more crime than sex

This is a crime biography. Somehow I was expecting something more along the lines of Journal of Sexology or Penthouse Letters. Very little about the business of sex. Nothing on sex, which indiduals liked what and disliked what. Much more on the Madam's relationships (with her series of spouses, problem customers, cops etc than with the working girls). Too many unanswered questions such as...

1. How much was fellatio in terms of purchasing power of the dollar at the time?

2. How did management deal with STDs, pregnancies (abortion?) and non-paying customers?

3. Were rates by the hour or by the 'shot'?

I got through 19 of the 22 chapters hoping the content would become more entertaining or as a helpful guide to running a successful bordello in say a certain Nevada county today. It didn't. I will look for the academic study on Storyville that detailed working girls' class and family backgrounds, data such as youngest and eldest, and expected earnings but even that probably doesn't get into intimate facts.

Was Madam just a rehash of the subject's diaries? I get the impression that MADAM was written in a time and place where the author was concerned about obscenity charges if she made it too salacious. Also, that the targeted audience is middle-class women, not the ilk of myself, an insider associate of the publisher of Mac Horn's 'Gentleman's Guide to Southeast Asia' (a sex tourism handbook - look up the author's interview on 60 Minutes).

The narrator I found nasal and mediocre. The writing didn't catch me by its directness (not) or eroticism (not). Some of the writing is even purple prose. But worst of all the content was boring. I don't care about the Madam's garments or interior decoration of her sequential houses of prostitution in the French Quarter and beyond. The biggest content was about her relationship with various policemen and police chiefs. And the drama of her personal relationships. Yawn.

The only interesting part to me was how the Madam dealt with police in her efforts (and very successful ones) to stay in business. I am reminded of the motto from my many explorations of the lokalisasi of Indonesia in the spirit of the original Moon Guides...

"The only thing worse than a corrupt policeman is an incorruptable one."

And curiously she doesn't discuss Louisiana culture (it is a special place, the only part of USA I would retire in after many years in S.E. Asia - for one it is less Protestant) except in one story about an evangelical client of one of her room renters (unclear exactly what the arrangement was in terms of her 'cut', another disappointment). The hooker refused his business because he had an STD, which could only have been caught from his wife. In my extensive experience with prostitutes, most are conventionally religious or at least (and unlike their customers) have conservative values. They are wanabee housewives not nymphomaniacs. The author does mention this in passing, how the dream of many was to find a 'catch'. Yet there is close to zero 'getting into the head' of the sex worker, or even that of the Madam. Lacking many quantifiable facts either, I give a thumbs down to this book and am returning it.

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