King Kong Theory

Virginie Despentes, Frank Wynne

• Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781913097349
• eBook ISBN: 9781913097356
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

'I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the frigid, the unfucked and the unfuckables, all those excluded fromthe great meat market of female flesh, and for all those guyswho don't want to be protectors, for those who would liketo be but don't know how, for those who are not ambitious, competitive, or well-endowed. Because this ideal of theseductive white woman constantly being waved under ournoses – well, I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.'
Powerful, provocative and personal, King Kong Theory is a candid account of how the author of Baise-moi came tobe Virginie Despentes. Drawing from personal experience, Despentes shatters received ideas about rape and prostitution, and explodes common attitudes towards sex andgender. King Kong Theory is a manifesto for a new punkfeminism, reissued here in a brilliant new translationby Frank Wynne.

55

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY

To do what is simply not done: to ask for money for what should be freely given. The decision does not rest with the adult woman, the collective imposes its laws. Prostitutes are the only members of the working class whose condition so excites the bourgeoisie. To the point where women who have never lacked for anything are utterly convinced of the ‘obvious fact’: it should not be legalized. The kinds of jobs done by less well-heeled women and the pitiful wages they receive in exchange for their time are of no interest to anyone. Such is the lot of women born into poverty, they have no trouble getting used to it. There is no legislation that bans sleeping on the streets at the age of forty. Homelessness is an acceptable humiliation. Drudgery is another. But selling sex, on the other hand, is everyone’s business, and ‘respectable’ women have to have their say in the matter. Over the past decade, I’ve often found myself in exquisite living rooms, in the company of ladies, kept women financially supported by the marriage contract, often divorced women who received substantial alimony and who, without a flicker of doubt, explain to me that prostitution is, de facto, a bad thing for women. They intuitively know that it is the most degrading job in the world. Intrinsically. Not ‘when practised in very particular circumstances’, but ‘in itself’. The assertion is categorical, rarely accompanied by nuances such as ‘if the women don’t consent’, or ‘when the women don’t get a penny of the money they earn’, or ‘when they’re forced to work outdoors, on the outskirts of the city’. Whether they are high-class hookers, part-timers, street girls, old, young, gifted, dominatrixes, junkies or working mothers apparently makes no difference. To exchange 56sexual services for money, even in the best possible conditions, even of your own free will, is an insult to the dignity of women. The proof being: if prostitutes had the choice, they wouldn’t turn tricks. Talk about twisted logic… as if the beautician doing bikini waxes at Yves Rocher smears depilatory wax and pops blackheads because this is her artistic calling. Most people who have jobs would chuck them in if they could, for fuck’s sake! But even so, in certain circles, you have people endlessly trotting out the idea that the problem is not moving prostitution away from sketchy neighbourhoods where women are exposed to all kinds of aggression (the sort of conditions where selling bread would be considered an extreme sport), or establishing the sort of legal framework demanded by sex workers, but simply banning prostitution. It’s hard not to think that what respectable women are actually saying when they express concerns about whores is that, deep down, they’re afraid of competition. Unfair competition, because it’s too effective and too straightforward. If the prostitute could work in decent conditions, like a beautician or a shrink, if the legal pressures she currently faces were abolished, the role of married woman suddenly becomes much less attractive. Because if the prostitutional contract becomes commonplace, the marriage contract can be clearly seen for what it is: an indenture in which the woman signs up to perform a certain number of duties to ensure her husband’s comfort at rock-bottom rates. Notably sexual duties.

I have publicly said in numerous interviews that I worked as a prostitute, on and off, for about two years. Ever since I started writing this book, I’ve been struggling with this chapter. I hadn’t expected that. It is a combination of various concerns. Talking about my 57own experience. It’s tough. Going on the game back in the day was a lot easier.

