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A review by tasharobinson
Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren
3.0
If you've ever watched a movie or TV show that indicates the wealth or power of a man by surrounding him with beautiful, scantily-clad female set dressing, and if, like me, you've ever wondered who those women are and how they got there, or what their lives are like, this is the book for you. Warning: the answers are fascinating, but fairly depressing.
The author, Jillian Lauren, was a self-described abused, addiction-prone, anorexic with serious daddy issues and massive self-esteem problems when she became a stripper, then a high-end call girl as a teenager. From there, she was recruited to come be a party girl for Jefri, prince of Brunei, who at one point was reportedly spending $50 million per month of his country's oil fortune. (There's a fascinating lengthy profile of his subsequent legal problems here.) She was literally part of a harem: a group of girls hired to hang out every night for six or seven hours at a "party" where they sang karaoke, gossiped, drank, and waited for the prince to show up and hang out with a few of them, then select one (or more) for sex. It became a backbiting hatefest as the women jockeyed for position, ostracized the prince's favorites and told lies about them to get them in trouble, and pined for his attention, even though that attention was usually a cursory roll in the hay and a lot of manipulative game-playing.
Prince Jefri comes across as a sociopath who sees other people as toys—the author's first hookup with him came when he had guards pick her up without telling her where she was going, then lock her in a freezing office alone for four hours without entertainment or a bathroom before he finally showed up. On another occasion, he loaned her to his brother. On a third, he had guards deliver her to his boat, with no instructions to her, the guards, or the crew, to see what she'd do. She was often locked in a room on her own, or ordered to hang out in a bathing suit so people could watch her through one-way glass, or otherwise controlled and denied information or agency. During her entire time in Brunei, she tried to guess what was required of her, and suffered from depression and romantic obsession over the man treating her like an object. It helps to remember she was 18.
This can be a hard book to read, both because of what it implies about how some societies still see women, and because the author's head is sometimes a shallow, embarrassing place to hang out. She obsesses about her looks and weight, she hangs onto any scraps of affection from the prince, she sucks up to other women for position and information, then loses interest in them, and she acts as if her banal observations are deep, meaningful, and poetic. At the same time, it's a very compelling portrait of why a woman might sell herself into sex slavery, especially if the price is high and the details sound romantic when correctly filtered. And it's a closely observed report on what it's like inside a place most people have never seen: an actual, modern-day harem. Flawed, but recommended, especially for people interested in sex work and the many varieties of sex-worker experience.
The author, Jillian Lauren, was a self-described abused, addiction-prone, anorexic with serious daddy issues and massive self-esteem problems when she became a stripper, then a high-end call girl as a teenager. From there, she was recruited to come be a party girl for Jefri, prince of Brunei, who at one point was reportedly spending $50 million per month of his country's oil fortune. (There's a fascinating lengthy profile of his subsequent legal problems here.) She was literally part of a harem: a group of girls hired to hang out every night for six or seven hours at a "party" where they sang karaoke, gossiped, drank, and waited for the prince to show up and hang out with a few of them, then select one (or more) for sex. It became a backbiting hatefest as the women jockeyed for position, ostracized the prince's favorites and told lies about them to get them in trouble, and pined for his attention, even though that attention was usually a cursory roll in the hay and a lot of manipulative game-playing.
Prince Jefri comes across as a sociopath who sees other people as toys—the author's first hookup with him came when he had guards pick her up without telling her where she was going, then lock her in a freezing office alone for four hours without entertainment or a bathroom before he finally showed up. On another occasion, he loaned her to his brother. On a third, he had guards deliver her to his boat, with no instructions to her, the guards, or the crew, to see what she'd do. She was often locked in a room on her own, or ordered to hang out in a bathing suit so people could watch her through one-way glass, or otherwise controlled and denied information or agency. During her entire time in Brunei, she tried to guess what was required of her, and suffered from depression and romantic obsession over the man treating her like an object. It helps to remember she was 18.
This can be a hard book to read, both because of what it implies about how some societies still see women, and because the author's head is sometimes a shallow, embarrassing place to hang out. She obsesses about her looks and weight, she hangs onto any scraps of affection from the prince, she sucks up to other women for position and information, then loses interest in them, and she acts as if her banal observations are deep, meaningful, and poetic. At the same time, it's a very compelling portrait of why a woman might sell herself into sex slavery, especially if the price is high and the details sound romantic when correctly filtered. And it's a closely observed report on what it's like inside a place most people have never seen: an actual, modern-day harem. Flawed, but recommended, especially for people interested in sex work and the many varieties of sex-worker experience.