Sex Worker Literati Anniversary
Posted by admin under hos hookers, interview, writing on Tuesday Aug 10, 2010
Join us on September 15th, 8pm at 308 Bowery, NYC.
About Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent boys:
“An eye-opening, astonishing, honest and funny collection from those who really have lived on the edge in a parallel universe… Unpretentious and riveting, their tales are also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.”
Toni Bentley, NY Times
Zoe interviewed for Daily Beast article
Posted by admin under interview, writing on Monday May 10, 2010The Secret Lives of Prostitute Moms
by Tracy Quan
Mothers who sell sex for a living face a whole different style of life-work balance. From dealing with judgmental teachers to faking
orgasms before the kids get home from school, Tracy Quan on the difficulties of living a double life.
What’s the worst thing you could say about a person’s mother? Everyone seems to agree that Dez Bryant had a right to be offended when an NFL executive, vetting Bryant for a draft, asked him if his mom was a prostitute.
I see no reason to make assumptions about Bryant’s mom, and I’m glad the NFL apologized, but the fact remains that there are many children in the world for whom the true answer is yes.
Zoe Hansen, a writer and former prostitute raising a child with her husband in Manhattan’s East Village, has her own maternal take on this.
“If someone asking my son if his mother was a whore is the worst possible thing that happens to him, I’ll consider him extremely fortunate and my job well done,” she says. And yet, Zoe doesn’t feel that her 7 year old is ready to learn about reproduction, and she wants to protect him from the facts of her own life “so he can be a child for as long as
possible.”
Read the full article here.
Busted in the Brothel (Chapter 5)
Posted by admin under my american dream, writing on Thursday Apr 29, 2010Four of us filed into the small dimly lit living room to line up and introduce ourselves to a new client. Dani wore a skimpy black lace teddy that barely contained her latest purchase: huge fake tits. Standing next to her was Desiree, skin black as night, long blond hair cascading down her back in waves of weaves. Jennifer, in a waist cinching corset, had short red pixie styled hair and freckled skin. Then there was me. I had real breasts, no fake orange tan, and shiny jet black hair that went down to my ass.
It was almost one a.m. I’d seen five clients and was satisfied with my earnings. My eyes lazily focused on a shaggy haired client sitting slouched in our ‘hot-seat.’ Adrenaline surged through my body. I looked to my left. Dani raised her painted eyebrow in a ‘he’s mine’ look. On my right Desiree jabbed me in the ribs. I whispered “shush.” We all stood there thinking the same thing: “Damn, this man is hot!” We sometimes made remarks about a handsome man, but not often. I liked the way his jeans were tight around thick muscular thighs. Under a mop of golden brown hair he had dark eyes, a prominent nose and a chiseled jaw. He made me nervous.
Dani was first. She pushed her surgeon bought breasts out and used a very Marilyn Monroe-esque voice I’d never heard before.
“Oh… Sorry, me first? OOP’.… Ok then, (giggle giggle) Helloo I’m Daniella.” She smiled a very none Dani coquettish smile. I rolled my eyes. He nodded his head at Dani and grinned. The client was sitting forward with his arm sticking up and bent at the elbow, fist on thigh. Very masculine pose. I could feel the women all exhale together. He was clearly comfortable. Not at all nervous, unlike most the men who sat in that chair.
‘Please God not me I dont want him. It’s too embarrassing to fuck a guy I might see out in my neighborhood, someone I know I’d date. Please God let someone else make the money, don’t let him pick me.’
Penthouse Forum story based on Zoe
Posted by admin under interview, writing on Wednesday Feb 24, 2010A Penthouse Forum cover story that was based on an interview with Zoe. Her name was changed to Dyana for legal reasons because she was still in the sex industry when she granted the interview.
The Lady is a Pimp
What’s a nice girl like Dyana doing as the head of a New York City brothel? Exactly what she wants to
Dyana puts out another cigarette She’s several smokes into our interview and well past her initial apologies for the habit.
Despite the general clatter and confined racket of people eating dinner in the West Village restaurant in which we sit, she manages to speak intimately.
“A lot of guys really get into going down on prostitutes, They think, I can make you come like no other guy I know you’re only in this for the money‚ – I’m not naive like the others‚ – but I can break through that shell and make you come too,’” she says with only a hint of pity in her English accent “Making a hooker come is second in male fantasies only to making a lesbian convert”.
As proprietress of a Manhattan brothel called Sterling Ladies, Dyana has become quite adept at sniffing out‚ – and catering to‚ - men’s sexual fantasies She says the most unusual clients she’s encountered thus far was a group of five businessmen who were married, it seemed, and shared four Sterling Ladies girls at once, fucking them all in front of each other.
