Paying For It
Encyclopedia
Paying for It, "a comic strip memoir about being a john", is a 2011 bestselling
graphic novel
by award-winning Canadian
cartoonist
Chester Brown
, released by Drawn and Quarterly
.
The book is a combination of memoir
and polemic
, and is concerned with Brown's conflicting desire to have sex, but not wanting to have another girlfriend. His solution is to forgo traditional boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and marriage
and to take up the life of a "john" by frequenting prostitutes
. Brown comes to advocate prostitution as superior to the "possesive monogamy" of traditional male-female relations, which he debates with his friends throughout the book.
He presents his views in detail in the closing 50-page text section, which includes a 23-part appendix
and footnotes. Despite being about the separation of sex from romantic love, Brown says, "It is a type of love story."
breaks up with him in 1996, Brownwho lacks the social skills to pick up women,spends a celibate
three years mulling over what he sees as the negative aspects of romantic love in the modern world. He continues to live with Sook-Yin, even after she brings other men to live with them, and Brown witnesses their lovers' spats. He decides never to pursue a relationship with any one woman againa condition he calls "possessive monogamy
"but he has "two competing desires--the desire to have sex, versus the desire to NOT have a girlfriend."
Eventually, he works up the courage to see a prostitute. He rides around on his bicycle looking for streetwalkers
, but being unsuccessful, turns to the ads in the backs of free alternative newspapers. After his first experience, he feels free from a "burden" he had carried from adolescence.
Over the course of 33 short chapters, Brown depicts his experiences with each of the 23 prostitutes he has visited (one of whom went under two different names), giving each at least a chapter of her own. He gives details of their physical features and sexual performances, while obscuring their faces and ethnicities and giving them false names. He "becomes an expert" and goes into the details of the trade, learning how to solicit and tip, and what the abbreviations in johns' reviews at the Toronto escort review board mean. At first he uses the pseudonym
"Steve McDougal" in his encounters, but, feeling he has nothing to hide, soon reverts to using his real name.
Between his encounters with prostitutes are scenes of himself discussing and debating the issue with his friends, especially fellow cartoonists Seth and Joe Matt
. Much of the humour in the book comes from the dialogue in these scenes.
In the final chapter, "Back to Monogamy", he ends up with one particular prostitute, "Denise"albeit still in a strictly financial wayfor seven years as of the book's publication. Brown ends the book still wondering about the nature of love, and insisting that "paying for sex isn’t an empty experience if you’re paying the right person for sex", but leaves the question of romantic love essentially open.
and ran as the Libertarian Party of Canada
candidate for the Trinity-Spadina riding in the Canadian federal elections of 2008
and 2011
.
Brown takes the position throughout the comic and its lengthy appendix that prostitution
should be decriminalized, and as a libertarian insists the sex trade should not be regulated by the government. In his view, the world would be a happier place if sex were treated as any other business transaction and traditional male-female relations (like marriage) disappeared.
, and which "he never veers from" (somewhat like the six-panel pages he used in Louis Riel
), "using frail, tiny figures, preventing our involvement with the bodies depicted on the page." The women's faces are obscured by word balloons, and Brown's eyes, "behind blank and affectless
glasses", are never seen. He says that over the years he has "become less comfortable portraying emotion," and went so far as to scrap 30-40 pages of work around 2007 when he felt he had put too much emotion in the artwork.
While Brown himself has been totally open about his visits with prostitutes, all the prostitutes in the book are depicted as "faceless brunettes", in order to keep the real women in the story from being identified by friends and family. Brown specualtes that a prose treatment may have had an advantage, in that it would not have required such an intrusive device to disguise the women.
Brown says he wanted the minimalist style of the drawings to convey the ordinariness of paying for sex. It is also his first major work to break from the traditional all-caps style of lettering in English
-language comic book
s and strips
.
