Body Shell Girl
think of my body as a shell
that I could vacate, not as metaphor, or symbol
but as a real possibility
Body Shell Girl is a memoir in verse about the first two years of a decade that Rose Hunter spent in the sex industry in Canada. When Rose walked into a massage parlour in Toronto in 1997, she was looking for a temporary fix to pay rent and avoid having to go back to her home country of Australia.
Awkward, shy and looking for a place to belong, she found herself in a strange world she understood little about, other than here she could make more than rent. She planned to use her earnings to buy herself an education that would secure the career of her dreams.
Naively believing she could do only what was required of her, without trauma or side effects and leave the industry on her own terms, she was shattered by what unfolded.
This is her story. It is also a searing portrayal of this dehumanising industry in all its destructive power.
Trauma can destroy narrative or it can create a firestorm – in Body Shell Girl Rose Hunter has ploughed her memory and her ‘radioactive’ journals to take us not just inside the debilitating machinations of her time in the sex industry but right inside the experience itself. A highly visceral reading experience that left me body-shocked and reeling. In Body Shell Girl Hunter annihilates misogynist fantasy word by word, page by page.
—Sally Breen, author of The Casuals and Atomic City
Body Shell Girl is incredible. It is a captivating and honest account of a woman’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings in the sex trade. Communicated with authenticity, you feel as if Rose is an old friend by the end of the book: she gives a voice to sisters who are too often unheard.
—Cherry Smiley, from the Nlaka’pamux and Diné Nations, founder of Women’s Studies Online, Canada
MAY/JUNE 2022 | 9781925950502 | Paperback | 140 x 216 mm | 160 pp
Watch the online book launch of Body Shell Girl with Sally Breen and Simone Watson
In her new book Body Shell Girl, poet and sex trade survivor Rose Hunter brings us into the strange theater that takes place between sex buyers and prostitutes when money is exchanged for various sex acts. Describing the everyday reality of her ten years in massage parlors, brothels and hotel rooms of Toronto and Vancouver, Hunter says of prostitution, “it’s really nothing to do with sex, it's this other odd category, with its own bizarre rules, a very strange sphere unto itself.” Listen now.
Read poems from Body Shell Girl on Rochford Street Review
From Part I: Portal, 1997
From Part II: More than the Strangest Stranger to Me
From Part III: Why We Are Girls
Read Rose's Survivor Story shared with Wahine Toa Rising, The organisation is survivor led and supports Wahine Toa (Warrior Women) & Tamariki (Children) who have & are being exploited in the sex trade in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The advocates of decriminalisation have strong allies in parliaments across Australia, especially in the Labor and Green parties. But one survivor is urging politicians to rethink their support for legalisation. Listen to Rose on the ABC Religion & Ethics Report.
‘Body Shell Girl’ is a memoir in verse about the first two years of a decade that Australian Rose Hunter spent in the sex industry in Canada. Rose hoped she could do only what was required of her, without experiencing trauma or side effects and leave the industry on her own terms. But she was shattered by what unfolded. Her book portrays a dehumanising, destructive and misogynist industry. BroadAgenda’s editor, Ginger Gorman, asked Rose a few questions. Read her Q&A here.
Reviews
Hunter’s verse memoir fearlessly tests the paradox of a poetics of witnessing for a traumatised and evacuated self, and does so through synaesthetic image-making and phrasing.
– Marion May Campbell, Cordite Poetry Review, Read the full review here.Body Shell Girl is an important book. It blasts through the lies of the “sex work is real work” brigade and tells the truth in profound and unforgettable ways. It is a huge achievement. An act of great generosity. An attempt to equip succeeding generations of girls with essential knowledge of how to navigate this world.
Please read it and pass it on to all the young people in your life. And teachers, please put it on the school curriculum.
— Nordic Model Now Review, Read full review here.
...Body Shell Girl is inspirational, but mostly it is bleak and terrifying and so vividly honest.
— Charles Rammelkamp, Compulsive Reader, Read the full review here.
In the tradition of Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem or Anne Carson’s ‘The Glass Essay,’ Rose Hunter takes us on a narrative journey in Body Shell Girl, proving that poetry need not be esoteric to be coded with feeling and meaning. She flirts with high and low-brow culture, crafting stanzas with artistry and care...
—Jenny Hedley, Mascara Literary Review, Read the full review here.
Reader Reviews
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ An incredible account of survival. I imagine Rose’s story will help many people in many ways. Rose is brave and generous to share her first two years in the sex industry with readers.
—Elspeth De Fanti, GoodReads⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I am grateful for the brave women who write authentic stories. There are only a few, and Rose is one of them. They take on this endeavor at a high risk of being treated poorly, publicly. Once the words are published, there is no going back. There is no control of where or how the stories will be mentioned in the author's future. Courage is too small of a word to describe what Rose has done here. My gut hurts for the pain she has suffered. My heart wants to protect her. The least I can do is congratulate her on her sobriety and her success as an author. So well done, Rose! Keep writing!
—Eileen B, Amazon⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book is both shocking and compelling, laying open the tragic trap that the sex worker finds herself in. Rose Hunter tells her story using poetry that, although beautifully written, bluntly exposes the ugliness of the industry. I was left with two main impressions: there is nothing glamorous about this business. It is ugly, dangerous and completely demoralizing to the women who are caught up in it. The second is my belief that no woman who has been raised to love, honour and respect herself would find herself in this predicament. Rose shares how she repeatedly heard that she was ugly and stupid as a child. Our culture as a whole contributes to this lie. We must do better! Every little girl (and boy for that matter) deserves to know that they are precious, beautiful and cherished. This book renewed my commitment to make sure that every little girl on my sphere of influence will hear that message from me at every opportunity. Thank you, Rose, for your incredible courage in writing this book.
—Arlene Geres, Amazon⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rose Hunter's verse novel "Body Shell Girl" is a brutally honest and deeply touching memoir about her years as a sex worker and the effect it had on her. This is a blazing book and Rose's writing has never been better, sharper or more honest. The courage in these pages is staggering, and only a first class talent like Rose can make such a well rounded, beautifully written book.
—Michael White, Amazon⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ In a very concise way Rose Hunter communicates the truth about the men who pay to possess the bodies of women, the truth about a society that does not support women or girls, that dehumanizes us, and the truth about what this does to our minds and bodies.
—thypoentie, Amazon