The idea of turning tricks first occurred to me in 1991, because of Minitel. The sex trade is an early adopter of all forms of modern communications technology. Minitel – the amuse-bouche that preceded the internet – made it possible for a whole generation of women to engage in casual prostitution in pretty perfect conditions: remaining anonymous, choosing the client, discussing the price, working independently. Men who wanted to buy sex and women who wanted to sell it could easily contact each other, and agree the terms. Unstaffed budget hotels made it easy to seal the deal: the rooms were clean, the rates cheap, you could book by credit card, and you didn’t have to deal with reception staff. My first job via Minitel in 1989 was to monitor a chat room, I was paid to cut off anyone using racist or antisemitic language, but also paedophiles and, lastly, prostitutes. The company wanted to be sure that their technology wasn’t used by women who wanted to freely dispose of their bodies to earn money, or by men who were prepared to pay and wanted to be able to clearly state what they were looking for without having to go through endless bullshit to get it. Because prostitution must not be seen as normal, or be practised in comfortable surroundings.

1991, First Gulf War, broadcast live on tiny TV screens, scud missiles over Baghdad, Noir Désir’s single ‘Aux sombres héros’ is being played to death, Professor Griff is booted out of Public Enemy, Neneh Cherry is rocking skin-tight leggings and fuck-off sneakers. I’m dressing in the most unisex way I can, which means mostly guys’ clothes. I have no make-up, no identifiable hairstyle, no jewellery, no girly shoes. I’m not particularly concerned 58about classic feminine traits. I’ve got other things on my mind.

I’m working in a supermarket, at the one-hour-photo counter. I’m twenty-two. I don’t really have the profile of someone likely to branch out into the sex trade. In any case, I don’t exactly have the look. Besides, two years earlier, when I was working as a moderator on Minitel networks and I saw ‘generous men’ offer a thousand francs for a trick, I assumed it was a trap: that such large sums were an attempt to lure young girls to their homes where they could do unspeakable things before throwing them, naked and bloody, into the nearest ditch. A few James Ellroy novels, a couple of movies on the big screen, the message from mainstream culture comes through loud and clear: be careful, girls, we find you really sexy when you’re dead. Later, once I’d accepted that men actually did pay a thousand francs for a hook-up, I assumed that the women must be shit-hot megababes.

I hated my job. I was depressed by how much time it took up, how little I earned, and how quickly I spent it. I’d look at women who were older than me, women who’d spent their whole lives slogging away for a minimum wage that’s barely increased only to find themselves, at fifty, getting bollocked by their departmental manager for going for a piss too often. As the months went by, I learned in excruciating detail what was meant by honest work. And I couldn’t see any way out. Back then, you were supposed to be grateful just to have a job. I’ve never been reasonable, I was finding it tough to be grateful.

You could connect to Minitel on the computer we used to invoice for the photos, and I’d regularly log on to chat with this blond Parisian guy I was seeing who worked 59as a ‘fake girl’ – his job was to keep punters chatting. I’d spent a lot of time using Minitel chat services, I’d talked to loads of people online. One of the more exciting conversations was with an older guy who was very persuasive. The first hook-up I ever arranged was with him. I still remember his voice, so warm and sensual that I’d decided I wanted to see what he looked like, that I’d happily do him for free, that I was seriously freaking out. In the end, I didn’t go. I got myself ready, I went to the place and, at the last minute, I bottled it. Too scared. Too far out of my comfort zone. Not part of my life. The girls who ‘did that’ had probably received some kind of sign, a message from another dimension. I thought that prostitution wasn’t something you could just make up as you went along, that there was some initiation process whose conventions I didn’t understand. But the lure of cash, a healthy dose of curiosity, a need to find some excuse to get myself fired from the fucking supermarket, and the thought that, by going through with it, I’d learn something important… I arranged another meeting a couple of days later, different guy, not particularly sexy. Just a john, a real one.

