The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
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Society
/ January 29, 2026
The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
Sook-Yin Lee’s new romantic comedy, Paying for It, explores Platonic love and prostitution.
Jeet Heer
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Some couples have a strange way of drawing closer together after they break up. That’s certainly the case with two Canadian artists, musician and filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee and cartoonist Chester Brown. Technically, they only dated from 1992 to 1996, a few years before I got to know them. But in a quarter century of our friendship, it’s been difficult for me to disentangle them from each other. They are ex-lovers, yes, but that doesn’t quite capture their bond. I’d often see them at the same social events. If I met them separately they’d be full of news and updates about the other. The exact nature of their relationship was hard to pin down and a frequent source of conversation among mutual friends.
Now the mystery of their coupledom is much easier to understand, thanks to Lee’s new semi-autobiographical movie Paying For It, which is adapted from Brown’s 2011 graphic memoir of the same title.
Paying For It is a quirky romantic comedy based on what might seem like unpromising material. Brown’s memoir is an account of how his split with Lee led him to abandon the idea of romantic love and become a habitual purchaser of sex. The book carries the subtitle “A comic-strip memoir of being a john.”
Brown’s road from boyfriend to john took place over several years. After the 1996 break-up, Brown and Lee continued to live together in what they optimistically or naïvely described as an open relationship. But while Lee dated other men, Brown was celibate. Hearing Lee argue with one of her boyfriends deepened Brown’s disenchantment with the idea of being in a relationship, which he came to see as upholding an impossible ideal of perpetual passion and toxically linked to unsavory emotions such as possessiveness.
Brown purchased sex for the first time in 1999 and, since then, has been a proud john. As a memoir, Paying For It is revelatory and unsettling. The sex is presented clinically and coldly, often from a birds-eye view at some distance. From his stark narrative, we can both see how being a john benefited Brown, making an introspective and awkward man more comfortable in his body. But Brown doesn’t flinch from describing alienating incidents. I remain haunted by his story of an appointment with a sex worker where they only realized after the fact that they had previously had sex before. Perhaps unintentionally, Brown reinforces the effect of estrangement by not depicting the faces of sex workers, a visual …
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The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
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Current Issue
Society
/ January 29, 2026
The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
Sook-Yin Lee’s new romantic comedy, Paying for It, explores Platonic love and prostitution.
Jeet Heer
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
(Film Movement)
Some couples have a strange way of drawing closer together after they break up. That’s certainly the case with two Canadian artists, musician and filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee and cartoonist Chester Brown. Technically, they only dated from 1992 to 1996, a few years before I got to know them. But in a quarter century of our friendship, it’s been difficult for me to disentangle them from each other. They are ex-lovers, yes, but that doesn’t quite capture their bond. I’d often see them at the same social events. If I met them separately they’d be full of news and updates about the other. The exact nature of their relationship was hard to pin down and a frequent source of conversation among mutual friends.
Now the mystery of their coupledom is much easier to understand, thanks to Lee’s new semi-autobiographical movie Paying For It, which is adapted from Brown’s 2011 graphic memoir of the same title.
Paying For It is a quirky romantic comedy based on what might seem like unpromising material. Brown’s memoir is an account of how his split with Lee led him to abandon the idea of romantic love and become a habitual purchaser of sex. The book carries the subtitle “A comic-strip memoir of being a john.”
Brown’s road from boyfriend to john took place over several years. After the 1996 break-up, Brown and Lee continued to live together in what they optimistically or naïvely described as an open relationship. But while Lee dated other men, Brown was celibate. Hearing Lee argue with one of her boyfriends deepened Brown’s disenchantment with the idea of being in a relationship, which he came to see as upholding an impossible ideal of perpetual passion and toxically linked to unsavory emotions such as possessiveness.
Brown purchased sex for the first time in 1999 and, since then, has been a proud john. As a memoir, Paying For It is revelatory and unsettling. The sex is presented clinically and coldly, often from a birds-eye view at some distance. From his stark narrative, we can both see how being a john benefited Brown, making an introspective and awkward man more comfortable in his body. But Brown doesn’t flinch from describing alienating incidents. I remain haunted by his story of an appointment with a sex worker where they only realized after the fact that they had previously had sex before. Perhaps unintentionally, Brown reinforces the effect of estrangement by not depicting the faces of sex workers, a visual …
The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
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The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
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Current Issue
Society
/ January 29, 2026
The Cartoonist, the Director, and the Sex Workers
Sook-Yin Lee’s new romantic comedy, Paying for It, explores Platonic love and prostitution.
Jeet Heer
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
(Film Movement)
Some couples have a strange way of drawing closer together after they break up. That’s certainly the case with two Canadian artists, musician and filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee and cartoonist Chester Brown. Technically, they only dated from 1992 to 1996, a few years before I got to know them. But in a quarter century of our friendship, it’s been difficult for me to disentangle them from each other. They are ex-lovers, yes, but that doesn’t quite capture their bond. I’d often see them at the same social events. If I met them separately they’d be full of news and updates about the other. The exact nature of their relationship was hard to pin down and a frequent source of conversation among mutual friends.
Now the mystery of their coupledom is much easier to understand, thanks to Lee’s new semi-autobiographical movie Paying For It, which is adapted from Brown’s 2011 graphic memoir of the same title.
Paying For It is a quirky romantic comedy based on what might seem like unpromising material. Brown’s memoir is an account of how his split with Lee led him to abandon the idea of romantic love and become a habitual purchaser of sex. The book carries the subtitle “A comic-strip memoir of being a john.”
Brown’s road from boyfriend to john took place over several years. After the 1996 break-up, Brown and Lee continued to live together in what they optimistically or naïvely described as an open relationship. But while Lee dated other men, Brown was celibate. Hearing Lee argue with one of her boyfriends deepened Brown’s disenchantment with the idea of being in a relationship, which he came to see as upholding an impossible ideal of perpetual passion and toxically linked to unsavory emotions such as possessiveness.
Brown purchased sex for the first time in 1999 and, since then, has been a proud john. As a memoir, Paying For It is revelatory and unsettling. The sex is presented clinically and coldly, often from a birds-eye view at some distance. From his stark narrative, we can both see how being a john benefited Brown, making an introspective and awkward man more comfortable in his body. But Brown doesn’t flinch from describing alienating incidents. I remain haunted by his story of an appointment with a sex worker where they only realized after the fact that they had previously had sex before. Perhaps unintentionally, Brown reinforces the effect of estrangement by not depicting the faces of sex workers, a visual …
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