I’m just back from holiday, I will probably do another post all about holidays and how difficult I find them but for this post I will just write about my holiday read! (I spent a lot of time reading by the pool as expected, it was TOO HOT to do anything else.)
Once I started reading it I couldn’t stop till I finished it. Fern Brady is a Scottish stand up comedian who has had a late diagnosis of neuro diversity, being autistic. (Late diagnosis, as she is in her 30’s, I’m a lot later!) It is entertaining but also dark and hard to read at points. I’ve done loads of googling about autistic traits and how to handle things but often the websites / books are written by non-neurodiverse people for non-neurodiverse carers of autistic children. They unfortunately often feel both patronising and depressing.
This has the magical quality of being written by a neurodiverse female for other neurodiverse females, and she doesn’t hold back but tells it how it is / was for her. It is a very refreshing, if at times dark, read. For example, she writes about her time as a stripper in Edinburgh and gives a totally different perspective on that world. I will never see the accepted, current stereotypes (female sex workers as victims, the tart with the heart of gold, female sex workers as empowered) in the same light. Essentially it is a way for women to earn money when other avenues are not open. It reminded me of the quote (and I can’t remember who made it, but I think I read it in Caitlin Moran’s latest book) that pornography, in general, is all lies about women, all truths about men. It applies to the strip clubs in exactly the same way.
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