First time I ever went out wearing a short skirt and stilettos. The revolution is all about a few key accessories. The only feeling I’ve had since that compares was the first time I appeared on TV, to talk about Baise-Moi on Canal+. You haven’t changed, but something external has shifted and nothing is the same. Not the women, not the men. You’re not even sure that you like this change, or understand the ramifications. When American women discuss their experiences as ‘sex workers’, they like to talk about ‘empowerment’. I instantly relished the power it gave me over the male of the species, the sudden, dramatic, almost farcical shift in my status. Up until then, 60I’d been pretty invisible, short hair and scuffed trainers. Now, suddenly, I was a creature of vice. So cool. It made me think of Wonder Woman twirling in her phone booth and stepping out a superhero, I found the whole thing hilarious. But from the outset, I was also wary of this power, which was beyond my understanding, my control. The effect on lots of men was almost hypnotic. Going into a shop, travelling on the métro, crossing the street, pulling up a bar stool. Everywhere, attracting hungry stares, being extraordinarily present. Suddenly possessed of a desperately coveted treasure, my crotch, my breasts, access to my body took on an extraordinary importance. And it wasn’t just the pervs I had an effect on. Almost everyone is fascinated by a woman who chooses to dress like a whore. I’d become a giant plaything. One thing was clear: I could do the job. In the end, you didn’t need to be a megababe or be adept in some weird secret techniques to become a femme fatale… you just had to play the game. The femininity game. And no-one could shout, ‘Careful, she’s an impostor’, because I wasn’t, or no more than any other girl on the game. At first, I found the process fascinating. Having never given a flying fuck about girly things, I suddenly became obsessed with high heels, lacy lingerie and trouser suits. I remember how bemused I felt, those first few months, when I saw my reflection in a window. It’s true that she wasn’t really me anymore, this tall slut with legs enhanced by six-inch heels. The timid, husky, masculine girl had vanished in the blink of an eye. Once I had the gear on, even my masculine traits, my confidence, my way of walking super-quickly, became hyperfeminine traits. In the beginning I enjoyed becoming this other girl. Like taking a trip. Being in the same place, but in another dimension. The moment I slipped on my 61hyperfemininity costume, my self-confidence changed – like I’d just done a line of coke. Later, like coke, it became harder to manage.

Meanwhile, I’d taken my courage in both hands, turned my first trick, at home, a chubby little guy, about sixty, who chain-smoked untipped cigarettes and talked a lot during sex. He seemed lonely, and I found him surprisingly sweet. I don’t know whether I come across as gauche and gentle or seriously intimidating, or whether I was just lucky, but as time went by, it became clear: with me, clients tended to be warm, attentive, gentle. If memory serves, and I think it does, it was not their aggressiveness or their contempt I found difficult to deal with, nor any of the things they were into, but their loneliness, their sadness, their pallid skin, their wretched shyness, the flaws they couldn’t conceal, the weaknesses they showed. Their age, their need to feel young flesh against their wizened bodies. Their paunches, their micro-dicks, their flabby arses, their yellow teeth. It was their vulnerability that complicated the whole thing. In the end, the johns you could hate or despise were the ones you could do while remaining completely indifferent. Maximum cash, minimum time, and afterwards never think about them again. But in my limited experience, most clients were fraught with humanity, with frailty, with despair. And it lingered afterwards, clinging to me like remorse.

As it turned out, the physical aspect – touching a stranger’s skin, allowing him to touch yours, opening your legs, your belly, your whole body to the scent of a stranger, overcoming the physical revulsion – posed no problems for me. It was an act of charity, even if I charged for it. It was so obvious that it was important to the john to pretend not to be disgusted by his tastes, or 62surprised by his physical defects that, in the end, it was fulfilling.

Discovering a whole new world, in which money had a different value. The world of women who play the game. What you could earn for forty hours of thankless drudgery could be yours for less than two hours’ work. Obviously, you need to count the times spent getting ready, waxing, dyeing, doing your nails, buying clothes, make-up, the cost of stockings, lingerie and latex outfits. But even then, as working conditions go, they were pretty great. Men who can afford to often like to pay for women. That’s what I got out of it. Some of them like visiting whores according to a precise ritual, cash transferred from hand to hand, detailed scenario prearranged. Others prefer it to take the form of an affair, they call it libertinage, ask you to submit invoices or tell them precisely what gift you’d like. A way of playing daddy, in fact.

