The graffiti also suggests that prostitutes took on “stage names” and used these names to construct personas for themselves to please clients and transcend their circumstances. Viewing such relations as labour allows her to acknowledge the work prostitutes undertook to obscure their exploitation when servicing customers. Levin-Richardson uses the graffiti to showcase the emotional labour performed by prostitutes who greet and praise clients and thus foster special or long-term interactions.
The inclusion of prostitutes as workers and social actors is a welcome approach. At the same time, repeated names in the graffiti suggest some clients sought emotional connections with prostitutes and became regular visitors.
The graffiti reveals visitors boasting of their sexual exploits and engaging in masculine rivalry in ways that may not have been possible for all outside the walls of the brothel. Despite their variable status, all visitors to the brothel experienced the masculinity of free elite males by enjoying privileged lines of sight as they entered and reclining on couches to drink and have sex when inside. Like the frescoes, the graffiti mostly presents a “normative” sexuality that positions the male client as penetrator. Her attention to multiple perspectives is a strength of the book. Focusing on clients, then female prostitutes, and finally male prostitutes, Levin-Richardson considers each group’s relation to the space, graffiti, objects, and each other. The next three chapters (Six to Eight) put the evidence discussed previously to work and tease out themes already touched on. Levin-Richardson’s examination of legal texts supports such use of property among the elite as a revenue stream. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ġ86 PHOENIX or others.
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