BOOK MONTH: A Whore Diary

• A Whore Diary
• aka 売男日記, Uotoko Nikki
• By Akira The Hustler
• Translated by David d'Heilly
• Published by ISSHI PRESS (2000)
• Bilingual, English and Japanese
• 130-ish pages
• ¥1200
• ISBN: 4900398357
• Amazon.co.jp

A Whore Diary by Akira The Hustler is, shockingly enough, a diary by Tokyo hustler Akira. He writes about his clients, his boyfriend and his thoughts on sexworker-rights. There is a new subject each page, sometimes it is a small anecdote or almost poem like thought and sometimes it is a long contemplation on the Japanese man or the negative view on the profession. But most of the time when you turn a page you are greeted with a wonderful little slice of life story the customers share or a comment by Akira's mellow boyfriend. Akira's view on his work is serious but laid back, it is a very sex-positive book with some hard topics handled with a refreshing personality, honesty and ease.

Afterwards, as we were having tea, he was telling me about how completely exhausted he gets at his desk job.
"When that happens to me I get on my bike and pedal aimlessly around town. What do you do?" I inquired.
"I come to you" he replied sheepishly, and laughed.

The book design is very clean, it is a small and slim book with rounded edges that gives a lighthearted feeling. It is bilingual with Japanese and English text side-by-side and the translation feels very natural. The book is 50/50 text and monochrome pictures, the pictures are all romantically just out of focus and look like they were originally intended for private use rather than for a book. There are no chapters or page markings, instead the book is divided into four colored sections: blue, pink, green and purple. The color replaces black so in the pink colored section the text is pink and the photos are pink and white. The personal feel and lighthearted design makes the whole book read like a blog on paper — it is funny how quickly I've acclimatized to the idea that a blog is the default way to keep track of your private life, a diary is now a blog on paper instead of a blog being a diary online.

You will probably know if you'll like the book or not before reading it and I really recommend tracking it down if you feel that you are even just a little bit interested. The book is out of print but occasionally pops up at English traders, usually with (unfairly) little interest from buyers so you can score a copy pretty easily as long as it shows up. eBay and Google are your friends. You can always check amazon.co.jp's marketplace if you can use it.