Paying for It

This book left me with a bad taste in my mouth (NPI). Additionally, I have some serious bones to pick (also NPI) with Brown and his bullshit arguments. 1. This isn't a story; it's a sort of cray cray rant/manifesto about how Chester Brown wants prostitution to be legalizedbut only the way HE wants it legalized and not any other way.2. Brown claims that his way is "better for everyone." But is it? Mostly, it's better for Brown. The final (endless, repetitive) appendixes are more of a childish tem [...]

29 May 2011: Meat Ravioli $10 not so tasty, overcooked28 May 2011: Hamburger & Fries $15 chewy, medium, good value27 May 2011: Lamb dish (Ethiopian) $17 wonderful, messyI could go on, but I don't want to bore you with the spare details of what I had for dinner every night last week. Chester Brown on the other hand would love to do this.Case in point, Chester Brown's new memoir is little more than an itemized receipt containing the metadata surrounding his sex life over the last decade.We onl [...]

My latest excursion into the ever-intriguing field of graphic novels turns out to be a radical challenge to the way we think about relationships, sex, romance and the whole kit and caboodle. A lot of the graphic novels I've read are autobiographical – Fun House, American Splendor, Clumsy, Maus, Persepolis – and this one is wildly so as it focuses on the author's sex life. But Chester Brown is no penis-wielding Henry Miller (or fetishistic Robert Crumb), he's a shy, bald, retiring type who wo [...]

Chester Brown's paean to the joys of prostitution (hiring them, not being one; I suspect if he wrote from the latter point of view this would have been a very different book) is sort of an odd experience. The narrative was engrossing, believe it or not, and Chester is a more appealing character than he really should be, considering that he seems emotionally detached from everything and everyone in the world. But Brown's philosophy feels ill thought-out even though he goes on and on and ON about [...]

This Canadian dude wrote and illustrated about his journey with love and sex, how he gave up on and then eschewed "romantic love" and turned to prostitutes for sex while receiving normal love and acceptance from friends and family. He eventually comes back around to considering the possible link between love and sex after having been a "john" for several years.It's an interesting perspective, that of a prostitute's client. I could relate to some of his thoughts - romance grosses me out and I sus [...]

As a woman, I loved this book, and as a libertarian, I loved it even more. Chester Brown did a great job writing the appendices section, however, it kind of saddens me to know that he probably felt like he needed to write it in such great detail - with cartoons to help better explain his point to people who probably don't agree with him, or for those who just don't have a real educated opinion on the subject of prostitution. It was just obvious that he wanted to cover all his bases and make sure [...]

Brown's Paying for It is a defense of prostitution beautifully and meticulously designed. It is a work of scholarship valued in several academic disciplines as a serious contribution to the study of sex work. 1/3 of the book is handwritten endnotes, reminiscent to me of Alan Moore's From Hell, his fictional theory of the killing of prostitutes in London by "Jack the Ripper," which similarly features dozens of pages of notes. From Hell involved serious work of research, as surely has Paying For I [...]

Having read sex worker lit previously, and having lived in San Francisco for several years (with a sex worker no less!) and thus having been well-steeped in these issues, this was an interesting read for me because it's the first account I've read by a john. Before I go further I should mention that I am absolutely in agreement with the author's premise that prostitution should be decriminalized and that in reading this I gave consideration to decriminalization versus regulation, which wasn’t [...]

I've been a fan of Chester Brown's for many years now and have always enjoyed what he's put out, whether it's childhood memoir (I Never Liked You, The Playboy) or historical narrative (Louis Riel), he always produces work that's both highly readable and unlike any other graphic novel out there. He is a true original. So when I looked him up thinking that it's been a few years since Louis Riel, I was pleasantly surprised that he had another book completed, Paying For It, but even more surprised t [...]

Like all of Chester's work, this book is beautiful cartooning. Every panel is a pleasure to look at. I must say, though, I find it sad that the boy from "I Never Liked You" turned into the man in "Paying For It." Why do I find it sad, Chester would ask, when he himself is quite happy in the book. I'm not sure happy is the right word the book has an emotionless, flat, analytical quality throughout. Apart from his very first experience with a prostitute I wouldn't say Chester ever seems to experie [...]