Brown depicts himself showing little or no emotion. In a scene in which he debates prostitutes' health care with Seth, his outrage surfaces not in his face, but in a thought balloon in which a thunderstorm rages and takes over the panel. It has been noted that, although Brown depicts himself as dry and emotionless, in real life he has a ready sense of humour.
and Underwater
) towards a style inspired by the "very stylized, stiff look" of Fletcher Hanks
. Close friend Joe Matt
also had an influence. Some scenes deliberately echoed scenes in Matt's graphic novel Spent. He set scenes in places that had been depicted in Matt's comics, and did his own take on a restaurant scene that Matt had done.
Brown cites the "austerity" of the films of Robert Bresson
, who "instructed his actors not to show any emotion on their faces", as a major influence.
in the past, he makes clear that advocacy is the prime motivation for the book. He says that, if he had thought a fictional treatment would have served his purposes better, then that would have been the route he would have taken. He had considered that angle, but in the end decided that he wanted to make it clear that he had a personal stake in the issue based on his own experiences as a john.
The New York Times
compared Brown's pro-prostitution position to that of political philosopher Martha Nussbaum
. He also puts forward the idea that feminists
should be more consistent when it comes to the right to choseas with abortion
, "it's her body, it's her right."
s The Playboy
and I Never Liked You
.
Brown began to question traditional male-female relations after he had read Cerebus
#186, which contained an essay attacking the modern state of such relations. After Sook-Yin Lee
broke up with him, he felt that he no longer wanted to deal with the tensions of being in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. After three years of staying celibate, he decided he would start seeing prostitutes, although at first he was hesitant, as he didn't want to be seen as a "loser".
Brown made his visiting of prostitutes known to his friends and relatives (except for his stepmother) shortly after his first visit, and it had been made public long before the appearance of Paying for It, as in his interview with Dave Sim
in Cerebus #295-297, That he had been working on a graphic novel on the subject had been known in comics circles at least since 2004 when, in an interview with The Pulse, he says he explores some of René Girard
's theories of the origin of desire in his then-yet-unnamed book, and its appearance was much anticipated.
Brown's aversion to relationships with women drew tentative comparisons to friend and fellow cartoonist Dave Sim
, known for his controversial views on women. Brown responded to this by saying, "...I don't think women are intellectually inferior to men. But I like being alone." Brown also publicly debated the subject with Sim in the Getting Riel interview, while acknowledging that "Cerebus
#186 [the issue in which Sim first laid out his controversial views] did push me in the direction of questioning the whole romantic relationship thing".
and the Kris of Helder, Showing Helder and The Playboy
) objected to their stories being told in his book. He also intended to include more details of the prostitutes he visited, such as their interests and the conversations they had, but was afraid too much detail could identify themhe chose to respect their anonymity; this includes "Denise", the prostitute with whom he ended up having a long-term, monogamous relationship, and who refused to have more of herself included in the book. Brown didn't try to contact the other prostitutes about their portrayals.
Conversations and debates with Dave Sim
were also dropped, as their friendship fell through over Brown's refusal to sign an online petition asserting Sim was not a misogynist
, and Brown felt awkward asking Sim for permission to include those scenes.
Sook-Yin Lee
:Brown's third and last girlfriend. After she breaks up with him, he decides to forswear the "possessive monogamy" of traditional male-female relationships.
Seth
:Friend and fellow cartoonist, Seth spars with Brown over the issue of prostitution. He also provides the 23rd appendix to the book.
Joe Matt
:Friend and fellow cartoonist, Matt has also been celibate for a long stretch, and takes issue when Brown "cut[s] in line" and has sex before he does. The book is dedicated to him.
Justin Peroff
:A musician whom Lee starts seeing when she breaks up with Brown. He moves in with Brown and Lee for a time, but eventually breaks up with Lee and moves out two years later.
Kris Nakamura:Brown's first girlfriend, who has appeared in some of Brown's autobiographical comics
in the past. As of the publication of Paying For It, they have remained close friends for close to thirty years.
