Valerie Tasso
Valerie Tasso shot to fame as a writer back in 2003 when she wrote about her experiences as a prostitute in her book Insatiable: Diaries of a Nymphomaniac, which has now been turned into a movie called Diary of a Sex Addict.
I caught up with Valerie to discuss the movie as well as her time working as a prostitute in Spain and what led her to that line of work.
- Your novel The Insatiable Diaries of a Nymphomaniac has been made into Diary of a Sex Addict so can you tell me about the film?
It’s very interesting that both literature and cinema have different languages to communicate, you can see this perfectly with my book and the film, it’s very difficult for a young director to make a summary for my book in an hour and a half. So he has to eliminate all of the scenes which, for example were very hard and also all the scenes that were set outside of Barcelona, the whole film has been shot in Barcelona. And then when you sell the rights of your novel for the adaptation for the cinema it’s very difficult to then criticise the director as he has another language, his own imagination.
Of course I would have made another kind of film I would have cancelled all the moralistic scenes, at the end there is one prostitute that is committing suicide and in my book she doesn’t exist, the act of committing suicide suggests poor girl and I didn’t want people to say that as I’m not a poor girl.
It was not the main character that was committing suicide when she was working in the brothel she was a good friend of hers, she was my good friend and is still working as a prostitute, but by doing this is gives the film a moralistic touch that I would have preferred not to see.
But I understand that the director is young and it’s very difficult for him to understand the human condition, which is quite complex, I would have made a completely different film I would have gone very deep into the psychologies of the characters. I think it can be good to be critical about the film but of course it comes from me and I’m the writer I prefer criticism I think it’s more objective.
But the film is very respectful and I like the main girl who plays Valerie I think she was very comfortable in front of the camera. But for me the film is too short, but I know in the cinema if you make a film more than two hours many producers think that it’s too long, you can make a three hour film if you have Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.
- How did the adaptation come about?
It was very long because I got fed up and told then that I didn’t want to sell anymore as I didn’t want the producer, who is a very big producer here in Spain, to think if I sold then I would do whatever he wants. I didn’t want a porno film and they haven’t made a porno film the studio had very clear ideas, but I asked just in case, and I was asking for a lot of conditions. We had been negotiating for two, and my book is not The Da Vinci Code, I don‘t understand I wasn‘t asking too much, really.
- Did you have any role in the film after you had signed over the rights?
I appear in the film for just one second. It’s a very poetical scene as we are both together, the actress and myself, and there is a fusion because we have look similar, she’s younger of course but we do look alike, but it was very poetic and I think it’s one of the best scenes, not because I appear, but because the director knew how to make it and he wanted to make some images that a big director like David Lynch would have done, it’s quite interesting.
- In 1999 you began working as a prostitute so how did you decide to go into this line of work?
It was easy (laughs). I was completely lost because I used to live with this mad guy, I was very depressed and I was without any money, I used to work as a high executive in different and big companies but I knew that I could have earnt a lot of money but not enough to pay all the debts of my former boyfriend, who was completely mad and a cocaine addict.
The most important thing is that I was curious for me this world was very attractive and I wanted to use both curiosity and an activity to make money very rapidly. So I took the newspaper here is Spain and I was trying to find the biggest ad asking for girls to work in an escort agency, I called in the morning and went to see them in the afternoon.
When I got there they did say that I was a little bit old, I was thirty, but I was thinking that it was better because they were all like princesses and very young and I told them that I was going to try and if it didn’t work then it wasn’t an activity for me. The same day, it was incredible and a little bit terrible, I came and introduced myself and there was a client and the owner of the agency told me that I was going to start right now, I was not prepared but I said ok and I did my best.
Here we call it the service it’s like giving a service to a person because we give a service and we are paid for that. In prostitution, I know that it’s difficult to understand, but you use your body but you don’t sell it, if I go to the doctor or a lawyer I use his services I pay for it then I come back home.
An actress is another profession where they use their bodies because it’s part of their activity and for me prostitution is exactly the same I don’t see the difference between a footballer and a prostitute but if we speak of a footballer such as Beckham they are like wow he is the best guy in the world but if you speak of a prostitute every say ‘oh what a terrible job’.
But why? It’s because we have sacralised the genitals because people think that the genitals are sacred it also comes from our sense of guilt because of our education and religion. When I speak of prostitution I don’t speak about trafficking I think it’s terrible and we have to fight against that I’m talking about free prostitution.
- You say that you were curious about prostitution did you not think that it was a dangerous line of work to be experimenting with?
Yes it was and I knew that it could be dangerous, but I soon realised that I was more curious about me than about prostitution as prostitution was just the activity but the body that was in the prostitution was mine. So yes it was dangerous but it was a way for me to know myself and a way to know my limits and I wanted to experiment with that.
It’s not an easy line of work but if you go to your office you can have an accident and you can have a very terrible chief editor who can practice sexual harassment, all these activities have advantages and disadvantages, so I wanted to show that prostitution is one of the activities that you can choose plus it’s not so dangerous in the escort agencies as we are very very well protected.
