Nothing But My Body
by Tilly Lawless
Allen & Unwin
Tilly Lawless is a queer, Sydney-based sex worker who has an online platform to speak about her life, sharing her personal experiences and shining a light on the everyday stigmas that sex workers come up against.
At fifteen, Lawless had taken photos of herself to send to strangers online, sounding out her sexuality and coming to terms with her body as a ‘desired’ object, “awkwardly posing in an attempt to be alluring”.
At twenty-seven, Lawless writes about being “just a country girl who moved to the city with nothing but [her] body” to study a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney University. To survive financially, seven years previously, she saw that she had to choose between dealing drugs and sex work.
Lawless had already come out as a lesbian to her fairly religious family, so outing herself as a sex worker only added to their disdain of her. This is a disdain shared by many feminists, who Lawless sees as middle-class white women who have no idea of what survival looks like for working class, migrant, trans or women of colour. She is now an activist for sex workers as well as women’s and LGBTI+ rights
Her stream of consciousness writing is described as auto-fiction in the publicity flyer. So, more than being a memoir that just presents facts of her life along with some description, the book uses an active voice to bring the reader inside what is happening in her life during 2019 and 2020. With Mardi Gras, bushfires and Coronavirus lockdowns, there is a lot impacting on her life and mental health as a working girl.
Lawless delves deeply into her conflicting relationship with her body. She often feels at odds with her body’s desires, although she doesn’t have a problem separating her private life from her work life. Valuing emotional monogamy over sexual, she is continually disappointed when she gets drawn into romantic love.
This provocative and thought-provoking book will make you rethink the way you view community, sex work, queer culture, mental health, friendships, family ties and respectability politics.
Lezly Herbert
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