Xaviera Hollander: The Cheerful Cheater
Xaviera Hollander is the author of The Happy Hooker (pub TK ) and of 18 other books about sex.
Tracy Quan: You were a call girl in the 1970s. Were you a major cause of marital infidelity in the big city?
Xaviera Hollander: I had several offers from wealthy married men, to be a mistress or a kept woman, and I preferred being a prostitute to having a sugar daddy. All the mistresses I knew were very lonely on the weekends. In a sexual relationship with a married man, I would feel no guilt as far as his wife is concerned -- because I know he would do it with someone else if he didn't do it with me. When I became a prostitute, some men would come in and complain about their marriages. Quite often, if a man said, "My wife doesn't like sex," I would tell him, "Look, darling, there's a lot to be taught in your case." And I would teach him to be a better lover. So, I think I saved a lot of marriages -- and prevented some cheating.
TQ: When you became a madam, were most of the hookers cheating on their boyfriends?
XH: Very few kept their work a secret. Most of the girls told their boyfriends about their work. I had a penthouse on East 72nd Street and recruited most of my staff at nudist camps and orgies. I could see that they had good bodies and that they liked what they were doing... There were some who did not tell the men in their lives. One girl was Ecuadorian and she was a virgin. She worked for me while she was engaged to a man but she retained her virginity: she would only take a man in the "Greek" way. She didn't feel that she was cheating on her fiance because, after all, she was still a virgin when they got married!
TQ: Sometimes, a john acts out the cheating scenario with a hooker: he'll tell her she's the only one he pays even when it's not true.
XH: In my building, there were so many hookers -- it was like a vertical whorehouse. Other girls would hustle my clients in the elevator -- as they were coming to see me! But that's not cheating, that's competition.
TQ: What's the difference?
XH: Cheating isn't about sex, it's about deception, going behind someone's back. When a married person has sex with a stranger on a business trip, that's not cheating -- it's an affair. Cheating is when he does it with his secretary, or with a friend who knows his wife... You all know each other but you're touching him under the table when nobody's looking... I've done it, myself. I had a quickie with my man's best friend while he wasn't watching. I was in the house and he was outside, by the pool. It was exciting because I could see him and he couldn't see me.
TQ: And if he did the same with one of your friends?
XH: A man I was involved with liked to hide his cash in an encyclopedia under M for Money. One day, I looked under W for Woman and, sure enough, I found another woman's phone number hidden in the encyclopedia -- a girlfriend I had known for 20 years. I changed her number -- by turning a 0 into an 8 -- and he asked me about it. But I felt that my friend had cheated me. She was sneaking around behind my back. I'm very jealous. I always have a rule: I tell my girlfriends which men they cannot sleep with. If you sleep with my lover or my man, you won't be invited to my parties again.
TQ: Do you have a double standard?
XH: I've cheated on others but I don't want it done to me. I am a complete macha.
© Copyright 1996 Urban Desires
