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Chicken: Self-portrait of a Young Man for Rent
by David Henry Sterry
Harper Collins
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Pity the poor hustler-- all work and no plays usually makes for a dull boy and more often than not, a dull read. It used to be, at least in the 1950s and early 1960s, that whore memoirs were usually celebratory. Polly Adler's A House is Not a Home and Kenneth Marlow's Mr. Madam glorified the American prostitute even as they pretended that the "life" was all so (well, moderately) horrible. Maybe it is because in the ostensibly dull 1950s being a whore and a hustler was, well, sort of like being a movie star: it may have been degrading work, but at least it was more interesting than being a regular person. In a visceral way, it was an embodiment of the Horatio Alger view of the American Dream-- poor boy/girl makes good by pulling him/herself up by the boot/bra straps. Prostitution-- and especially being a Madam (Mr. or Ms.)-- was an only slightly disreputable form of capitalism. Now in these days of Enron-- where every capitalist is prone to take the Fifth-- those involved in flesh-peddling take a dimmer view of their activities and lives.

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Two years ago, Rick Whitaker's Assuming the Position gained some notice for its dour view of sex, drugs, and alcohol in the life of its author. Assuming a literary pose-- along with a variety of sexual positions-- Whitaker regaled us not only with tales of his tail, but dressed them up with references to the likes of Leonard Woolf, Walt Whitman, Kierkegaard, Andrew Marvell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Whitaker's life may have been low-down, but his cultural tastes were high-tone. Praised by some for its honesty, Assuming the Position read more like a exercise in slumming. After all, Whitaker is a bright educated boy "with potential," but we are told again and again that all of his clients are more pathetic than he.

The newest entry into the boy hustler genre is mostly heterosexual. At first glance Chicken: Self-portrait of a Young Man for Rent has a cheap, sort of likable quality to it that makes it closer to Mr. Madam than to the pity-poor-me tone of television movies. It is more "Jerry Springer" than "Oprah," and its 1970s setting brings to mind the more endearing and enticing moments of Boogie Nights (only without the charms of Mark Wahlberg). Perched on the edge of not-quite-believable-- Sterry flees his dysfunctional family after his mother turns dyke with her best friend and his mean-spirited father just gets meaner and attends a Catholic college in LA that has no dorms so he ends up on the street-- the book begins with an Andy Warholesque flavor (remember Flesh and Trash?) but soon degenerates into a silly, self-indulgent plea for sympathy and understanding.

One of the problems with Chicken is that Sterry is at stylistic war with himself. Never resisting a chance to fall into a silly speed-rap Ken Kesey-type banter-- Lord preserve us from run-on sentences punctuated by one word ejaculations-- he simply becomes loud without casting much illumination, prattling on and on without much direction.

There are some stunning moments of surrealism, such as an SM costume party that resembles the silliness of the orgy in Eyes Wide Shut. But for the most part, this is a dreary recitation of a dreary job and life.

Part of the problem is that Sterry does not have a lot of empathy with his clients. (One wonders how good a lay he actually was.) All his tricks are presented as pathetic or silly or tedious in what eventually feels like a constant attempt to make himself look better. And it's not as though he doesn't have some good material here. In one chapter, he's hired by a middle-aged woman who wants him to make love to her dressed as her dead teenage son: now that is a story. But once again, Sterry is more interested in his own pain and confusion than in anyone else.

This lack of empathy is bolstered by Sterry's structuring of the narrative so that his sexual adventures are intercut with pertinent memories from his childhood. This sort of rudimentary technique-- perhaps suggested by an editor at the end of his or her rope-- might work if it were handled correctly. But here it's not. The grieving mom is juxtaposed with a Little League game; the SM orgy is contrasted with the pet dog birthing a litter-- it's all a little too obvious and a little too uninteresting.

Worst of all is Sterry's startling aversion to homosex. Time and again he's faced with the possibility or the reality of sex with men, and each time it's a physical or emotional nightmare. Obviously Sterry shouldn't have sex with men if he doesn't want to-- although many for-pay boys do consider it part of the job. But his revulsion goes unexamined and unexplained. (Of course, if we are going to have gay sex juxtaposed with his disastrous first time at dance class, or with finger-painting in kindergarten, maybe we're better off without explanations.)

In the end, Chicken feels homophobic not only because this memoirist can't imagine having gay sex, but because he can't even imagine talking about it. This profound refusal to enter into a broader world of sexuality supplies the backbone of hypocritical morality to Sterry's memoir. For Sterry, sex-for-pay is bad not because it's wrong, but because, in addition yourself, it's actually about other people.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com