by Ben Winters
"Assuming the Position" isn't a defense of hustling, a celebration of hustling or a condemnation of hustling: It is simply one articulate and sensitive man's carefully detailed description of what he once did for a living.
"Having sex with men for money is something I did for a while, Whitaker writes, in the plain-dealing style that carries us through "Assuming the Position," from the autobiographical anecdotes to the philosophical examinations of prostitution and drug abuse, and even to the explicit (but rarely vulgar) descriptions of sucking and fucking.
"Prostitution [is] a complicated metaphor," and Whitaker exploits it (no pun intended) fully. Turning the dark crystal of sex-for-cash this way and that, he finds in it ways to consider a variety of important ideas: The aphrodisiac of money and power, each individual's search for joy in a swamp of moral compromise and the existential crisis as exacerbated in crass, immediacy-addicted America.
Whitaker is a very, very smart writer. He possesses a sharp instinct for giving us detail when necessary, knows just when to lapse out of the present tense and fall back on old diary entries, and when to drop the narrative entirely in favor of societal and cultural musings, more informed by Montaigne than "Midnight Cowboy."
On the level of story alone, Whitaker's is (sadly) unremarkable -- a dysfunctional Midwestern family, a flight to New York with a boyfriend, a quick descent into drug addiction and whoredom. Finally, though, "Assuming the Position" is powerful not because of its specific details, but from the gut-level honesty with which Whitaker reveals himself. He is unafraid to tell us not only of the humiliations -- and fleeting moments of joy -- he experienced with a string of johns, but of his deepest ambitions and fears, about himself and the world he lives in.
The book is sad, not because the author sold his ass for money, but because he is a man who has taken a hard look at his life and found it wanting. But in a sense, "Assuming the Position" is its own answer. "Living for long with reflecting upon what I'm doing with myself," Whitaker writes, "Is the one thing that can keep me from being able to honor and love my life." By writing a book-length reflection, one gets the feeling that the author has gained some measure of peace with his past.
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.