“Anything you can imagine can be discussed. Anal and tit-fucking are standard. A blowjob without a condom can happen. It’s nothing we en courage but you can control only so much,” she states coolly, adding that all fantasy fulfillment at Bewitchment has one thing in common: $190 for a half hour, $240 for an hour and $400 for a “two-girl special.” Got bigger kinks? Bring bigger tips.
Strangely, having Dyana smash a few of my fantasies makes me feel more intimate with her. I wasn’t being manipulated. The more real she is, the more aroused I become. Chalk part of that up to her undeniable sex appeal. Dyana has exotic features: long blond/brown hair, full lips and dark eyes that reveal her mother’s Mexican heritage. When she rises from our table she exposes a hint of midriff be tween her studded black leather belt, leather pants and crisp white shirt. The restaurant’s delicious scents frustrate my attempts to catch her perfume.
At thirty-four years old, Dyana is younger than I’d imagined for a New York madam, a role that suits her better than some she’s had previously. She’s too poised and pleasant to have stayed the junkie street hooker she was in her rebellious teens, which she says involved hustling Arabs more than putting out. Hard drugs and depression stayed with her through at tempts to detox until she was twenty-nine and into her failed marriage. “Anyone sticking needles in their arm has emotional problems,” she notes. When she began her new life after having kicked coke and heroin, she took the name Dyana, the Roman goddess of birth.
I was interviewed by Steve Lewis of BlackBook about Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, & Rent Boys.
Read the whole interview here.
My short story “Anti-Semitism as Fetish” was published on Carnal Nation on December 1st 2009.
“Lizzy, your eight o’clock is here. Room three. Hurry.” Ingrid yelled from the office.
I’d been lounging in the living room with the other women. I stubbed my cigarette out and pulled myself up from the couch
“On my way up now.” I yelled back.
I had been prepared for Sidney Glick, a client of the house who favored domme sessions. We had never met. Ingrid had directed him to me as I was the only girl on schedule who didn’t mind doing dominance sessions. I lunged up the stairs two at a time in my six-inch heels to the third floor. I knocked on the door and walked in, morphing into Mistress.
HEROIN MY LOVE
by LZ Hansen
I was a sweet looking child. I had a long thick mane of brown hair, that seemed to be constantly tangled, pure white skin and a pout, that kept people at bay. I was shy, withdrawn and at that age obeyed my parents…. And I had a secret. A secret I had cultivated from overheard conversations between adults, American TV shows, and later rock n roll memoirs I obsessed over. My secret was that I aspired to be a junkie, a really good junkie.
I copied the fashions of skinny straggly haired women who smoked unfiltered cigarettes and had far away eyes.
When I reached my teens and tired of the other substances I was indulging. I found heroin. It had been a fifteen year search and I was… excited. More than excited. I was turned on. I was a virgin on her honeymoon.
My new runaway boyfriend lived in a squat in Earls Court not far from my parents home. It was a teenage hangout, home, shooting gallery. I had a plan. At 5:30 Friday afternoon. I’d meet Tommy at his squat where he would have the drugs waiting. My heroin, my dream, my future.
I wanted to feel all of it, experience every moment. My life was in front of me. This was more than a love affair or a crush on a boy this was the gateway into myself, this was me, heroin was me.
Butterflies fought in my stomach, the anticipation. We sat on the floor…Tommy began to mix my hit with expert handling. He measured half a syringe of water and scooped a small amount of perfectly brown smooth beautiful heroin into a dirty spoon. With concentration and steady hands he held the spoon over a cigarette lighter, until the brown mixture almost boiled. Tommy bit off a tiny piece of a cigarette filter, rolled it between his filthy thumb and forefinger, and dropped it into the sweet mixture. With a old bent syringe he drew up my hit. Tommy tied my thin arm tightly with his leather belt and smiled at me. Holding the syringe to the light he flicked out an air bubble, and licked the tip of the needle.
I wasn’t nervous or scared I had waited for for, so long. I needed it. My lips felt loose, wet, trembling. He jammed the spike in my arm, shock at first…but… the pain felt good. I saw the blood register, thick red virgin blood swirled up into the barrel in a slow dance, he plunged the muddy heroin downward, and immediately like a blissful transcending orgasm, the heroin hit my mind, my crotch, my breasts. I could taste it in my veins feel it swirl in my wrists, my cheeks, my eyeballs, warm soft warmth.
I had had my first sexual orgasm when I was a young teenager. I was kissing and making out with a boy named Chris. He was a smart, handsome, & went to a good English public school. We were under the covers in his bed. After a long slow make out session he reached into my underpants and began to rub my clit. We touched each other softly, it was very sweet and innocent. With his fingers on my vagina suddenly I was shook. A flood, a wave of warmth and bliss curdled my blood. I was lifted into another world my eyes rolled back in my head as I came in a shocking surprise.