Gordon Brown:Chester's younger brother, who is happily married and lives in Québec City
at the time of the book.
s not to be serialized. Brown originally intended Louis Riel
to be published this way, but was convinced by Drawn and Quarterly
editor-in-chief Chris Oliveros to publish it as a series. Following poor sales of the pamphlet form of Louis Riel, Oliveros relented and gave Brown the go-ahead to publish Paying For It directly in book form. It was supported, as Louis Riel was, by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, this time for CAD
$16,000 which he received in 2005.
The title was not what Brown would have wanted. He wanted to have a more direct title that used words like "sex", "prostitute" or "trick". Some of the titles he floated around were I Pay for Sex or The Sex Life of John Brown but his publishers asked him to call it Paying for It, a title which rubbed him the wrong way, as "[i]t suggests that not only am I paying for sex but I’m also paying for being a john in some non-monetary way. Many would think that there’s an emotional cost — that johns are sad and lonely...I haven’t been 'paying for it' in any of those ways. I’m very far from being sad or lonely, I haven’t caught an S-T-D
, I haven’t been arrested, I haven’t lost my career, and my friends and family haven’t rejected me." He says that if he had insisted, Drawn and Quarterly
would have allowed him to call the book what he wanted, but Brown allowed the change of title, acknowledging how difficult the book would be to market.
Following the success of Louis Riel
, Drawn and Quarterly
anticipated high sales, printing nearly 20,000 copies of the first, hardcover edition of the book, for its May 3, 2011 release. The introduction was by famous underground
cartoonist Robert Crumb
, and the book includes quotes from Brown's peers such as Alan Moore
and Neil Gaiman
, as well as from writer and former call-girl Tracy Quan
, sex columnist Sasha
, and a number of academics.
The book reached #2 on Amazon's "Bestsellers in Graphic Novels" list, and on the The New York Times Best Seller list it was #2 on the "Hardcover Graphic Books" list.
judge Susan Himel
struck down several prostitution-related laws
in September 2010, which was to be appealed by the government of Canada in June 2011. "I was wishing that the book was out at that point,[...b]ut I hope it becomes influential enough to become part of the debate," Brown said.
The book's release party was on May 1, 2011, the day before the Canadian federal election of that year, in which Brown was running as the Libertarian Party of Canada
candidate for the Trinity-Spadina riding. The election was called early after a motion of no confidence
on March 25 resulted in the dissolution of Parliament. "Initially, I was a bit annoyed by the timing of the election," Brown said, "but it might turn out to be a good thing that I’m getting publicity at this time." Brown came fifth in his riding
with 454 votes, losing to incumbent Olivia Chow
.
The advocacy displayed in the voluminous pages of the appendix may have been a detriment to the work overall, according to Tom Spurgeon
at The Comics Reporter; "Give me scenes like the one where Brown argues with Seth over the issues, seething and impatient with Seth's answers and his own, desperate and human in wanting to make and win such discussions, over any number of facile dissections of each argument's actual merits." Brad MacKay of the Globe and Mail found that them "often amusing" and "thought-provoking," but sometimes "reductive and didactic." Critic R. Fiore found that Brown doesn't argue points well.
Obscuring the faces of the prostitutes could be seen as Brown objectifying
them, and with a feeling the book lacks a female perspective, "especially since all we see of them is their frequently naked bodies." Brown has also been criticized for treading lightly over darker issues, like human trafficking
, an oversight he acknowledges yet largely dismisses in the appendix; and class, one he barely acknowledges. Matt Seneca objected to paying for the book, as he felt the money would indirectly pay for the exploitation of prostitutes. Brown also raised eyebrows by claiming physical drug addiction
doesn't exist.
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
by award-winning Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Chester Brown
Chester Brown
Chester William David Brown , is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative cartoonist and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto, Canada....
, released by Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
.
The book is a combination of memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
and polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
, and is concerned with Brown's conflicting desire to have sex, but not wanting to have another girlfriend. His solution is to forgo traditional boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
and to take up the life of a "john" by frequenting prostitutes
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. Brown comes to advocate prostitution as superior to the "possesive monogamy" of traditional male-female relations, which he debates with his friends throughout the book.
