate prostitution, it should just be decriminalized. Libertarians (much like Republicans lately) have a strong distrust in government and believe the free market will solve everything. This is naive on Brown's part. He feels the black market for prostitution will still exist if a license is needed to whore, as some ladies will want to keep their privacy. I think this logic is ridiculous. That's akin to saying why make drunk driving illegal, people are going to do it anyway. Without regulation, it would still be just as easy for underage girls to become hookers, not to mention the transmission of diseases. Brown's argument is: the government does not belong in our bedroom. To which I would say: if you are treating sex as a commodity (as Brown is championing), then taxation is not only fair, it's necessary. To give hookers a bye on paying their taxes is where Brown loses me. He cites poor conditions at a Nevada whorehouse (citing only one instance he's read) as reason to not regulate. In this case, Brown has taken his self-appointed role as champion of hookers a bit too far. I expected a bit more logic from him after the other points he's made in the book.

Having said that, Brown has given us a book that makes the reader think... about the profession, about laws and about our own morality. His drawing style is clean and not intrusive. One reviewer complained about the lack of expression in Brown's faces in this book, but over exaggerated faces and expressions would only marginalize the experiences this book conveys. Brown is definitely a cartoonist who has mastered his craft and knows what he is doing. The sex scenes are unflinching yet not gratuitous, which is a rare accomplishment, particularly in comics. From subject matter to research and execution, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

First, the good news: Chester Brown's "Paying for It, A Comic-Strip Memoir about Being a John," is a funny, honest, thought-provoking book. Through his minimalist illustrations (almost sketches, really), Brown tells the entertaining story of how and why he began frequenting prostitutes after his live-in girlfriend, Sook-Yin, decided that she was "falling in love with someone else" and wanted to share her bed with the other guy instead of him.

Most men might find this sort of domestic arrangement unacceptable, but Brown seems to casually accept it with no hard feelings. As underground comics legend Robert Crumb notes in his Introduction, and Brown's friend Seth observes in Appendix 23, the author is a rather cold fish with "a very limited emotional range compared to most people." So, after enduring two years of celibacy following his break-up with Sook-Yin, Brown decides that "paying for it" is the best way to reconcile his desire to have sex with his determination to NOT have a girlfriend. It's an odd choice, but one he believes is the most appropriate for him, given his disillusionment with even the concept of romantic love.

Unfortunately for Brown, prostitution is just as illegal in his native Canada as it is in the United States. This makes him more than a bit paranoid when it comes to trying to arrange his first appointments with the female escorts he sees advertising in some of Toronto's weekly newspapers. Brown's fumbling initial experiences are amusing, and even somewhat touching in an awkward way. But he eventually figures out how it all works.

From there it's onward to a revolving menu of carnal comfort food, at least as he describes it. Brown circulates among roughly two dozen different partners, before finally settling into monogamy with one. As the encounters proceed with each escort (all given fake names that are different from their already unreal "professional" names), Brown endures a fair amount of bad sex, has some truly awesome, wonderful sex, and struggles with a recurring sense of emptiness that often follows his erotic trysts.

This is where the book is at its best. Brown has an excellent ear for dialogue and a sharp eye for humor and irony. As one reviewer points out, the pillow talk Brown captures in his word balloons is pitch perfect even if his drawings are fairly flat and barely two-dimensional. As a bonus, Brown fills in the blanks between his "dates" by recounting conversations he has with his friends, many of which involve interesting discussions about the morality of what he is doing and the nature of what makes for a healthy relationship with another person, regardless of the context involved.

Along the way, Brown builds a convincing case for why prostitution should be decriminalized. After talking with numerous women, some of whom are "agency" or brothel escorts, and others who are independent contractors, he comes to the conclusion that Canada's laws against prostitution are more harmful than the vices they are meant to stop. Brown persuasively argues that most of the social ills blamed on the sex trade are a direct result of the fact that the ladies who engage in sex for pay are marginalized as people and not treated with the same dignity and respect as other providers of personal professional services. His logic here is difficult to refute, as is his assertion that many prostitutes freely choose, and even appreciate, their jobs, particularly when they can earn more money from taking intimate appointments than by doing anything else, and also get to set their own schedule and see a roster of regular clients.

The bad news is that Brown doesn't quit when he's ahead. Having articulated a clear view of why the status quo is unacceptable, he then becomes enamored of the idea that only a totally laissez faire, free-market approach to prostitution is the correct policy for sex workers and consumers alike. According to the artist, all regulation of the business is inherently evil and wrong, even when the goals are to protect the workers and the public health and welfare. Instead, he refers to imaginary, so-called "sexual civil rights" for individuals, without ever acknowledging that all rights generate corresponding responsibilities for citizens to behave with a measure of restraint. Furthermore, given that not all forms of prostitution are benign or identical, local communities have every reason to uphold their own standards and seek some degree of control over sex workers whose actions cross the line between exercising their own rights and causing harm to others. Contrary to what Crumb says about prostitutes, in his Introduction to "Paying for It," not all efforts to regulate their business are based on "liberal do-gooders' attempts to `reform' them." Regulation is about balancing the rights of adults to do what they want in their own lives, and with their own bodies, with everybody else's rights to not be victimized by people who cannot control themselves.