We do not go to a hotel if the client doesn’t have the name that he has given in the hotel reception and if we were to go to a private house the owner of the agency asks the telephone communication company if the telephone number corresponds to the name given to us and if someone was to call using a mobile phone and wanted a girl to meet him at a friends house the owner would say no. So they controlled us a lot.
- How did your opinions of prostitution change in that time?
I think that it’s a very interesting activity to get a better understanding of the human activity I was fed up with men and very angry with men, and I know that going into prostitution is contradictory, but it helped me a lot to fallen in love with men again. But also to know my own limits and to know that people are very vulnerable, it was positive it was not negative.
- And why did you then choose to write about your experiences?
Because I was not scared anymore I understood that when I was working as a prostitute that I had no limits and that the limits were put in place by society it creates some norms and marginalises those who want to go beyond the norms. I decided to do it like an act of freedom and I thought that it could be good to give another images of sexuality, female sexuality in general, and prostitution.
- You have left prostitution behind now so what are you up to?
Oh my god I don’t know if we have time to talk about everything that I’m doing at the moment (laughs). I’m a sex therapist, in 2006 I graduated in sexology, I was very fascinated by sexuality so I decided to study again.
I work for different media such as radio and different TV programmes as well as writing in different magazines, one of which is a very big one in Turkey, and give conferences at universities and private institutes. I’m still writing, I have published four books, I’m going to Amsterdam and then to Belgium next week to promote my book so I’m travelling a lot.
Insatiable: Diary of a Sex Addict is released on DVD 29 June.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Valerie Tasso shot to fame as a writer back in 2003 when she wrote about her experiences as a prostitute in her book Insatiable: Diaries of a Nymphomaniac, which has now been turned into a movie called Diary of a Sex Addict.
I caught up with Valerie to discuss the movie as well as her time working as a prostitute in Spain and what led her to that line of work.
- Your novel The Insatiable Diaries of a Nymphomaniac has been made into Diary of a Sex Addict so can you tell me about the film?
It’s very interesting that both literature and cinema have different languages to communicate, you can see this perfectly with my book and the film, it’s very difficult for a young director to make a summary for my book in an hour and a half. So he has to eliminate all of the scenes which, for example were very hard and also all the scenes that were set outside of Barcelona, the whole film has been shot in Barcelona. And then when you sell the rights of your novel for the adaptation for the cinema it’s very difficult to then criticise the director as he has another language, his own imagination.
Of course I would have made another kind of film I would have cancelled all the moralistic scenes, at the end there is one prostitute that is committing suicide and in my book she doesn’t exist, the act of committing suicide suggests poor girl and I didn’t want people to say that as I’m not a poor girl.
It was not the main character that was committing suicide when she was working in the brothel she was a good friend of hers, she was my good friend and is still working as a prostitute, but by doing this is gives the film a moralistic touch that I would have preferred not to see.
But I understand that the director is young and it’s very difficult for him to understand the human condition, which is quite complex, I would have made a completely different film I would have gone very deep into the psychologies of the characters. I think it can be good to be critical about the film but of course it comes from me and I’m the writer I prefer criticism I think it’s more objective.
But the film is very respectful and I like the main girl who plays Valerie I think she was very comfortable in front of the camera. But for me the film is too short, but I know in the cinema if you make a film more than two hours many producers think that it’s too long, you can make a three hour film if you have Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.
- How did the adaptation come about?
It was very long because I got fed up and told then that I didn’t want to sell anymore as I didn’t want the producer, who is a very big producer here in Spain, to think if I sold then I would do whatever he wants. I didn’t want a porno film and they haven’t made a porno film the studio had very clear ideas, but I asked just in case, and I was asking for a lot of conditions. We had been negotiating for two, and my book is not The Da Vinci Code, I don‘t understand I wasn‘t asking too much, really.
- Did you have any role in the film after you had signed over the rights?
I appear in the film for just one second. It’s a very poetical scene as we are both together, the actress and myself, and there is a fusion because we have look similar, she’s younger of course but we do look alike, but it was very poetic and I think it’s one of the best scenes, not because I appear, but because the director knew how to make it and he wanted to make some images that a big director like David Lynch would have done, it’s quite interesting.
- In 1999 you began working as a prostitute so how did you decide to go into this line of work?
It was easy (laughs). I was completely lost because I used to live with this mad guy, I was very depressed and I was without any money, I used to work as a high executive in different and big companies but I knew that I could have earnt a lot of money but not enough to pay all the debts of my former boyfriend, who was completely mad and a cocaine addict.
The most important thing is that I was curious for me this world was very attractive and I wanted to use both curiosity and an activity to make money very rapidly. So I took the newspaper here is Spain and I was trying to find the biggest ad asking for girls to work in an escort agency, I called in the morning and went to see them in the afternoon.