He presents his views in detail in the closing 50-page text section, which includes a 23-part appendix
Appendix
Appendix may refer to:In documents:*Addendum, any addition to a document, such as a book or legal contract*Bibliography, a systematic list of books and other works...
and footnotes. Despite being about the separation of sex from romantic love, Brown says, "It is a type of love story."
Overview
After then-girlfriend Sook-Yin LeeSook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
breaks up with him in 1996, Brownwho lacks the social skills to pick up women,spends a celibate
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
three years mulling over what he sees as the negative aspects of romantic love in the modern world. He continues to live with Sook-Yin, even after she brings other men to live with them, and Brown witnesses their lovers' spats. He decides never to pursue a relationship with any one woman againa condition he calls "possessive monogamy
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
"but he has "two competing desires--the desire to have sex, versus the desire to NOT have a girlfriend."
Eventually, he works up the courage to see a prostitute. He rides around on his bicycle looking for streetwalkers
Street prostitution
Street prostitution is a form of prostitution in which a sex worker solicits customers from a public place, most commonly a street, while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street, but also other public places such as parks, beaches, etc. The street prostitute is often dressed in a...
, but being unsuccessful, turns to the ads in the backs of free alternative newspapers. After his first experience, he feels free from a "burden" he had carried from adolescence.
Over the course of 33 short chapters, Brown depicts his experiences with each of the 23 prostitutes he has visited (one of whom went under two different names), giving each at least a chapter of her own. He gives details of their physical features and sexual performances, while obscuring their faces and ethnicities and giving them false names. He "becomes an expert" and goes into the details of the trade, learning how to solicit and tip, and what the abbreviations in johns' reviews at the Toronto escort review board mean. At first he uses the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Steve McDougal" in his encounters, but, feeling he has nothing to hide, soon reverts to using his real name.
Between his encounters with prostitutes are scenes of himself discussing and debating the issue with his friends, especially fellow cartoonists Seth and Joe Matt
Joe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
. Much of the humour in the book comes from the dialogue in these scenes.
In the final chapter, "Back to Monogamy", he ends up with one particular prostitute, "Denise"albeit still in a strictly financial wayfor seven years as of the book's publication. Brown ends the book still wondering about the nature of love, and insisting that "paying for sex isn’t an empty experience if you’re paying the right person for sex", but leaves the question of romantic love essentially open.
Politics
Brown is a libertarianLibertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
and ran as the Libertarian Party of Canada
Libertarian Party of Canada
The Libertarian Party of Canada is a political party in Canada that subscribes to the tenets of the libertarian movement across Canada.-History:...
candidate for the Trinity-Spadina riding in the Canadian federal elections of 2008
Canadian federal election, 2008
The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008...
and 2011
Canadian federal election, 2008
The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008...
.
Brown takes the position throughout the comic and its lengthy appendix that prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
should be decriminalized, and as a libertarian insists the sex trade should not be regulated by the government. In his view, the world would be a happier place if sex were treated as any other business transaction and traditional male-female relations (like marriage) disappeared.
Style
Brown employs a "clinical" style with pages structured in an eight-panel grid which may have been inspired by the comics of Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
, and which "he never veers from" (somewhat like the six-panel pages he used in Louis Riel
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly...
), "using frail, tiny figures, preventing our involvement with the bodies depicted on the page." The women's faces are obscured by word balloons, and Brown's eyes, "behind blank and affectless
Affect (psychology)
Affect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect is a key part of the process of an organism's interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect" .The affective domain...
glasses", are never seen. He says that over the years he has "become less comfortable portraying emotion," and went so far as to scrap 30-40 pages of work around 2007 when he felt he had put too much emotion in the artwork.