‘Significantly,’ writes Gail Pheterson in The Prostitution Prism, ‘those who explicitly provide sex are defined by their activity as “prostitutes”, a stigmatized and/or criminalized status, while those who buy sex are not defined or branded by engagement in the same activity.’ To say that you have ‘turned tricks’ is to set yourself apart, make yourself the subject to all manner of fantasies. It’s not nothing. To say you’ve visited whores is different. It doesn’t set a man apart, it doesn’t tarnish his sexuality, doesn’t define him in any way. The men who visit prostitutes are expected to be diverse, in their motives and their actions, in terms of social class, race, age and education. The women who do the work are immediately stigmatized; they are lumped into a single category: victims. In France, most of them refuse to speak openly because they know it’s not something you broadcast. 63You have to keep it on the downlow. Same old, same old. They have to be seen as sullied. And if they don’t go along with this spiel, don’t complain about how horribly abused they are, about how they were forced into it, society will deal with them. Society isn’t afraid that they won’t survive, quite the reverse, it’s terrified that they’ll say that, as jobs go, it’s not that bad. And not simply because all work is degrading, difficult and demanding. But also because lots of men are never as affectionate as they are with a whore.

Over two years, I think I saw about fifty clients. Any time I was short on cash, I’d go onto a Minitel chat-room in Lyon. Within ten minutes of logging in, I’d have the phone numbers of a dozen guys looking to hook up the same day. Often, it was men on business trips. In Lyon, there were more johns than girls, which made it easier to pick and choose and made the work more pleasant. When I chatted to regular johns, they said they found what they were looking for pretty quickly. If the clients were plentiful and quickly satisfied, those of us offering our services were plentiful too. There’s nothing unusual about part-time prostitution. The only exceptional thing in my case is that I talk about it. It’s just a highly-paid job that can be done in complete secrecy by any woman with little or no experience.

When I worked in ‘erotic’ massage parlours and in a few of the peep-shows in Paris, the downtime between clients gave me the opportunity to chat with the other women. I met girls from widely different backgrounds, including those the collective consciousness would think least likely to do ‘that kind of work’. When I first started working at a massage parlour, I was coming from a far-left background where I’d been repeatedly told – and believed – that all working girls are victims, credulous 64or controlled, but invariably backed into a corner. On the ground, the reality is very different. The black girl who answered the door was absolutely stunning, one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen close up. Hard to pity or feel sorry for this woman. Later, I got to know her better, she was a little younger than me, much more social, she’d spent several years working as a beautician, was engaged to a guy she adored, had an amazing sense of humour and excellent taste in music. I found her solid, hardworking, determined. A lot more clear-sighted and down to earth than me or the girls that I knew. Not at all how I imagined a member of the oldest profession. Very much in demand, every day she raked in a fortune, hard cash that she carefully saved. While I was working in the massage parlour, they hired a short, dark-haired girl who’d just come back from Yugoslavia, where she’d spent six months working for a humanitarian aid organization. She had graduated from business school, but felt bewildered when it came to finding a ‘normal job’. She had ended up working in massage parlours by chance. She told her boyfriend she was a secretary at some big firm. She didn’t think she would do this for long. We had long conversations about this strange line of work, which both of us found fascinating.

The one thing the girls I encountered had in common – other than a lack of cash, obviously – was the fact that they didn’t talk about it. It was women’s business. Not to their friends or their families, not to their boyfriends or their husbands. I suspect most of them did what I did: they did this job for a while, turned a few tricks, then moved on to something completely different.

People tend to give you a disbelieving look when you tell them you’ve been on the game, but it’s the same as with rape: rank hypocrisy. If it was possible to make a 65census, they’d be stunned to find out the actual number of girls who have had sex with strangers for money. Hypocrisy, because in our culture, the line between seduction and prostitution is very blurry, and deep down, everyone knows that.

The whole of the first year, I really enjoyed the job. Because it was easy money compared to other work, but also because it allowed me to try pretty much everything I found intriguing, arousing, disturbing or fascinating without a second thought, or a moral qualm. As well as...

Table of contents

• PRAISE
• TITLE PAGE
• CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• BAD LIEUTENANTS
• WHO’S TAKING IT UP THE ARSE, YOU OR ME?
• YOU CAN’T RAPE A WOMAN WHO’S A TOTAL SLUT
• SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
• PORN WITCHES
• KING KONG GIRL
• SO LONG, GIRLS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• COPYRIGHT