Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire

A 10-year veteran of the sex industry takes readers on a seedy tour of low-rent massage parlors and peep shows where she vamps in high heels and corsets, guides creepy men to ejaculate on her breasts and offers views of her privates to embarrassed gawkers. Lewis admires her co-workers and is bitingly negative about her clients. "It occurred to me that sex work was much like toilet training," she writes. "We were paid to manage, direct, and tolerate their waste, ignoring the stench and cooing over their various evacuations, like erotic bathroom attendants." She also claims to be baffled by porn's appeal, which seems disingenuous considering her often astute analysis of the mechanics of the trade. Although crudely frank about sexual positions and bodily fluids, Lewis, a 34-year-old bisexual, is slippery about her own background and motivations. Her protests that her self-esteem isn't low ring false, and its doubtful readers will believe that a National Merit scholar and self-described feminist is actually happy peeing herself for the camera. This sad exercise in denial misses the mark as either titillating erotica or bold affirmation of personal autonomy. (Oct.)