Preview
  • Modern Whore

  • A Memoir
  • By: Andrea Werhun
  • Narrated by: Andrea Werhun
  • Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (34 ratings)

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Modern Whore

By: Andrea Werhun
Narrated by: Andrea Werhun
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Publisher's summary

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE PRODUCED BY SEAN BAKER.

Oh, the places a whore will go: Strip clubs, four-star hotels, stinking basement apartments, luxury cottages. A striking memoir by Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin documents Andrea's sex work career in lush photography and powerful words—in all its slippery, sexy, silly and sometimes heartbreaking glory.

Andrea Werhun's sex work career gave her money, freedom, joy, and a lot of dick. A natural performer, she revelled in the opportunity to invent Mary Ann, her escort counterpart, and introduce her to men all over the city. She whores, she learns, she writes it all down, and then, as per a signed document she handed to her Catholic mother in her early twenties, she quits. To become a stripper.

Andrea and Nicole revisit the idea of the modern whore, with the enhanced perspective of Andrea's experience at the strip club. This new, engorged edition of the sold-out memoir-cum-art book expands on the original concept--a series of vignettes exploring the many identities sex workers adopt in the service of their clients and in the eyes of the public--in both a literal and literary way. But Andrea doesn't shy away from the serious side of sex work, either, exploring the risks sex workers take, and the rights our culture is constantly taking away from them.

This series of stories and portraits investigate the many ways we imagine—and mistake—the modern whore. It's Playboy if the Playmates were in charge.

©2022 Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin (P)2022 McClelland & Stewart
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Critic reviews

"Modern Whore is for the daring heart in all of us. This is not just a sex worker’s story, it is the work of an artist, of partnership, of sisterhood, of where storytelling becomes the body and the body becomes the story. The romance in this memoir isn’t literal, it’s unapologetic. This is about advocacy. It’s about choice. Andrea Werhun pulls you in with her cabaret-esque personality, full of wit and wisdom, championed by Nicole Bazuin’s keen understanding of the moment. It is a privilege to witness someone dance their way into their authentic self, saying: this is where it hurts, this is where it feels good, and this is where it matters. In parts a whore’s victory guide, but it is also a fierce reminder of why we create."—Téa Mutonji, author of Shut Up You’re Pretty

"Delightful and righteous, Andrea Werhun spits in the face of tyrants and single-handedly unpacks the body/mind conundrum for girls. Proving that there is no story without the body, Modern Whore is a CanLit shakedown."—Tamara Faith Berger, author of Maidenhead

"By turns breathtakingly fun and poignantly serious, Modern Whore is an original—a feminist memoir that fearlessly explores sex, money and taking life into your own hands. But the book also deserves to be recognized as a classic coming-of-age story about an adventurous young woman, who just happens to be chasing her dreams in the sex industry. I loved how Modern Whore turns the tables on men, making the hard-working, shrewd and hilariously honest women in the sex industry like Werhun the centre of the story. Werhun never lets us forget that life in the strip club has more than one dimension."—Chanelle Gallant, writer, strategist, and sex worker advocate

What listeners say about Modern Whore

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Enjoyed this and her message needs to be heard

Andrea is apparently beautiful, smart and ambitious. She tells a story that really needs to be heard and I learned a lot. However, when it came to the part about her being assaulted on the job, I was expecting a person this smart, street-smart and in control of her choices to have been a bit more even handed in her description and conclusions during that part of the book. It doesn’t detract from the john’s culpability to admit that sometimes there is a gray area and that she had power to stop the action.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story telling and full of emotion & insight

very informative, and humorous while tackling difficult topics. Some parts were sad but in a good way, and it changed my view of sex work to include exotic dancers. There's one story about a kidnapping by a Canadian Mayor i wasn't sure was true but otherwise 100%.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The Whore Truth (and all its contradictions)

I debated off and on for several months whether to listen to this book. I knew certain aspects of it would be hard to digest and accept, but for very personal reasons, I knew I needed a deeper and broader understanding of the *hobbyist world and lifestyle. Candid resources on the subject are scarce, and none of the resources [including this one] are apolitical.