As Tommy pulled the spike out of my arm I sunk back against the side of the bed, limp. I felt him pull the belt from my arm and ask if “I was all right?” I opened my eyes to try and focus. I felt completely fucked. As the hours passed my mind drifted. Images flickered, snapshots, moments in my life, horrific terrifying childhood pictures sizzled in a strobe like effect …but they… didn’t bother me any longer. I saw colors, reds and gold’s. Masturbating naked nymphs danced, and uncircumcised angles played in my mind. I tripped and fell into a warm soft comforting womb and cried in the devils arms.
I saw my soul.…I was in love, truly passionately, obsessively. I had been given my wings, my first time, I was on my way…..
______________________________________________________________
Copyright © LZ Hansen 2009
All rights reserved.
Zoe is guest-blogger on TheDirtyGirlDiaries.com
Posted by admin under writing on Wednesday Nov 18, 2009
I’m guest-blogging on thedirtygirldiaries.com, run by Jodi Sh. Doff.
“Having graduated from U.C.L.A (University on the Corner of Lenox Ave) Zoe Hansen’s words and vivid descriptions take me back to the street I knew and grew up on. “My American Dream” is a compelling story of striving for just that, her dream, via the oldest profession. This is a totally original tale of one womens life that will make you laugh, relate and raise an eyebrow. Words of wisdom in a time when New York was a real jungle, you were hunting or you were the hunted…”.
Eric Weinstein, Associate producer of Entourage
on being paid for anti-semitism
Posted by admin under film, hos hookers, writing on Friday Oct 16, 2009
Lenny Kaye on *My American Dream*:
“Zoe Hansen takes us on a ribald guided tour of the sexual netherworld, a harrowing and potentially sordid journey redeemed by good humor, transcendence, and the instinct of a survivor.”
Author: “You Call It Madness“
I just received the sample jacket covers for my soon-to-be-published novel, My American Dream – Going Down in Gotham:
Photography and Design by Scott Gillis.
Blurb by Josh Alan Friedman
Posted by admin under blurbs, my american dream, writing on Monday Oct 5, 2009Josh Alan Friedman, author of Tales of Times Square had this to say about *My American Dream*:
“My American Dream, Going Down in Gotham” highlights an era of New York prostitution, where the dark nooks and crannies of Man at his Worst are illuminated beyond the reach of mere psychologists. Zoe Hansen emerged from this netherworld of subterfuge, a gifted writer bearing witness.”
Josh Alan Friedman, author of Tales of Times Square
Blurb by Danny Fields
Posted by admin under blurbs, my american dream, writing on Monday Oct 5, 2009Danny Fields had this to say about *My American Dream*:
Zoe Hansen’s ‘My American Dream, Going Down in Gotham’ reveals a sensibility that is loving, brutal, touchingly and glamorously human, and savagely female. We are in a very modern survival mode, and there is never a titanium-steel slicing instrument far from Hansen’s hand, nor a happy/helpful hug. She sees the “Top” and “Bottom” sides of the sex industry, and sails into, through and above the many manifestations thereof. The legitimacy of The Industry, by the way, in never annoyingly questioned; anyone who doubts its amazing reach, in these days, must be living in the caves where Iranians are building atomic bombs.
Her narrative is dense and swift, the quicksand of sex on pages that will be turned with appetite aroused, and the reader’s eyebrows rising higher than you ever thought possible. Sex and the city of New York, together at last!
Danny Fields, author of “Linda McCartney: A Portrait.”
NYT review: Hos Hookers, Call Girls & Rent boys
Posted by admin under blurbs, hos hookers, writing on Wednesday Sep 16, 2009From the New York Times review: Hos Hookers Call girls & Rent boys’ Anthology
An eye-opening, occasionally astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny collection of prose and poetry by all kinds of sex workers.
…actual bios for the contributors make for provocative reading and can leave one feeling like an unadventurous slacker. Zoe Hansen “achieved stability through methadone maintenance and felt it was time to open her own brothel, Sterling Ladies, which was on Park Avenue and 21st Street.”
It was the first of five brothels she opened during the next three years.” (I’m starting to get a brothel-opening feeling myself.)
Jerry Stahl had this to say:
Zoe Hansen writes like a three-day party in hell. She didn’t just walk on the wild side, she got her mail there. My American Dream evokes both the poetry of Kerouac and the low-life transcendence of Herbert Huncke. Hansen delivers nothing less than a literary speedball of danger and sex and sometimes funny, sometimes brutal beauty that is absolutely her own. It’s hard to say which is the bigger miracle: that the author has written such a fearless, nuanced, dementedly enthralling account of her hard-core life – or that she’s still alive to tell it… If I owned a cheap motel, I’d lose the bibles and put My American Dream in every nightstand. The whole joint would be up all night reading.
Jerry Stahl
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys published
Posted by admin under hos hookers, writing on Tuesday Aug 25, 2009
Available now for purchase from Amazon.com
