Interviews

BOUGHT Q&A:

When you were writing this book, the economic outlook was a lot rosier than it is today. How has the downturn affected the market for these cash-for-companionship relationships?

I would say it's definitely caused an increase in the number of women getting into all sorts of sex industry-related jobs: an upscale strip club in New York has reported that they now get an average of 40 to 50 job applicants a week as opposed to the 20 they were getting at this same time last year; since September, the website seekingarrangement.com, which hooks "sugar babies" up with their daddies, has seen a membership increase of 30%. While you might think it would be the opposite - that current economic conditions would mean that the men who used to have money to burn on this sort of thing might have to scale back - I think that most of the men who go in for this are the types who are okay in any economic climate. And during tough times, people are that much more likely to try to check out from reality and bad news in all sorts of ways - attachment-free sex being one of them.

You spent time researching high-end prostitution for an article for Details prior to writing this book. Is there a fine line between trading sex for money and trading sex for financial security? What separates sex workers from trophy wives?

I have a line in the book where the main prostitute character says, essentially, that trophy wives are doing the same thing she is but they're stuck with the same client for the rest of their lives and he happens to be their pimp and money manager, too. To a large degree, that's what I believe. And I think the double standard most ofsociety has is ridiculous. The same people who will see a young, beautiful woman on the arm of an aging, balding, overweight but well-known producer and call them a lovely couple consider high-class hookers and kept women beneath contempt. The truth is, the high-class hooker and kept woman are being a hell of a lot more honest about their intentions than the trophy wife -- who would never have been interested in the man she's married to if he'd been a plumber.

Where did you get the idea for the book?

Some time after finishing the Details story, I was reading an article about a beautiful, well-educated, seemingly intelligent and cultivated girl who brazenly admitted that she took money from men in exchange for sexual favors. I was amazed that someone like that could do and say those things without appearing to have an ounce of shame about it and honestly, I admired it. I walk around feeling shame about all kinds of things I shouldn't so for someone to own behavior that most of the world is going to judge just seemed so ballsy. I'm also slightly obsessed with the different versions of ourselves that we present to the world so I wanted to examine how someone like that - someone who, on the surface, had everything going for her and appeared confident - might be lying to herself and how her well-honed armor might crack.

One of the book's most revealing lines is "They're not paying her for sex, they're paying her to leave." What do you think that statement says about the male attitude towards relationships?

I wish I'd come up with that line - it's widely credited to, of all people, Charlie Sheen. Still, I don't believe it represents an attitude that's true when it comes to all men. For men who want to avoid intimacy, however, the notion of sexual satisfaction without the messy entanglement of emotions is, I think, highly appealing. Looking at the world that way - as a place that can provide whatever will suit your needs without you having to make any kind of emotional investment or work toward what you want - definitely can be one of the dangerous side effects of ridiculous success and wealth.

Do you relate to any aspects of any of your characters' experiences? Do most women encounter situations where they have to decide whether to use sex appeal to get ahead?

I think almost all women use their sexuality to get what they want, which is one of the main issues I wanted to get across in the book. We're not always honest with ourselves about it and I don't think we break it down and look at it that way, in the same way we don't go on a job interview, rattle off a series of brilliant asides and then think, "Wow, I really used my intelligence to get that job." Sexuality is just one of the many tools in our arsenal that we're using on a daily basis to get what we want. Because I spent so long writing the book and thus trying to figure out how I related to, say, Jessica, the high-class prostitute character, I really had to face how much I've used my sexuality along the way - not just in my career but also in everyday life, whether it's to get a free repair at the Mac store or out of a speeding ticket or to the front of a line. Still, whenever I've done it my career - imagining that I would benefit from, say, an agent's seeming attraction to me -- it's backfired. I don't know, though, if that means using sexuality to get ahead doesn't work in general, or if it just doesn't work for me.

You've lived in both L.A., where this novel is set, and New York City. Do these types of financial arrangements occur more often in L.A., or are they just more discreet in New York?

I think they happen in New York, L.A. and everywhere in between. When I was researching the Details story, I got a hold of the contents of this laptop belonging to someone who worked with a big Hollywood madam. And when I Googled the names of the men listed on the client documents, they were all successful but unfamous men from all over the country: the biggest car dealer in Des Moines, say, or some ubersuccessful attorney in Houston. That being said, I'd bet the bulk of the business is in L.A: it's relatively inexpensive and easy to live there without actually working for a living and there's a sort of everyone's-getting-a-free-ride mentality where unemployed wanna-be actors and directors are, say, living in multi-million dollar homes that producers have loaned them while they're on location for six months. But it's tough and expensive as hell to live in New York without a thriving career. If you're going to be a call girl or kept woman in Manhattan, I hope for your sake you're charging a mint or you're bound to get evicted.

What do you think the lure is for prostitutes and kept women? Just money? Or is that too simple?

I think it's more about power and control than it is about money. Most of the girls that I met when I was doing the Details piece were either porn stars or had been in Playboy or Penthouse; prostitution was their side job, something they were able to make a significant amount of money from because of their "fame." In the world of the book, the main prostitute character is masking massive insecurity and an inferiority complex with her beauty, airs and controlling personality: she tells herself and everyone else that she does what she does because it allows her to be in control of her life and her clients but it's clear from how quickly she gets agitated and defensive whenever she feels someone judging her and how much of herself she gives away in order to please her main client that she's full of it. In both the real world and the world of the book, the girls are also doing so many drugs that they're able to blot out a lot of the reality of what they're doing and convince themselves that they're powerful when, on some level, they know they're not.

Did you know girls in L.A. like your escort character Jessica?

She's bits of a lot of women I've interacted with over the years but I don't actually know anyone like her -- or, for that matter, do I know women who vacillate somewhere between being hookers and kept women. She is, as the saying goes, a figment of my imagination.