While Brown himself has been totally open about his visits with prostitutes, all the prostitutes in the book are depicted as "faceless brunettes", in order to keep the real women in the story from being identified by friends and family. Brown specualtes that a prose treatment may have had an advantage, in that it would not have required such an intrusive device to disguise the women.
Brown says he wanted the minimalist style of the drawings to convey the ordinariness of paying for sex. It is also his first major work to break from the traditional all-caps style of lettering in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-language comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s and strips
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
.
Brown depicts himself showing little or no emotion. In a scene in which he debates prostitutes' health care with Seth, his outrage surfaces not in his face, but in a thought balloon in which a thunderstorm rages and takes over the panel. It has been noted that, although Brown depicts himself as dry and emotionless, in real life he has a ready sense of humour.
Influences
Brown moved his drawing away from the overt Harold Gray influence (as seen in Louis RielLouis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly...
and Underwater
Underwater
Underwater is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river. Three quarters of the planet Earth is covered by water...
) towards a style inspired by the "very stylized, stiff look" of Fletcher Hanks
Fletcher Hanks
Fletcher Hanks, Sr. was a cartoonist from the Golden Age of Comic Books, who wrote and drew stories detailing the adventures of all-powerful, supernatural heroes and their elaborate punishments of transgressors...
. Close friend Joe Matt
Joe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
also had an influence. Some scenes deliberately echoed scenes in Matt's graphic novel Spent. He set scenes in places that had been depicted in Matt's comics, and did his own take on a restaurant scene that Matt had done.
Brown cites the "austerity" of the films of Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
, who "instructed his actors not to show any emotion on their faces", as a major influence.
Advocacy
While Brown had explored autobiographyChester Brown's autobiographical comics
Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
in the past, he makes clear that advocacy is the prime motivation for the book. He says that, if he had thought a fictional treatment would have served his purposes better, then that would have been the route he would have taken. He had considered that angle, but in the end decided that he wanted to make it clear that he had a personal stake in the issue based on his own experiences as a john.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
compared Brown's pro-prostitution position to that of political philosopher Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
. He also puts forward the idea that feminists
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
should be more consistent when it comes to the right to choseas with abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, "it's her body, it's her right."
Male-female relations
Brown has focused on his problems with relating to women in previous works, most notably in his highly-acclaimed graphic novelGraphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
and I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You
I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex....
.
Brown began to question traditional male-female relations after he had read Cerebus
Cerebus the Aardvark
Cerebus the Aardvark, or simply Cerebus , is an independent comic book, written and illustrated by Canadian artist Dave Sim, with backgrounds by fellow Canadian Gerhard. Cerebus ran for 300 issues from December 1977 to 2004, and was over 6000 pages long, the longest-running original...
#186, which contained an essay attacking the modern state of such relations. After Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
broke up with him, he felt that he no longer wanted to deal with the tensions of being in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. After three years of staying celibate, he decided he would start seeing prostitutes, although at first he was hesitant, as he didn't want to be seen as a "loser".
Brown made his visiting of prostitutes known to his friends and relatives (except for his stepmother) shortly after his first visit, and it had been made public long before the appearance of Paying for It, as in his interview with Dave Sim
Dave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
in Cerebus #295-297, That he had been working on a graphic novel on the subject had been known in comics circles at least since 2004 when, in an interview with The Pulse, he says he explores some of René Girard
René Girard
René Girard is a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy...
's theories of the origin of desire in his then-yet-unnamed book, and its appearance was much anticipated.
Brown's aversion to relationships with women drew tentative comparisons to friend and fellow cartoonist Dave Sim
Dave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
, known for his controversial views on women. Brown responded to this by saying, "...I don't think women are intellectually inferior to men. But I like being alone." Brown also publicly debated the subject with Sim in the Getting Riel interview, while acknowledging that "Cerebus
Cerebus the Aardvark
Cerebus the Aardvark, or simply Cerebus , is an independent comic book, written and illustrated by Canadian artist Dave Sim, with backgrounds by fellow Canadian Gerhard. Cerebus ran for 300 issues from December 1977 to 2004, and was over 6000 pages long, the longest-running original...
