Hook, Line & Sinking.

Women get in the prostitution trap & accrue damage which serves to keep them there. Poverty is compounded by substance abuse & up to 95% of women in prostitution are problematic drug users, including around 78% heroin users & rising numbers of crack cocaine/ crystal methamphetamine addicts. Not something you hear talked about a lot in all the pro-sex industry hot air being constantly churned out, but a reality. Prostitution hurts & drink & drugs help make it bearable, help numb you out, but keep you trapped there strapped for cash.

No one is as much the object of myth, of fear of ridicule & of hatred as the prostitute. People talk about the ‘oldest profession’, ‘choice’, ‘liberation of sexuality’ but it’s just all talk. Ask a woman in the industry if she enjoys it & she’ll tell you she does, because she has to. It is unsafe for her to do otherwise, the people who surround her (but out of sight) – her ‘manager’, her ‘madam’, her ‘pimp’ – will not let her say different. And to survive what happens to you, you live in denial anyway. You can’t acknowledge the damage, can’t acknowledge the danger until you’re out & safe, & even then it’s hard to face something so incredibly painful.
If you’re lucky enough to exit prostitution, & not become another statistic, someone else who died there, you have to face an unpalatable truth; I was bought.

Men, ugly men, pretty men, scrawny men, fat men, smelly men, sadistic men, old men, young men, angry men, weak men, sleazy men touched me, whispered sick little fantasies in my ear & leered at me & penetrated me & stared at me, had one over me.
Forced their fingers into my anus, despite having been warned not too, pulled my hair to the point that they’ve ripped extensions out. Spanked my arse so hard it would welt. Pulled condoms off whilst fucking me from behind, even worse when they’ve pulled it down to the tip of their cocks, & once they’ve blown & pulled out you realize the condoms gone, that it’s up inside of you. That they blew inside of you.
And it hurt.
And I had to smile & say I loved it & please do all those sordid things you just said because, ooh, baby, you make me cum!
And that body was me.
And that body is me.
And that voice was mine but the words weren’t, they were lines given me, that I had to say in an attempt to stay safe, another dignity taken from me.
And it doesn’t matter if I was using a working name because he was looking at me when he said it & touching me when he said it. Not too easy to come to terms with.

You’re in for a lot of self-hatred and body issues & PTSD if not addiction problems. Being prostituted changes everything: the effects are long term & some irreversible. You can never look at the world quite the same way, look at people quite the same way because you know what they’re capable of. You know what men are capable of & you know there’s a whole army of people out there willing to defend to the hilt the ‘right’ of women to be treated just as you were because they do not understand, or will not understand, what it means for a woman to be bought & sold, an object to be wanked over & then walked away from.

The statistics remain for the most part hidden, the realities for the most part hidden, drowned out by the omnipresent background hum of the sex-industry. And given the economic climate & its effect on women, it’s a matter of urgency.
The doorway to quick & easy cash? More like the doorway to hell.