In a previous phase of my life, I suffered through the travails of a 16-year sexless marriage. I never indulged in escorts, to ease my sexual frustration I turned to porn and the occasional lap dance. Yeah, I was "that guy", the creepy old man with a sob-story helping undergraduates pay for college. The idea of "paying for it" was an afront to my pride. I did not want to be with someone who did not genuinely want to be with me. I also knew that rewards were not worth the risk. The guy that gets caught cheating is the villain no matter the circumstances, and getting skinned in a divorce on top of the public humiliation was enough to keep me in-line. I watched my porn in silent shame and vented to any stripper willing to pretend to listen.

All that said, I did not judge the men who were in situations like mine, who did indulge in the hobbyist world. I knew their misery well and I understood the hopeless set of options available to men like us. In the online sexless marriage support group, I was a part of (most of whose members were women) many of the men I met used services like the one provided by the author. The digital age opened a world of possibilities for sex-workers. More than a few of the strippers I met migrated in and out of the worlds of pornography and prostitution. The stories the dancers told me, and their attitudes towards the men they serviced, mirrored much of what was written in this book. The basic theme follows three concurrent narratives; (1) I love what I do, [or at least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself], (2) I don't understand why society has stigmatized my profession [which is fair, but also a lie], and (3) generally speaking I loathe my customers and have learned to dislike men in general [but I enjoy sticking it to the patriarchy].

I was particularly amused at the author’s attitude towards marriage (it is not a bowl of sunshine for us either sister). It’s lengthy rant and I understood where she was coming from. I had to laugh though, one of the dancers I stayed in-touch with after I divorced and subsequently remarried often commented that without marriage she would be out of a job. As an aside, I have not stepped inside a strip club or looked at an ounce of porn in several years. It took a long time for me to find the right woman, but it was worth the wait. Miss right is out there fellas, don’t give into cynicism or give up hope.

In the end I found the book to be very cathartic, I am glad I listened, it was something I needed. The book is an entertaining listen and worth the time. I learned things I did not know and gained much-needed insight. This book will not change anyone's mind about sex-work. If you are pro SW, you will still be pro SW, if you disapprove, you will still disapprove. One of the book’s better qualities is that regardless of which side you are on, what this author has to say will give you plenty of ammunition to argue your points of view. As sex-work slowly becomes more mainstreamed so will the debate.

*Note: If you are a self-proclaimed hobbyist this book is a much-needed dose of reality. The stripper doesn’t really like you.

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3.8/5

3.8/5 - 10 years of pole-dancing to agency escorting—until Covid hits at 30. As a teen, she wanted to be the Canadian Prime Minister-slash-singer. Quickly realizing that’s quite the order, she opts for alt magazine-type reading and gets her own board on 4Chan by promoting it w/ lewds of her high school self. She’s typical of the time: thinking being anti-Capitalist, and Rotten-dot-com killings is top-tier entertainment. She meets her first BF online l and even though he’s a dumpy dork, she decides to take his virginity—only for him to say she should wear makeup and lose weight. Promptly dumping him, she’s glad to be rid of that mess only to stumble into another: her parents find her nudes folder on the family computer. She promises not to take anymore even though she’s discovered through traditional journals through them. All this before she’s 18.

The book is broken up into little essays that would be better served strictly chronological. At 21, she becomes an agency escort named Mary Ann to sound like a mix of the virgin bearer and wannabe ingenue Gillian’s Island. This fits her pretentious English major energy. She does write well, buttery and poetic, but with bubbly self-importance. She belittles anyone who questions her intentions to get into the industry yet never says what she likes or wants about it besides implying it’s just to appear different than civilian girls or abused colleagues. The best we get is her saying she’s a Scorpio surrounded by coke. She says she likes sex but in the beginning constantly avoids it. That’s also vague, which parts does she like?