#186 [the issue in which Sim first laid out his controversial views] did push me in the direction of questioning the whole romantic relationship thing".
Depictions of real people
Brown had originally intended the book to cover the history of his sex life, including losing his virginity and going through all his girlfriends, but two of his former girlfriends with whom he was still friends (Sook-Yin LeeSook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
and the Kris of Helder, Showing Helder and The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
) objected to their stories being told in his book. He also intended to include more details of the prostitutes he visited, such as their interests and the conversations they had, but was afraid too much detail could identify themhe chose to respect their anonymity; this includes "Denise", the prostitute with whom he ended up having a long-term, monogamous relationship, and who refused to have more of herself included in the book. Brown didn't try to contact the other prostitutes about their portrayals.
Conversations and debates with Dave Sim
Dave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
were also dropped, as their friendship fell through over Brown's refusal to sign an online petition asserting Sim was not a misogynist
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, and Brown felt awkward asking Sim for permission to include those scenes.
People depicted
(in order of appearance)Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
:Brown's third and last girlfriend. After she breaks up with him, he decides to forswear the "possessive monogamy" of traditional male-female relationships.
Seth
Seth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
:Friend and fellow cartoonist, Seth spars with Brown over the issue of prostitution. He also provides the 23rd appendix to the book.
Joe Matt
Joe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
:Friend and fellow cartoonist, Matt has also been celibate for a long stretch, and takes issue when Brown "cut[s] in line" and has sex before he does. The book is dedicated to him.
Justin Peroff
Justin Peroff
Justin Peter Papadimitriou , family name changed to Peroff, is best known as the drummer for the Toronto based indie rock collective Broken Social Scene. He was also a member of Junior Blue, a collaboration with Dylan Hudecki of By Divine Right...
:A musician whom Lee starts seeing when she breaks up with Brown. He moves in with Brown and Lee for a time, but eventually breaks up with Lee and moves out two years later.
Kris Nakamura:Brown's first girlfriend, who has appeared in some of Brown's autobiographical comics
Chester Brown's autobiographical comics
Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
in the past. As of the publication of Paying For It, they have remained close friends for close to thirty years.
Gordon Brown:Chester's younger brother, who is happily married and lives in Québec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
at the time of the book.
Publication
The book was the first of Brown's graphic novelGraphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s not to be serialized. Brown originally intended Louis Riel
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly...
to be published this way, but was convinced by Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
editor-in-chief Chris Oliveros to publish it as a series. Following poor sales of the pamphlet form of Louis Riel, Oliveros relented and gave Brown the go-ahead to publish Paying For It directly in book form. It was supported, as Louis Riel was, by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, this time for CAD
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
$16,000 which he received in 2005.
The title was not what Brown would have wanted. He wanted to have a more direct title that used words like "sex", "prostitute" or "trick". Some of the titles he floated around were I Pay for Sex or The Sex Life of John Brown but his publishers asked him to call it Paying for It, a title which rubbed him the wrong way, as "[i]t suggests that not only am I paying for sex but I’m also paying for being a john in some non-monetary way. Many would think that there’s an emotional cost — that johns are sad and lonely...I haven’t been 'paying for it' in any of those ways. I’m very far from being sad or lonely, I haven’t caught an S-T-D
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
, I haven’t been arrested, I haven’t lost my career, and my friends and family haven’t rejected me." He says that if he had insisted, Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
would have allowed him to call the book what he wanted, but Brown allowed the change of title, acknowledging how difficult the book would be to market.
Following the success of Louis Riel
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is a highly acclaimed comic book biography of the Métis rebel leader, Louis Riel, by Chester Brown and published by Drawn and Quarterly...
, Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
anticipated high sales, printing nearly 20,000 copies of the first, hardcover edition of the book, for its May 3, 2011 release. The introduction was by famous underground
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
cartoonist Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
, and the book includes quotes from Brown's peers such as Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
and Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, as well as from writer and former call-girl Tracy Quan
Tracy Quan
Tracy Quan is an American writer and former prostitute. She is best known for her Nancy Chan novels. In addition, Quan writes a regular column for The Guardian website on pop culture, sex and politics and is involved in the prostitutes' rights movement....
, sex columnist Sasha
Sasha (journalist)
Sasha is best known as a Canadian advice columnist, authoring the weekly sex advice column Love Bites from 1999 to October 21, 2009. Her column originated in the Montreal Mirror...
, and a number of academics.
The book reached #2 on Amazon's "Bestsellers in Graphic Novels" list, and on the The New York Times Best Seller list it was #2 on the "Hardcover Graphic Books" list.
Contemporary political situation
The book was on the verge of completion when OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
judge Susan Himel
Susan Himel
Susan G. Himel is a judge in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for the Toronto region. Previously, she served as the assistant Deputy Attorney General of Ontario.-References:...
struck down several prostitution-related laws
Bedford v. Canada
Bedford v. Canada was a legal challenge to Canada's prostitution laws filed in the Superior Court of Ontario in 2007. The applicants, Terri-Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott, argued that Canada's prostitution laws were unconstitutional...
in September 2010, which was to be appealed by the government of Canada in June 2011. "I was wishing that the book was out at that point,[...b]ut I hope it becomes influential enough to become part of the debate," Brown said.
The book's release party was on May 1, 2011, the day before the Canadian federal election of that year, in which Brown was running as the Libertarian Party of Canada
Libertarian Party of Canada
The Libertarian Party of Canada is a political party in Canada that subscribes to the tenets of the libertarian movement across Canada.-History:...
candidate for the Trinity-Spadina riding. The election was called early after a motion of no confidence
Motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...
on March 25 resulted in the dissolution of Parliament. "Initially, I was a bit annoyed by the timing of the election," Brown said, "but it might turn out to be a good thing that I’m getting publicity at this time." Brown came fifth in his riding
Electoral district (Canada)
An electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...
with 454 votes, losing to incumbent Olivia Chow
Olivia Chow
Olivia Chow is a Canadian New Democratic Party Member of Parliament and former city councillor in Toronto. She won the Trinity—Spadina riding for the New Democratic Party on January 23, 2006, becoming a member of the Canadian House of Commons. Most recently, she was re-elected in her riding for...
.
Reception
While it was not surprising that a work by a cartoonist of Brown's standing would receive accolades from his peers and critics (being called "some of the best comics of Brown’s career" and "book of the year"), neither was it surprising that the book would be the focus of controversy. The subject matter and Brown's didactic approach to it were expected from the outset to draw fire, but some found Brown's approach to have more aesthetic repercussions:The advocacy displayed in the voluminous pages of the appendix may have been a detriment to the work overall, according to Tom Spurgeon
Tom Spurgeon
Tom Spurgeon is an American writer, historian and editor in the field of comics, notable for his five-year run as editor of The Comics Journal and his blog The Comics Reporter, which he launched in 2004 with site designer Jordan Raphael.-Books:...
at The Comics Reporter; "Give me scenes like the one where Brown argues with Seth over the issues, seething and impatient with Seth's answers and his own, desperate and human in wanting to make and win such discussions, over any number of facile dissections of each argument's actual merits." Brad MacKay of the Globe and Mail found that them "often amusing" and "thought-provoking," but sometimes "reductive and didactic." Critic R. Fiore found that Brown doesn't argue points well.
Obscuring the faces of the prostitutes could be seen as Brown objectifying
Objectification
Objectification is the process by which an abstract concept is made as objective as possible in the purest sense of the term. It is also treated as if it is a concrete thing or physical object...
them, and with a feeling the book lacks a female perspective, "especially since all we see of them is their frequently naked bodies." Brown has also been criticized for treading lightly over darker issues, like human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
, an oversight he acknowledges yet largely dismisses in the appendix; and class, one he barely acknowledges. Matt Seneca objected to paying for the book, as he felt the money would indirectly pay for the exploitation of prostitutes. Brown also raised eyebrows by claiming physical drug addiction
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
doesn't exist.
