David Henry Sterry - Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

David Henry Sterry

I JUST ORDERED a sixty-five-dollar steak. I have shoes that dont cost sixty-five dollars. Sitting across from me is the head of a television network. To my right is a well-known television producer. To my left is a well-known television writer. We are in one of those trendy, swanky, chic-y restaurants smack dab in the middle of Sunset Strip. Its full of women in short skirts with heaving cleavage and men with facial stubble wearing very overpriced cologne. There is hobbing and nobbing going on all around us and, periodically, successful-looking producer dudes come to genuflect before the head of the network, practically kissing his ring like he was the Pope.

This Hollywood Pope and these well-heeled and well-appointed television men want to make a TV series out of a book I wrote. Its about when I was seventeen years old, turning tricks not more than a stones throw from where I sit now, in the heart of tony money. Theyre discussing handsome young actors who could play me and beautiful starlets who could portray the women who gave me money to have sex with them. My head is reeling, surrealing; my mind cant quite wrap around this full-circle moment.

I flash back to 1974, standing in front of what was then Graumans Chinese Theater, alone with nothing but twenty-seven dollars in the pocket of my nut-hugging elephant bells. A very nice man wearing a T-shirt that said SEXY started talking to me as if he was my best friend. At a certain point, he asked me if Id like to come back to his place. To have a steak. That steak would cost me a lot more than sixty-five dollars. In fact, it was the most expensive steak of my life. After he used me in ways I hate to remember but cant force myself to forget, I escaped with my life. As the sun was coming up, I was in a dumpster about to eat some fried chicken garbage when another very nice man approached me. Turns out, he was a talent scout for the sex business. A week later, I was having sex for money.

I was only in the business for nine months. One human gestation period. At the same time, I was attending a college run by nuns. Naturally, my favorite subject was Existentialism. When I retired from the business, I left Hollywood and I never again wanted to think about the fact that Id been a prostitute. Over the next twenty years, I tried to bury it so deep inside of me that Id never have to face that part of myself. But I kept putting myself in situations where death would be a likely outcome. Luckily, my skull is as thick and strong as my will to live. Nevertheless, it became clear to me at a certain point that I was going to have to go face-to-face, toe-to-toe, tte--tte with the demons that were eating me alive from the inside. Or I was going to die.

After a search that took years, I finally found someone to help me. A hypnotherapist. At a certain point, my doctor said that since I was making my living writing screenplays, perhaps I should try to write my own story. Due to my sick persistence, and using many skills I acquired in the world of industrial sex, my writing found its way into the hands of a literary agent in New York City. She was very curious about the fiction Id written, which was not my true story at all. I still couldnt face the truth at that point. I couldnt write down the worst things that had ever happened to me.

We started dating. Me and the agent. In fact, on our first date we ended up back at her place. Suddenly it was four oclock in the morning, and she asked me those questions you have to ask these days when you are interested in someone.

So, she said, have you slept with a lot of people?

That depends what you mean by a lot, I smiled.

Well, she said, have you ever had sex with a prostitute?

Normally this is where I would lie about myself. Hide behind the veil of charm I have worn since I was seventeen years old. But after all that hypnotherapy, I had finally hit rock bottom. About three months earlier, I had been dumped by a fiance I didnt even like. Thats when I made the decision that I would no longer hide my true colors.

So in my normal, calm, big-boy voice, I said:

Actually, I was a prostitute.

Instead of running horrified, screaming into the night, my New York literary agent got a quizzical, but definitely sympathetic look on her face and asked:

Wow, thats interesting; tell me about that.

So I did. SEXY, the steak, the sex business talent scout. The rich Beverly Hills ladies. The Hollywood Hills lesbians who hired me to wear nothing but a black see-through French maids apron and clean their house while they humiliated me and made furious love to each other. The Pacific Palisades woman who paid me to dress in the clothes of her dead teenage son and have sex with her.

When I was done, my literary agent said:

Thats the book you should write.

So I did.

WRITING DOWN THE worst (and the best) things that ever happened to me completely changed my life. The demons that had been feasting on me for so long were exorcised; they flew out of me as the words poured onto the page. At times, when I was writing Chicken, Id suddenly realize there were tears streaming down my face. I was weeping and I didnt even know it. The release was so complete it liberated me in a way I could never have imagined. And when the book was published, many members of my family didnt speak to me for quite some time. The shame in our culture associated with being a prostitute is so profound it affects people in ways they dont even realize.

After Chicken came out, I was invited to a gathering with some writers and literati types, many of whom were college professors. My host was introducing everybody. He said, This is Harvey Shlmeel, he wrote a fabulous book about the 1919 Black Sox scandal. And this is Barry Shlmozzle, he wrote a marvelous book about the mating habits of the Tasmanian mole. And this is David Henry Sterry, he was a prostitute.

Deafening silence filled the room, time standing still, discomfort hanging heavy while feet shuffled, eyes averted, and throats were cleared. The whole rest of the night I was an object of curiosity, a sex freak geek in a traveling side show. Some wanted to talk economics, how much was I paid, how much work did I do? Some wanted to talk sex, tell me about the judge in diapers. Some just gawked. But they all had a certain over-entitled, condescending, smarter-than-thou-ness that simultaneously made my balls shrivel and my fists clench. It is that automatic assumption that an industrial sex technician is a) a drug addict; b) illiterate; c) uneducated; d) a slut. It slaps you in the face when you announce in public that you are a ho, hooker, call girl, or rent boy. Well, I finally told someone there that night, Look, Im not a drug addict, I know lots of big words, and I got a very expensive education. Okay, I may be a slut, but Im not alone there.

Nevertheless, for every painful incident, there were amazing, life-changing people, places, and things placed in my path. I still get emails from people all over the world in response to

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