bimbo in excelsis

Sugarbabe: The Controversial Real Story of a Woman in Search of a Sugar Daddy, by Holly Hill, published by Random House, ISBN 9781741667998.

Holly Hill, the pseudonymous fortysomething part-time prostitute and author of the much-hyped Sugarbabe: The Controversial Real Story of a Woman in Search of a Sugar Daddy , is, we are repeatedly told, “lucky enough to be considered darned attractive.” She has “big, puffy Angelina Jolie lips on an equally big mouth” (“my big fat lips are perfect for facials,” she gracefully informs one client). Hill's egregiously aphrodisiacal self-descriptions create expectations of an urban Salome, seducing readers with her seven veils. Unhappily, the only vaporous aspect of Hill is her intellect. Her author portrait – featured on the Random website against the lustrous, phallic backdrop of what looks like the Elan apartment block in Sydney's King's Cross - reveals a homely sort with bingo wings and a cleavage like two uncooked chicken fillets shaken loose from their tray.

The opening sentence - “It was ‘John' who introduced me to my life of Dicks” – makes it clear that Hill, unlike Flaubert, did not desiccate her heart in search of the perfect phrase. More importantly, it sets the tone for a memoir of such staggering stupidity that use of a pseudonym could be considered mandatory.

“Controversial” only in its diabolical idiocy, Sugarbabe 's narrative is straightforward: woman with low self-esteem and promiscuous-father issues seeks father figure to make her a prostitute and thus validate her low self-esteem. Lest the reader assume that lines such as “[h]e gently pulled apart the flaps,” “he looked like a giant hippo,” and, “[m]y personality was exhibiting adjectives it had never known before,” were written by a Year 8 schoolboy, Hill announces that she is a psychologist … on almost every page.

“I did psychology,”(p1); “she was a far better clinical psychologist than I,” (p3); “my work as a psychologist,” (p10); “You're a psychologist,” (p13); “I was a psychologist,” (p18); “I am a qualified psychologist,” (p19); “you are also a qualified psychologist,” (p26); “I am a qualified psychologist,” (p28); “this is probably inherent of [sic] being a psychologist,” (p30), and so on and so forth.

Supposedly qualified to translate the Morse Code of behavioral dysfunction, Hill muses: “How a zillionaire with two children could possibly be bored and unfulfilled was completely beyond me.” Whatever: the dope buys her underpants with a credit card. “A black Amex, that is,” she adds. “I hadn't even realized there was anything beyond platinum.” Suddenly, she has a “fabulous” camera, a “high-powered” telescope, a “beefed-up” computer, and - in the interests of maintaining the Big W catalog's literary style – a “high-tech” DVD player. Her “sexy smile”, she realizes, is generated by the “vastly increased sense of self-worth” imparted by underpants and hardware.

Predictably, the zillionaire casts his covetous chorine asunder, whereupon she weeps over bills. Cue Stock Gay BF, who offers advice every qualified psychologist yearns to hear: “Why don't you become an escort? Get yourself a sugar daddy – some rich, married dude.” A floodlight switches on in Hill's puffy-lipped head.

“I felt a boundary falling away,” she notes. “I think it had something to do with morality.”

And so begins Hill's shabby little descent into prostitution. The price of eternal vigilance? “I took a deep breath and mentally placed a $1000-a-week sticker on my forehead.” (Which amounts to $5.95 an hour, $7.52 below the basic minimum wage, and for round-the-clock five-way availability with counseling, gourmet catering, and booze thrown in. Scouts make better money mowing lawns.)

Hill places an ad on a website; the usual trolls, freaks, gimps and hornswagglers respond. “Sarcasm aside,” she swoons, “my heart was pounding. I was considering entering the sex industry, crossing a forbidden threshold … A low, sexy moan escaped me … I felt hotter and sexier than I had ever felt before … here I was, the daughter of Mrs. South Port Stephens, feeling horny because I'd put myself up for sale to rich men.”

Yes, reader: her idea of controversy is selling the use of her body parts to porky granddads. “I was desirable,” she breathes. “I was wanted. I wasn't a joke. I was a commodity.” Jubilant with refracted self-loathing, she brims: “I wanted to be this man's chattel!” Being “treated like a whore” or “slave” doesn't make her feel trashed or degraded - if anything, “it's monogamy that's disempowering because it removes choice!” After all, even when “badly injured” she “scarcely let out a whimper.” When asked what she would do if asked to drink from a dog's bowl, Hill, believing she is witty, replies: “I guess it'd depend on whether or not it was clean and if it was on the table.”

Cue Stock Gay BF: “I can't believe he's paid you three grand and you've only fucked him once! … You must be on the best wicket in the world.”

The fact that Hill actually submitted this swill for publication demonstrates not only her obliviousness to the abject tragedy of her tiny little life, but to the suffering of the untold millions who, through the feminization of poverty, coercion, or psychological mutilation, find themselves taking a little less pleasure in being treated as objects.

*Originally published in The South China Morning Post