There’s a list of SW acronyms like things for cum on face, the reviews she receives on zeros and the ones she’d retort w/ if given the chance. Ironic even the glowing reviews, she bitches how flabby the old men are or debates politics like it’s not a stupid idea. She has several appointments a day, sometimes changing up her fake bio as a painter. Some clients she goes to their moldy basement bedrooms minus a door. She learns some clients like the fit Mr. Wack treat each escort completely different: adoringly affectionate to intentionally abusive. Once she mentions her other clients, he makes the switch on her. He gets blacklisted everywhere, not that the receptionist always care to note such.

Mary Ann works other jobs on top of this: comedian class or regular teacher, office worker, farmer, uni student even though she seems to make in a night escorting what I make in a month. Rarely does she seem to actually go on dates rather than have men eat her out. Much of this book seems to be her documenting people complimenting her, which she admits that are also often fake, Penthouse-titillating recounts so that more johns will solicit her. She’s more bored girlfriend experience than ecstatic pornstar. There’s a lot of sarcasm in the prose. The Holy Hooker short story is a cool lens for her to vent and have people look at their prejudices slightly different. Oddly, her dad takes it super easy and her religious, cautious mom often sobs though gives her the good advice to turn her experiences into creative writing.

One of her clients is a wheelchair-bound man named Paul, another a Penguin-looking doctor who claims he had a sexual relationship w/ his mom, Kinky Kyle who zip-ties her breasts before she pegs and yellow showers him, makes him chug it. Tyrant is another short story-esque piece that offers explanation for insecurity in disparaging men and compliment-hungry women, Madonna/whore complexes.

The first time she’s shown enjoying sex is 40% in w/ a classy couple in the country, then a local politician who sees her w/ his dying wife’s blessing. The fictional story about a raping god is obviously weird, a modern mythology turned into a Cinderella story since the rapist births a whore that makes a romantic about another tyrant’s sweet son. Halfway through, she becomes a stripper like she originally wanted since she’s more into performance art. This club divides into “extra”-centric rooms and regular lap dances. She gives the obvious tip not to be intoxicated on the job, but constantly is—even if it’s not revealed until later. She quits one year after a Kickstarter to write the first version of this book and laments “no one told me there’s no money in publishing” which is laughable, especially when her goal was only selling one thousand copies in a year.

It’s cool the strippers set up a “peer coalition” that gives water, condoms, and in-betweens to street-walkers. She seems much happier dancing even though it seems like 1/3 the money and men still force their fingers and worse in her during a dance. A big departure from the book is a story called Agatha about a girl lured into a premier’s car to sexually abuse. Confused but quick-witted, she winds up tricking him into castration. Then the author starts blues singing… It sounds good but is so disjointed. The Mind Flog chapter is fittingly foggy: seizing after molly and coke, getting her license suspended, blacking out and turning up in a hospital, getting stitches (surprised it’s still $5K for that in Toronto). Not sure what the point of this chapter is after preaching a bit about not doing such and making it all sound more unstable than if sprinkled about the narrative. She describes herself as too happy to need substances but we see mostly anger in this project. It makes sense: This is a venting book of various conflict, but we rarely see any pure fun on the clock. We don’t even see her “performing” on stage like she claims to love, no descriptions of the lights or cheering audience or moves. I believe she does love unexpected conversation w/ the guys but we only see the confrontational kind and only Cali sobers up because her concussion/seizure condition.

The last ten minutes of the book is about how the baby stages of Covid whisk away the money from gentleman’s clubs on top of it being after the holidays that leave men more broke. It should have been left on the cute ILY scene w/ a street-walker she helps out—not the repetitive, silly essay on how hoes are heroes. The mention of OnlyFans was shoehorned in when it should be saved for a focused, personal sequel.

My copy is from Audible, so alas I do not get to see the go-go photos this book was inspired by, but at least I can peep the short film it was made into.

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