Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Rita Therese, Allen & Unwin, $29.99.
Certain scenarios play out for people resulting them to lead their life in a certain way. One such person is Rita Therese whose personal journey is one that becomes etched in your mind. It’s a no-holds-barred memoir that takes you “from despair, to laughter to depravity in seconds”.
Rita is an escort, one of the best in Australia. It all began on a whim at 18, after she rang the number on a sign looking for nude models. Always the outsider, she quickly learns the sex industry is comprised of many other people just like her and she becomes immersed in this world: the drugs, the late nights, the glamour, being an outcast, the attention and validation from men. Mostly she thrives on how taboo her life has become. Following significant personal tragedy and trauma, the line between Rita’s sex worker persona Gia and her real self begins to blur in a seemingly endless loop of grief, work, sex, love and heartbreak.
It’s an astonishing story, one in which she feels she’s in a trance, at times. “Two selves intertwine and it leaves you, in the dance room, making a decision that winged liner is just for work. Because you don’t know which self you are looking at right now, which person you are.”
“When you start working like this, so far away from home, the only way to survive is to get into a routine, my routine grounds me, buffers me from any surprises.”
It’s interesting to note Rita has written for magazines, held her first solo photographic exhibition Gemini in 2016 and is also the author of four self-published ‘zines’.
Undertaking her Bachelor of Philosophy, Rita is now working towards a career as an academic, specialising in gender studies.
