Fonds SCA427-GA497 - Correspondence to Maryse Choisy by a sex worker.

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Correspondence to Maryse Choisy by a sex worker.

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SCA427-GA497

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  • [ca. 1962] (Creation)

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1 cm of textual records

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One item of correspondence addressed to Maryse Choisy by an unidentified sex worker, signed "a fan." The writer of the letter states that she has read Choisy's "Psychoanalysis of the Prostitute" and encourages her not to make the mistake of making generalizations about all sex workers. In specific, she points out that she does not consider her clients lovers and thinks of them as no more a customer than a waitress thinks of diners in a restaurant. She also states that she is engaged in sex work purely for the money. As well, the writer notes that she has a pimp and that they have a positive relationship, are married, and enjoy a healthy sex life. They met while she was already working as a sex worker, and he was already working as a pimp and had no desire to change each other's profession. She also notes that they did not sleep together until after they moved in together. The letter is ended by noting that they eventually would like to settle down, and that they are saving to open their own bar or liquor store one day.

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Purchased from Capitol Hill Books in 2023.

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  • English

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Maryse Choisy (1903-1979) was a French writer, journalist and philosopher. She was influenced by the work of Freud and received psychoanalytical treatment from him. She also wrote a response to Andre Breton’s “Surrealist Manifesto” criticizing the manifesto as misunderstanding Freud’s theories and was President of the French Psychoanalytical Society. Choisy founded three occultist journals, but after converting to Catholicism upon meeting Pierre Teilhard, she distanced herself from this topic. In 1928 she wrote “Un Mois Chez les Filles” (translated to English in 1961 as “Psychoanalysis of the Prostitute”) where she humanized sex workers and tried to avoid a moralizing tone.

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Created JB 2023.

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  • English

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