It's easy to tell what's behind the breakdown in Brown's logic. For all of his obvious intelligence, as the book delves deeper into the realms of gender politics and sociology, the writer's self-awareness starts to slide into a more ideological tone. Once again, the narrator's friend, Seth, nails it in Appendix 23, saying: "Often his [Brown's] opinion is a little too dogmatic for my tastes -- a little too tied to the libertarian party-line." Readers may well feel the same when Brown resorts to cherry-picking sources to suit his own philosophy.

For example, Appendix 17 of "Paying for It" approvingly cites psychologist Jeffrey Schaler's work "Addiction Is A Choice" by agreeing with him that substance abuse is not a disease. Brown quotes Schaler denying "that there is any such thing as `addiction,' in the sense of a deliberate and conscious course of action which the person literally cannot stop doing." Really? This claim is ridiculously simplistic and absurd on its face. Aside from the many well-documented studies of how long-term alcohol and opioid abuse causes physical changes in the brains of heavy drinkers and addicts, interfering with the normal function of their neurotransmitters, has either Brown or Schaler ever been around a junkie craving a hit of heroin? Glib theory is no match for the stark reality of watching a woman get dope-sick and go through withdrawal symptoms because she cannot smoke or shoot up the narcotics her body wants.

Elsewhere, Brown tends to extrapolate from his own experiences with prostitutes, and generalize about how their relatively upscale escort business is representative of paid sex at the lower end of the pecking order. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While the commercial dynamics of the transaction may be the same, there is a world of difference between the young lady who decides to earn good money the old-fashioned way, by entertaining professional gentlemen at her safe worksite, and the old (or underage) streetwalker hustling for small change from the more dangerous customers in the red-light district. Brown gives short shrift to the tougher problems that desperate women have to overcome, just to survive, when they are soliciting strangers in public places and struggling to avoid the police, violent johns, hard drugs, and all of the other obstacles in their path.

Admittedly, Brown does appear to recognize the very real crimes of human trafficking and sexual slavery in our culture today. Even there, though, he complains about how any attempt to regulate prostitution would be more apt to result in a "black market," where girls would be powerless to defend themselves, than it would serve as a tool to identify and eliminate such abusive underground operations. At the risk of sounding patriarchal, it's just difficult to take him seriously when he speculates that an environment in which anything goes would be more beneficial for women than one in which their basic human rights are protected.

Altogether, "Paying for It" is a fine memoir that everyone with an open mind should enjoy. With all due respect to Alan Moore, whose praise on the back jacket cover is effusive, I don't know if "this book will love you long time," and reward repeated readings, but it is definitely worth perusing at least once. Brown's latest creation belongs in that rare category of graphic biographies that makes you laugh and think at the same time.

It doesn't seem like "a comic-strip memoir about being a john" would be the primary place to hold forth on the legalization of prostitution but Mr. Brown has managed to pull it off pretty successfully. It shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose. Ever since the publication of Maus, the use of the comic strip to take on serious issues has become much more common and it is a powerful medium. Mr. Brown takes full advantage of it here.

His story begins with his break-up with his girlfriend, Sook-yin. He continues to live with her and her new boyfriend and though he doesn't seem bothered by jealousy, he does decide he needs sexual companionship so he begins looking into finding a prostitute. We follow him as he has his first encounter. We learn with him about the business--incalls vs. outcalls, pimps, tipping, rating websites. We hear his discussions with his friends as he becomes more vocal about his understanding of prostitution and the reasons it should be legalized. It is an interesting journey.

Of course, I expected to find this interesting because I agree with the concept that prostitution should be legalized, though I discovered that we differ on certain aspects; for example, I feel it should be regulated and taxed. And I was left wondering if Mr. Brown is the best spokesman for the issue since he does come across as a bit odd, particularly in his relationships. I've already mentioned his contentment at living with his old girlfriend and her new boyfriend. There's also the fact that he ends his story in a long-term relationship with a prostitute who he continues to pay even though they're in an exclusive partnership. It's not that I feel these things are wrong. They are just atypical.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Make sure to read the appendices and notes at the end of the book. In particular, read appendix 23, "Seth's Notes". Seth is a friend of Mr. Brown's who comments on the scenes in which he appears. It spoke very closely to the feeling I had about the author as I read this book. As Seth writes: "The truth is, Chester seems to have a very limited emotional range compared to most people...That said, he is also the kindest, gentlest and most deeply thoughtful oddball I know." It's well said, as are many of the things it this book.