At one point in Brown's book, he receives a blowjob from one of his prostitutes. In that panel, there's a thought bubble hovering above his head that reads, "This is the best blowjob I've ever had!" In the notes section for this panel, Brown clarifies that he had received better blowjobs later.Really.You really needed to add a note for this.It's indicative of the entire book. Next to nothing happens in the actual comic section of the title but a bunch of sex with prostitutes, a few conversations [...]

I really enjoyed reading this book. The panels are simple and clean-- black and white, stark and compelling. The story is fascinating, but not for the reasons one might imagine, and it is, I think, appropriately mundane. Because it's about his experiences as someone who hires sex workers, Brown could have offered a graphic memoir of dramatized racy controversial stuff, but the book is quiet, sober and respectful, even when disturbing. His introspective and reporterly voice is almost eerie in its [...]

I'm super open minded, I love art comics, I like memoirs, I like bizarre tales, I love Canadian content!I hated this book.Moreso, I really dislike Chester Brown now, and I don't want to read anything else by him, which is super unfortunate, because I actually liked "I never liked you"I know the point was that the women were prostitutes and he has no emotional connection to them, but page after page of blatant objectification and comodification of women was too much to not turn my stomach. Cheste [...]

This is an offbeat, extremely down-to-earth story about Chester Brown’s evolution into a whoremonger. Imagine what would happen if Jerry Seinfeld realized he was tired of having girlfriends and started visiting prostitutes instead. That’s the basic vibe of this memoir. Have you ever had full-on intercourse with a girl two times without noticing that she didn’t speak English? What do you do when the girl who answers the door doesn’t match the description you were given? Do you reject her [...]

An illustrated apologia for being a john. I recently heard eminent brain scientist Simon Baron-Cohen on the radio discussing the issue of evil in humanity and how it comes down to a clinical lack of empathy. He basically came out and said that one line of medical thought is to consider psychopaths as severely disabled because of their extreme lack of empathy. I'm not calling Chester Brown evil or a psychopath, but he is clearly unable to access his emotions in the same way as most people; note t [...]

chester brown states his case. i do not agree. it's not a story. it has the potential to be, but fails. which probably is a shame for chester brown, because it's surprisingly often via stories that you make people really think about something - not by stating your case in a matter-of-fact way. the appendices are extra ridiculous the middle of the novel, chester changes his mind; he does not oppose the idea of romantic love, but of possessive love -- and it makes me wonder why paying a prostitute [...]

come along with me on the journey that led me to read this book:part one: I kept on hearing about "CHESTER 5000"* and how "sexy" and "hot" and "sexy/hot" it was and so naturally when I saw a graphic novel at the library that said "Chester" on it, I grabbed it (notice I didn't actually seek out the smut I just grabbed what was already there)rt two: I bring the "CHESTER" book home and I'm reading, reading, reading and wondering all the time, "where is the sexy?!", "I don't see any sexy", "this is [...]

This is a true, comic book story of a man who eschewed romantic relationships in favor of fulfilling his needs for love through friends and his needs for sex through prostitutes.At the time of the events chronicled, out-call prostitution was legal in Canada. This meant that a prostitute could visit a john in the john's home or a hotel, but they could not operate out of a brothel.If you already have very strong views regarding prostitution, I don't think this book is going to be for you. It proba [...]

Wow. I really didn't expect to respond to this book in the way that I did. Brown articulates his reasoning and arguments for the decriminalization of prostitution extremely well in the appendices. There were some areas where I felt he was weak, for instance the objectification of women, but this could be a perspective issue. In all fairness the objectification of women is due to a large variety of factors, but in the context of the book this was one area I found his argument sparse. Similarly, i [...]

I admire CB's honesty - and Sook Yin Lee's by default - but at the heart of this, I felt his arguments rang hollow. Each discussion of a woman's beauty or reviews on the internet or dubious legal age may have been honest thoughts of a John - but they creeped me right out. He seemed to think that prostitution was always entered into by women with a penchant for sex work, and never seemed to take seriously class, drug addiction, exploitation, pimps, sex slaveryat last one really bugged me. He had [...]

