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'A thought-provoking, discomforting and beautiful novel about love, obsession, community and friendship.
'People always ask if I enjoy the sex I have with clients or if I have to fake it, as if the two are mutually exclusive and the interplay between them isn't more complex. In actuality, it depends. And I'm not sure what people are threatened by more—that I don't always love it, or that I don't always hate it.'
'Nothing But My Body is an eight-day journey through the mind of a young woman, a queer sex worker in Australia, as she navigates breakups and infatuation across just over a year.
'The unnamed narrator's voice is both fierce and vulnerable, defiant and tender, as she explores the interplay between her external and internal world, and the fluctuations of her emotions as love affairs intensify and wane. Her loneliness is assuaged by her beloved chosen family-her friends-and by the beauty of the natural world.
'Set during the cataclysmic bushfire season of 2019 and into the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, sex work is the constant backdrop of the story as it moves between Sydney, Berlin, Orange and Bellingen. The beauty of the writing and the moving and deeply engaging sense of compassion that threads through this remarkable novel give true meaning to the concepts of inclusivity and community in surprising and original ways.
'This stunning, unflinching and lyrical debut is both a rejection of romantic love, a euphoric celebration of the queer community and a reckoning with the body as both abject and joyous.' (Publication summary)
Exhibitions
Notes
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Dedication: 'To all the friends who have listened to me cry and made me laugh'
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Sex Work Stripped Bare
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 31 July 2021; (p. 14)
— Review of Nothing But My Body 2021 single work novel'About halfway through Tilly Lawless’s debut book, Nothing But My Body, the narrator thinks about how sex work is similar to many other jobs. She is like an athlete, required to keep fit. A nurse, paid to enter into intimate proximity with other people’s bodies. A therapist, who talks her male clients through the inner pain they would never dare unveil to a psychologist. A performer, a babysitter, an actor, a diplomat … but the roll call is interrupted as she washes semen off her hands after a job. “My work is quite similar to so many things, but not quite any of them, and it doesn’t need a euphemism,” she thinks. “I am just a whore and I’m okay with that.” Lawless, like her protagonist, is a young, queer sex worker from northern NSW. Until now, she has mostly used her online platform to speak about her personal experiences within the sex industry, in an attempt to dismantle everyday stigma that sex workers come up against. This new work of autofiction is likewise an unshrinking portrayal of modern sex work and all it entails: a rolodex of clients good, bad and ugly; sly texts to friends and condoms spilling out of purses as strategies to stay safe; the specific brand of uncertainty and fear wrought by the coronavirus pandemic; and an enduring stigma that raises its head in ways both cliched and unexpected.' (Introduction)
-
Sex Work Stripped Bare
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 31 July 2021; (p. 14)
— Review of Nothing But My Body 2021 single work novel'About halfway through Tilly Lawless’s debut book, Nothing But My Body, the narrator thinks about how sex work is similar to many other jobs. She is like an athlete, required to keep fit. A nurse, paid to enter into intimate proximity with other people’s bodies. A therapist, who talks her male clients through the inner pain they would never dare unveil to a psychologist. A performer, a babysitter, an actor, a diplomat … but the roll call is interrupted as she washes semen off her hands after a job. “My work is quite similar to so many things, but not quite any of them, and it doesn’t need a euphemism,” she thinks. “I am just a whore and I’m okay with that.” Lawless, like her protagonist, is a young, queer sex worker from northern NSW. Until now, she has mostly used her online platform to speak about her personal experiences within the sex industry, in an attempt to dismantle everyday stigma that sex workers come up against. This new work of autofiction is likewise an unshrinking portrayal of modern sex work and all it entails: a rolodex of clients good, bad and ugly; sly texts to friends and condoms spilling out of purses as strategies to stay safe; the specific brand of uncertainty and fear wrought by the coronavirus pandemic; and an enduring stigma that raises its head in ways both cliched and unexpected.' (Introduction)
- Sydney, New South Wales,
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Berlin,
cGermany,cWestern Europe, Europe,
- Orange, Orange area, Bathurst - Orange area, Central West NSW, New South Wales,
- Bellingen, Dorrigo - Bellingen area, New England, New South Wales,
- 2019-2020
