Assuming the Position: A Memoir of Hustling

Although Assuming the Position is, as Rick Whitaker describes it, "a memoir of hustling," don't expect it to be particularly erotic. Whitaker thoroughly deglamorizes male prostitution, depicting it as banal and emotionally numbing rather than sexy or transgressive. Any potential arousal to be gleaned from his exploits is further dampened by the book's highly mannered tone and the rather ordinary quality of Whitaker's psychological discoveries: "I was always pretending to be somebody's friend when I really only wanted his money," runs one such moment of self-reflection. "Of course this is just an extreme form of something we all do in order to get ahead, but such seeming friendliness is never good or heartfelt and it is always a cause, at least for me, of mental and emotional fatigue." Readers may also find themselves frustrated by the memoir's lack of narrative tension: Whitaker did drugs and had sex with men for money for a while, then he stopped, then he wrote a book about how it made him feel. Unfortunately, being able to write grammatically correct sentences about his unusual experiences isn't enough to make Assuming the Position an interesting book. --Ron Hogan