Autobiographical literature about prostitution.

I have asked Lucia Riothe author of Flying towards freedom, the treatment he wanted me to give to his story in this review. Specifically, if the word “prostitution” It seemed appropriate to refer to his book and his life. It seems obvious, but when we talk about prostitution, we ask everyone except the person who practices it. Or, at least, this is my feeling. I know several books on the subject, although it is not the topic I am most focused on, and they are always writers who speak of, but no one has lived this experience up close. In fact, in the reviews on the web we have never been so close to prostitution, not even with Timandra o Sex is culture.

In Flying towards freedom We have the opportunity to know the first-person testimony of Lucía, a Brazilian woman who left her family and daughter in her country of origin to land in Spain with an already defined destiny: working as a prostitute in a hostess club.

With room for improvement.

The first thing we found in Flying towards freedom it’s a simple story. Without any flourishes or plot twists, temporally linear, it alerts us that This is possibly the author’s first writing. and like many others, it is born from the need to narrate more than from taking care of how it is narrated. My first problem is benevolent because reading Flying towards freedom I hear the speech of a woman who wants to have a conversation with us no matter what, although she still lacks several narrative resources.

The divisions by chapters are somewhat abrupt, although I think they have a well-chosen theme. The writing is not very literary and the dialogues are probably innocent, as they occurred. It also jumps from one scene to another without transitions, and the closing is also somewhat cutting, missing a final retrospective on what seems to be the main theme, prostitution.

«The speech of a woman who

wants to have a conversation

with us no matter what».

Even so, it has not prevented with emotionsto keep me hooked throughout the story and to appreciate the social value of this work.

Can I call you a prostitute?

I must admit that when I start reading Flying towards freedom A certain shyness came over me. I didn’t feel completely comfortable reading the first-person account of a woman who had worked as a prostitute.not because I have prejudices towards it, but because I felt like an intruder reading such a personal experience.

The second thing I felt was surprise. Lucía tells her entire story in a natural way, with hardly any judgments, so that it is the reader who can draw them out, if necessary. That is, it seems that We expect fierce rejection, dramatic suffering or exacerbated criticism towards these types of stories. and Lucía in her story calmly explains it. Sometimes, there is even gratitude for being able to have a job. And she even falls in love. Although the situations the author went through were hard and she wants to record them.

If someone asked the Lucia of history: “Can I call you a prostitute?” I would answer: «You can call me Lucia. Prostitute is what I work in. In fact, this is how the author herself answered my question (in retrospect). And I think this gives us quite a bit of perspective on the focus of the book.

With all this, I once again reconsider what is important, and even more so now that we continually talk about feminism, to listen to the stories about prostitution directly from those who have practiced it. I really liked the article about Mabel Lozano where she talks about prostitution as invisible criminal practice and I would love to know what authors like Lucía think about this. I hope to have a chat about it with the author soon as well.

Gynecologist visits in the club itself.

In addition to knowing an intimate story of a person who has practiced prostitution, the work also many more technical details of what life is like in a club are exposed. There is everything, but I was surprised to discover that some have very specific rules, such as the prohibition of consuming drugs or any type of substances or the obligation to carry out HSV tests before starting to work on them.

Some others are: Visits from the gynecologist once a month in the club itself, surprise checks in the rooms outside of working hours to verify that they were tidy and clean or the payment of fines by the workers for some infractions considered by the club. like going down to the bar room from five in the afternoon.

They also talk about money. Lucía tells us the percentage that she had to give to the club and the percentage that she kept. Or how much the daily place cost to live and work at the club. Also the days they gave you a test.

«They also talk about money».

Each club that Lucía went through was different, but it is really curious to know the idiosyncrasies of each of them and what Lucía considered to be a good or bad club. For example, the fact of having to pay fines for certain offenses indicated that it was a serious club.

All this information serves, according to the author, to open this channel so that the reader can judge or not from an amplified vision.

Being a prostitute is being a feminist.

I have thrown you a click bait with this subtitle, but I have thought about it after reading the book by Flying towards freedom a the relationship between a profession that is so linked in our imagination to oppression, discrimination and inequality and how the principle of feminism could be applied to it. I suppose that to begin with, a woman’s ability to choose would have to be applied, followed by decent conditions.

«The ability to choose

followed by decent conditions».

I’m not going to go all out because I don’t have enough training or information to develop this topic (I would love to develop it with someone, of course, so I’m throwing down the gauntlet), but I want to state that Flying towards freedom It is not a morbid story (to learn about the life of a prostitute) or critical (to demonize prostitution), but it is a work that makes you think a lot, which changes your perspective and, above all, confronts you with a thousand and one questions. I have wanted to ask a lot of questions about the subject. By having Flying towards freedom In my hands, it seems to me that I also had the possibility of holding conversations that are not normally held with spheres of our world that are very marginalized.

My opinion on the subject is quite clear and I think we all have a similar opinion, but, Of course, if we want to give women a voice, we have to listen to EVERYONE.

What is the Liberty?

Although I wish Lucía Río had finished Flying towards freedom Closing the topic of prostitution, I also like that the novel is directed, at all times, towards the personal improvement of the character that, as I have said before, even though he does not judge the living conditions he had exercised, he does not wish to remain in them either. For this reason, the story increasingly focuses on how Lucía creates connections that help her plan another future for herself and her child. We can even meet the latter, who travels to Spain and ends up living with her.

Between the lines we read many of the discomforts that the author has had to experience, such as how the supposed gynecologist who visited the club went too far by touching them or how she lived in little rooms with hardly any space and shared with other women of different nationalities who barely allowed her privacy. And in those same lines she glimpses hope and dreams because it is something inherent to human beings. That is to say, we clearly sense the situations of slavery in which she finds herself immersed, and about them she sends the message that she can get out of there. That if someone is in a situation as dark as this, she can get through it.

I suppose that thanks to this mentality, today Lucía writes and publishes this story.

«Still not criticizing the conditions

of life that he had exercised,

You don’t want to stay in them either.».

Flying towards freedom of Lucia Rio It is a very interesting book about the life of a prostitute and the steps towards what she has titled freedom. A simple story, without flourishes or great narrative resources that, however, manages to catch us and make us think. A novel that the author wants to bring to all those who can identify and are already fighting to get out of horrible situations that they have had to live through.