By the end of the comic part, I was going to give this 3 stars although I don't agree with many of his arguments when discussing the issues with his friends, I think he tried very hard to make most of the women he sees seem like nice people who are in a job that suits them, and make himself look small and grateful of the profession.Then came the appendix Chester acts like an authority on a lot of things that he is not an authority on. He is sexist, with on old-fashioned understanding of feminism [...]

I had been curious to read this "controversial" graphic memoir following the Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown's experience "giving up" on romantic love and instead becoming a customer of the sex trade, but unfortunately it was a lot less thought provoking than I would have thought. Consisting of Brown's amiable, emotionless breakup with his long time girlfriend and his first clumsy attempts to break into the world of prostitution, he begins to learn the etiquette and "rules" of the business. It [...]

Despite all the negative hubbub about this book, I didn't find it offensive at all. It is radical and radically self-centered in some ways, but he makes a lot of good points. And remember: most of the fodder people are throwing at Brown was SUPPLIED by him and volunteered by him. Which puts everything into a different perspective.As far as how it has affected me, the whole anti-possessive monogamy thing wasn't a new concept, but the book drove it home in an interesting way. I certainly look at p [...]

I have never been to a prostitute. Nor do I really ever intend to visit one. Hiring an escort, like eating balut, is not a thing I ever plan to count among my worldly experiences. Like pretty much all of Chester Brown's friends—as depicted in Paying for It—I have certain qualms about the idea of paying for sex. That said, Brown, through this memoir chronicling nearly fifteen years of visits to prostitutes, presents a compelling case for the decriminalization of prostitution in a pluralistic [...]

haven't read the endnotes yet Now here is something: a book that questions our most common assumptions about romantic love, but from a perspective neither of bitter longing nor of self-back-patting-and-ultimately-self-deluding contrarianism. Chester Brown maps his feelings the way a good anthropologist might compile an ethnography of a heretofore mysterious culture calmly factoring in his own biases and weaknesses and patiently recording even his most minute reactions until a clear picture [...]

I should start this review by saying that Chester Brown and I do not have politically incompatible beliefs. I have a lot of ethical issues with sex work, but I am a pragmatist at heart who believes that criminalisation causes far more harm than good. I picked up Brown's book because I was interested in seeing the perspective of a John on sex work, but I'm afraid that this book didn't allay any feminist concerns. Furthermore, I found it to be a lazy and intellectually dishonest approach to the de [...]

Blunt memoir of, yes, paying for sex, broken into chapters corresponding to different call girls, expanded with the author's conversations with the girls about their professions, and with friends on why this is, to him, preferable to the possessiveness and pain of long-term monogamous romantic love. This is a comic, so it's entirely illustrated, but not exactly graphic and certainly not erotic, everything depicted flatly at a remove and from a kind of philosophical distance. Brown's case is well [...]

Beautifully drawn, well-drawn and well-told history of Brown's involvement with prostitution which is at its best when it's covering the insider knowledge about stuff that those of us who've never patronized a prostitute would never know about. He also does a good job of covering as much of the issue as possible, raising all of his friends' objections as well as his own personal uncertainties, and so forth.It becomes a pain when he gets on his short-sighted Libertarian soapbox (which Seth, in hi [...]

Chester Brown's explicit (but far far far from erotic)account of paying for sex is as honest as it is unemotional. Brown makes some very cogent arguments against "the possessiveness of romantic love," and if you've ever been on the bad end of a break-up, you'll find much to agree with in his cynical but ultimately pragmatic outlook. However, while Brown is unflinchingly honest about his encounters with sex-workers, cataloging his many biases and assumptions (during his first encounter, he declin [...]

I read this book and I refuse to review it or give it stars or even use punctuation because the entire book is Chester parsing words down to their essential bits to make his case just like when Clinton said it depends on what the definition of is is and he makes it perfectly clear that he is happy with his choices in life and that is good enough for me but it seems maybe he generalizes the sex industry to a dangerous degree to prove his points and it appears that he has spent more time than mayb [...]