See also
- Autobiographical comicsAutobiographical comicsAutobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
- Prostitution in CanadaProstitution in CanadaIn Canada, the buying and selling of sexual services are not illegal, but most surrounding activities, such as public communication for the purpose of prostitution, brothels and procuring are outlawed....
- Prostitution in Canada (Constitutional and case law)Prostitution in Canada (Constitutional and case law)The passage of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 allowed for the provision of challenging the constitutionality of laws governing prostitution in Canada in addition to interpretative case law...
- Decriminalization of prostitution
- Bedford v. CanadaBedford v. CanadaBedford v. Canada was a legal challenge to Canada's prostitution laws filed in the Superior Court of Ontario in 2007. The applicants, Terri-Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott, argued that Canada's prostitution laws were unconstitutional...
the case in which Canadian anti-prostitution laws were virtually struck down - My Secret LifeMy Secret Life (erotica)My Secret Life, by "Walter", is the memoir of a Victorian gentleman's sexual development and experiences. It was first published in a private edition of eleven volumes, which appeared over seven years beginning around 1888....
- Tales of the CityTales of the CityTales of the City refers to a series of eight novels written by American author Armistead Maupin. The stories from Tales were originally serialized prior to their novelization, with the first four titles appearing as regular installments in the San Francisco Chronicle, while the fifth appeared in...
Foreign editions
| Translations | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Title | Publisher | Date | Translator | ISBN |
| Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
Io le pago | Coconino Press Coconino Press Coconino Press is an Italian publisher of comic books, founded in 2000 in Bologna, Italy.They are notable for their translations of comic books from around the world, including the Americans Daniel Clowes, Jason Lutes and Adrian Tomine; Canadians Seth and Chester Brown; French cartoonists David B.,... |
November 2011 | S. Sacchitella | |
| Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
Pagando por ello | La Cúpula | 2011 | ||
Sources
- Sim, DaveDave SimDavid Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
. "Getting Riel" interview with Chester Brown. Part 1 2 3 . Cerebus (295-297). Aardvark-VanaheimAardvark-VanaheimAardvark-Vanaheim is a Canadian independent comic book publisher founded in 1977 by Dave Sim and Deni Loubert. It is best known for publishing Sim's Cerebus....
, 2003. retrieved 2011-04-07 - Rogers, Sean. A John’s Gospel: The Chester Brown Interview part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. The Comics JournalThe Comics JournalThe Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
. 2011-05-09. retrieved 2011-05-10 - Heer, Jeet (2011-05-19). "A Chester Brown Notebook" part 1 2. The Comics JournalThe Comics JournalThe Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
. Retrieved 2011-05-21.
External links
- Media release from Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
at ComicList. 2010-09-19. retrieved 2011-04-11 - Product page at Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
's website. retrieved 2011-05-05 - (Audio) "The Difference Between Giving and Taking (a conversation with Chester Brown)" at Soundcloud. Retrieved 2011-05-21
- (Video) Chester Brown reading Paying for It at The Strand bookstore with Benjamin Walker and Tracy QuanTracy QuanTracy Quan is an American writer and former prostitute. She is best known for her Nancy Chan novels. In addition, Quan writes a regular column for The Guardian website on pop culture, sex and politics and is involved in the prostitutes' rights movement....
, part 1 2 3 4 - (Video) Chester Brown on Studio 4Studio 4Studio 4 is a Canadian television show broadcasting from Vancouver, British Columbia. It airs in select markets province-wide on Shaw TV.Studio 4 is an hour-long talk show between host Fanny Kiefer and a variety of guests, ranging from the political elite to artists to acclaimed authors and...
with Host Fanny Kiefer Part 1 2 - Parille, Ken. "Drawing Sex and Paying for It". The Comics Journal. 2011-06-10. retrieved 2011-06-12