Editor’s note: mentions of addiction, sexual violence, partner abuse, death in the family.
Come is the memoir of Rita Therese, an Australian sex worker, artist and author. It’s an equally chaotic, tragic and raunchy story of her life as a topless waitress, stripper, porn actor, and escort. It packs in such a wide slice of the sex industry and an immense range of emotion. It’s an enthralling and fast-paced read.
Come opens in the rural Western Australian desert, at 3pm, as Rita begins her day. She describes the dusty little room she is to call home for her duration at this particular brothel. The highlight of her day is nearer to its end, the morning; the pleasure she feels tidying up at the end of a shift and watching the sunrise over the desert. As she’s texting her boyfriend on his way to work, she gets a call from her brother telling her of the death of her brother. She wills herself to believe it’s not true and they’ll all be fine by the time she’s home. This is the first of many personal tragedies Rita shares with us.
Following this, we are taken back to the beginning of her life as a “baby hooker”. At eighteen she applies to be a topless waitress. On her first day she takes public transport out to a house to find herself in a party full of men with only her fellow waitresses, that she’s meeting for the first time, for guidance. After a mortifying moment when she first takes off her bra, she immediately settles in and ends up enjoying the partying and camaraderie of the job.
It packs in such a wide slice of the sex industry and an immense range of emotion.
Flitting from role to role, we find Rita on her first porn shoot dealing with a terrible self-inflicted fake tan and a mean director. Amongst this strange and daunting experience on set in the bush, there is genuine intimacy and lust between her and another actor. She loses herself in her scene with him and ends up sleeping with him off camera. Throughout much of her work, Rita often genuinely enjoys having sex with both clients and colleagues, drawn to one particular type of rough-edged, tradie man again and again.
Rita has had many different roles in the sex industry and had such a wide array of experiences in those roles. I felt an intense self-conscious panic when I found out she’s only twenty-five, given how much she’s gone through and accomplished. I cried throughout much of this book, especially the end. The way Rita plows on through adversity and abject misery was painfully relatable and it struck a chord with me. It’s hard to comprehend how she must have felt following the deaths of her family members.
The chapter Bitch, butch, femme confronts the phenomenon of compartmentalisation and the sometimes hazy delineation between one’s work self and one’s everyday self. Rita goes through her wardrobe and sorts her clothing into “Gia’s side” and “Rita’s side”, trying to solidify the distinction between her work and personal life. Similarly, as she catches sight of herself giving a lap dance, she makes the decision that winged eyeliner is only for work now. Struggling with needing a distinction between your work self and your real self while simultaneously having to reconcile that they are both the same person is something I think all sex workers struggle with at some point. Even choosing to divide what sexual services you offer and what acts you might keep for your personal life. Compartmentalising work can be a self-protecting decision and of course anonymity is crucial for safety. On the other hand, we are always ourselves whether at work or not, and we can’t ignore that. Dissociation invariably takes a toll in the long run. There’s a balance that has to be found, easier at some times than others.
The way Rita plows on through adversity and abject misery was painfully relatable and it struck a chord with me.
As someone who is bisexual but actively repressing her queerness, Rita struggles to find her place in either the openly queer part of the sex work community or the straight part. I’ve had similar mixed feelings about being openly queer with clients. It feels wrong at times to display queerness, particularly as a form of marketing aimed at straight men. The idea of being fetishised as a lesbian horrifies me no matter how profitable it could be. Most clients are gently accepting of my bisexuality, but I think it’s a difficult thing to negotiate for any queer worker.
Rita struggles with so many things in this period of her life: dissociation, addiction, sexual violence, partner abuse and the death of her two brothers. Come is a testament to the fact that she’s lived through and overcome so much in such a short span of adulthood as well as publishing a great and a successful book. She describes the intensity of her experience writing, “I didn’t realise […] that in the act of writing about my life I would uncover so many secrets about myself.” Like many sex workers, Rita seems to have compartmentalised her work to such a degree that it doesn’t completely feel like her story anymore.
Sex workers are often (I could almost say always) survivors. We are people who have lived many lives, often getting by on guts and brains alone. Although Rita’s experience is harrowing and at times hard to read, I think it’s important to tell and read stories of women’s survival and strength. As she says herself, “In order to go forward, in order to survive, sometimes we have to write our own stories. We need to reframe what happens to us”.
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