Modern Hooker

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chaaaanges

modernhooker — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:44:57 +0000

I’m in the process of developing a comic-based website at www.modernhooker.com, which will feature the comics more prominently, and combine the best parts of this blog and the old Chinese-menu looking website. In the meantime, I just created a new page called, “Comics” which will be really handy to show off my, uhm, comics.

I’ve also been working on creating storyboards for three different graphic novels simultaneously. I’m hoping to be able to have at least one done by the Phoenix Comic Con in May, so wish me luck There’s some guys in LA and some other guys in NY that are talking to me about publishing, so we’ll see what happens. I’d really like to take a stab at self-publishing first because I’m too much of a control freak.

On the Comics page, click on each strip’s title page, and you’ll be directed offsite to a slide show. Please forgive the quality of some of the comics – I’m working out the fuzzy/resolution issues inherent when changing from one medium to another, and it’s basically like trying to solve a quantum physics problem while watching t.v., talking on the phone and giving a blow job all at the same time.

Sweet Sorrow

modernhooker — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:44:12 +0000

“Modern Hooker” the comic strip will no longer be publishing on Carnal Nation. I’m grateful for the opportunities that being published on CN has afforded the strip, and special love goes out to my editors, Chris and Teresa. I’m exploring a couple of opportunities to create a series of graphic novels featuring MH, but I won’t be doing weekly strips for awhile. The comic has been a great vehicle for my own activism, in getting the message of the SW rights movement out there, normalizing the industry and the people in it, and exposing the risks and dangers inherent in a system in which the government is compelled to interfere in the fundamental rights of private citizens under the guise of protecting morality. Just as with abortion, gay rights, and being able to pee standing up, adults should be able to make their own choices when it comes to what they do with their bodies and how they choose to express their sexuality. But, I digress…

It’s been a ton of fun, but now it’s time to go in a different direction, and new beginnings are always a good thing. Thank you to everyone out there for your amazing love and support!

Here’s the last one.

Love,

Enjoy Your Stay!

modernhooker — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:45:30 +0000

Meet My Hoo-Haw

modernhooker — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:31:19 +0000

Machinations

modernhooker — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:41:52 +0000

“Machinations” explores the pitfalls of setting up a doubles appointment for a client. There’s often a multitude of emails and phone calls getting all the details in place, and locating another girl who agrees to the terms of the session and her fee. A major pain, but the payoff is that the work is split in half and is often alotta fun.

Also, this week’s strip on Carnal Nation puts names to a few familiar characters who’ve appeared in the strip in the past. Lucy approaches sex work from a holistic, tantric viewpoint, and like many of us, does sex work to support her various art projects. Kaitlin is the prototypical college co-ed – young, pretty, and supplementing what her daddy doesn’t give her for various college expenses (clothes, partying, books, etc.) In future strips, we’ll learn more about Rudy, an overweight yet in-your-face sex worker, and Barb, a sw who probably should have retired about 10 years ago, but never managed to put together either enough money to completely retire or amass any particular skill set to return to the general workforce. Beauty fades, as do friendships, lovers and memories of a better time! Enjoy this week’s strip

The Request

modernhooker — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:14:16 +0000

The latest from the Sunday Comics at Carnal Nation (@carnalnation on Twitter). Enjoy!

The Continuing Saga of the Old Regular

modernhooker — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:18:44 +0000

The Oddball Client

modernhooker — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:32:59 +0000

Latest Modern Hooker Comic: “Hard Habits”

modernhooker — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:55:49 +0000

If my life depended on self-promotion, I would be six feet under. If you’d like to get the weekly Modern Hooker comic strip delivered straight to your email box on Sundays, let me know and I’ll subscribe you personally. Cuz I’m all about personal service delivered with a smirk.

Oh yeah, here’s the latest one in case you don’t have x-ray vision.

A Harlot’s Heritage

modernhooker — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:40:11 +0000

Philumena, a 4th century B.C. Grecian courtesan (or hetairaie as they liked to be known back then) once wrote this to one of her lovers:

Why do you bother writing long letters? I want fifty gold pieces, not letters. If you love me, pay up; if you love your money more, then don’t bother me any more. Goodbye!” (Source: Sex in History, Reay Tannahill)

I’m sure any modern day hooker can relate to that sentiment on some level, what with the clients who insist on authoring a letter campaign equivalent to Barrett and Browning – declarations of undying devotion, poetry, and the like. However, this is not what this post is about.

Sex workers come from a long line of women who were quite comfortable defying societal norms, religious protocols and silly, oppressive laws in favor of authentic, self-expressed sexuality. Consider Janabai, a bhakti woman poet in the 12th century India:

Cast off all shame, and sell yourself in the marketplace;

then alone can you hope to reach the Lord.

Cymbals in hand, a veena upon my shoulder,

I go about; who dares to stop me?

The pallav of my sari falls away (A scandal!);

yet will I enter the crowded marketplace without a thought.

Jani says, My Lord, I have become a slut to reach Your home.

(Source: Women in Praise of the Sacred, Jane Hirshfield)

Right on, Jani. That’s my girl, out there half-naked in the streets, defiant and sexy and proud. I have to admit I was somewhat naively impressed that the word “slut” has been around that long, but I was most touched by the sacred prostitute-type reference of using commercial sex as a path to spiritual enlightenment.

Jump up several hundred years later to Anais Nin’s story, The Queen, where she describes the very essence of a whore:

“Somehow in the whore the…womb, constantly subjected to desire, produces a phenomenon. All the eroticism comes to the surface. The constant living with a penis inside of one does something fascinating to a woman. The womb seems to be exposed, to be present in every aspect of her.”

The focus of the short story is on a whore named Bijou, the Queen of Whores. “When we first lay in bed [her skin] was cool, and then it would become warm and feverish. Her eyes — it was impossible to describe her eyes except by saying that they were the eyes of an orgasm. What constantly happened in her eyes was something so feverish, so incendiary, so intense that at times when I looked straight at her and felt my penis rising and palpitating, I also felt as if something were palpitating in her eyes.” When Bijou laughed, “it was the sexual laugh of a satisfied woman, the laugh of a body enjoying itself through every pore and cell, being caressed by the whole world.” When she walked down the street, even urchins followed in the wake of her truly sexual animalism.

These women are my heroines.