Sincerely Scandalous Soundbites
- “Being a callgirl is the perfect employment for the struggling single mother or careerist.”
- “There is such a thing as a Holy Feminine Trinity. It’s the very essence of Goddess: nurturing, healing, erotic.”
- “The callgirl has discovered that Prince Charming can be plural.”
Press Coverage
If you’re a subscriber to Harper’s Magazine, you have online access to read selected quotes from A Woman Whose Calling Is Men in my piece entitled “Working Grrls” in the August 2007 issue. Please click here to be directed to the article on Harper’s web site.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A Maternal and Spiritual Prostitute
Mother of three portrays compassionate (“true”) prostitution
Greater Boston, Massachusetts — In the nineteen-nineties, a degreed yet very poor single mom became an independent callgirl. Soon she discovered that most men are nice guys, paid sex can be therapeutic, the demand for the service is endless, “mothers’ hours” are normal, and the money is simply outstanding. Only three things are missing: social acceptance, the support of most feminists, and a mandated set of high standards.
She saw that those deficits, and not the work itself, are the circumstances that cause whores to suffer. Aphrodite Phoenix (penname) felt driven to articulate her findings. She also recognized that the autobiographical genre might powerfully drive home her points.
This read is unique amongst well-known “hooker books” because the author/sex worker is a mother. She’s rescued her family by committing the all-time big female offense.
She shows how self-renewal and empowerment, enriched by compassion and humanism, are the qualities that render such a huge taboo unjust. Her story is also the missing link in most of the Goddess “herstories”. The primordial temple priestess/whore, who sexually facilitated the worship of Great Mother, has rarely been deeply looked into. Here her praises are ecstatically sung.
Her 720-page work, A Woman Whose Calling is Men, became a two-volume set. The tone is empathetic toward men, and is characterized by a distinctly intellectual approval of female sexual power. She feels that men who read through it are very likely to smile. She feels that women who read it may come to understand that the greatest oppression of feminine strengths, as well as a true liberation, may be somewhere they never might have guessed.
Phoenix refers often to other published authors who have found self-fulfillment as “escorts”.
Book One, subtitled The Memoirs of a Priestess-Identified Prostitute, reveals the author’s daily routines when working as a callgirl. Nine consecutive chapters portray, in profound and abundant detail, her encounters with her clients, and her work-related feelings. The next eight chapters disclose the conditions that drove this single mother to try indoor prostitution. Here she describes her personal growth from depressed, overwhelmed, and impoverished, into a principled, independent, highly-paid sex worker with adequate time for her family.
The last collection of chapters, however, is a memoir of many dark nights of the soul. This is a candid and torturous portrayal of the author’s two serious romantic relationships endured while she’s been a prostitute.
All women who have known the abuse of a man will relate to her account of the first. A man initially loving toward her turned out to be a classic abuser. What makes this tale horribly relevant is that the author intends to have the reader understand that there are three harmful forces out there that drove her straight into his arms, and she imbues those bad elements with the feminine gender, and she aptly calls them by name: they are Loneliness, Isolation, and Stigma. Her message is that a sex worker must contend with those “bitches” on a daily, exhausting basis, and it’s a losing, demoralizing battle, and that’s how she ends up — so crushed and alone — falling for the wiles of pimpish men.
The second romantic entanglement made her near-suicidal and broke. That’s what can happen when a callgirl falls in love with a normal, conventional guy… and finds that she’s likely to lose him, or never entirely win him, entirely because of her work, even if she quits that work. An underlying cause of that tragedy could again be the “three ugly sisters.” If the “sisters” would help to make sex work more acceptable, instead of just turning away, maybe men would learn not to be so double-standard in their personal involvement with a sex worker.
That second relationship is also the platform for the author’s deepest beliefs, which are voiced like a chorus in the background throughout both books in the set. She feels that honest, devoted, sensual marital bonds are the highest, most liberating, most gender-transcending love, and worth almost any sacrifice. There’s nothing wrong about “escorting”, if it’s done with much self-respect; and the women who “escort” can actually aid the institution of marriage. But marital love is the supreme thing, the main thing, and Phoenix profoundly reveres it.
Book Two, subtitled Her Visions and Advocacies, is for readers who want to be better-informed about prostitutes, their clients, their venues, and the truth about what makes whores suffer. Phoenix has labored hard to inspire an unbiased, balanced understanding. Many strong arguments in defense of the work are elaborately presented. She divides sex workers into two basic groups: the empowered and the victimized. Both groups are closely scrutinized, and the probable causes of their extremely disparate experiences are emphatically emphasized.
The people who head the abolition of prostitution are severely criticized. Their endeavor is shown to be both futile and oppressive. Feminism in general is both praised and lamented, and in the process, offered a new mission.
Book Two is also a practical tool for the reader who would like to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the business — the actual physical realities, and how the autonomous prostitute maneuvers: her advertisements, her avoidance of arrest, her avoidance of disease, and her qualification of clients.
To contact Aphrodite Phoenix or request review copies, visit www.priestesswoman.com.
About the Author
Aphrodite Phoenix is the author of a two-volume set, entitled A Woman Whose Calling is Men. The genre is a mixed bag of autobiography, exposé, and vindication, along with a hint of how-to, imbued with a precedent she believes is much-needed, a sincere code of ethics for prostitutes. The pivotal subject is “escort” prostitution as the author has known it and shaped it.
Aphrodite is middle-aged. She was born on Long Island and raised all over New York, eventually coming to reside in her teens on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. As a young adult, she relocated to eastern Massachusetts, and has since then mostly lived there. The greater Boston area has also been the setting for most of her work in “escorting”.
The author holds a B.A. in English, and has three grown sons and four grandchildren. She cites her past trials as a poor single mother, bereft of support from any relatives or the fathers, as the drive behind her huge makeover into an independent, financially secure, albeit illicit sex worker. She has recently retired from the profession, because of a romantic relationship.