The Men That Used Me

Often when reading or talking about the punters become invisible.

They are not seen as individuals who choose to exploit, but a general mass who cannot be controlled.

I think it is natural for a prostituted woman or girl not to see the individual. When men from all backgrounds degrade her and use violence on her.

But I feel a need to show some of the men that used me. I cannot see them all, because most have become a mass.

I hate that. I hate that men can rape, and I don’t see their faces. I hate that men could torture me, and I do not even know how many men were in the room.

I hate that I was raped for so long by so many men that each man I show is just the tip of the iceberg.

For me, that is the worse effect of prostitution is that my memory has been wrecked.

And all men who used me look the same.

One way I remember is through the staring of men before, during and after they used me.

It was a look where I could not believe in hope. In that stare, I lose that I was human.

I became a sex object.

I feel that look send fear into me. I feel it turning me into an obedient sex toy.

That stare has enter my nightmares.

I want to to see beyond that stare.

I know I was raped by rich African students. Men who were expecting to be rulers.

Sometimes when I view governments from all countries and cultures, I think of the tortures those men put me through.

Men like that made me an anarchist.

Rich men, whether white or black, who choose to be used prostituted women and girls will assume no-one will care or dare to intervene.

They know prostituted women and girls are easy to exploit, for they will say nothing of the rapes and tortures.

But all men that buy women and girls to get an orgasm know they have permission to rape and torture.

They just choose if they want to be gentle, pretend it is a “girlfriend” exchange or act decent.

I was used as an under-aged prostitute by men 20, 30, 40 years older than me.

By using a prostituted girl, they could lie to themselves it was not child rape.

Did I not take the money, drinks or bed that was the exchange.

Most of those men were using under-aged prostitutes because they were easy to manipulate.

I was normally underpaid than, for me I thought £5 was ok. Often I was paid nothing, just given drinks or even sweets.

I had no idea that I could complain about the violence, so men could torture me and know I would be silent.

As I became an “adult” prostitute, there were so many men and I had become so dead inside, that only a few types stand out.

I was raped by old men. Men who appeared weak, and I thought could do me no real harm. Then when raping me, were so strong and torture me for many hours.

I was raped by “friends” who discover I was prostituted, and wanted it for free. Especially, when they found out I did not “mind” sadistic sex.

I was raped by men who thought they were being gentle. Men who imagine I was their girlfriend, that I would marry them.

I was raped in my flat. I was raped behind pubs. I was raped in clubs. I was raped on the street.

Only, it cannot be rape. It was just an exchange of goods.

It hard to write this.

I want that all men who think it is ok to buy women and girls to be judged.

I don’t care about their background. I don’t care if they are rich or poor. I don’t care if are locals or tourists.

Each man that pays money is paying into the sex trade that makes it ok to rape, tortures and even murder their product.

So I do hate all men that pay for sex.

Hell, they think all prostitutes are the same, and they judge all prostituted women and girls.

So I will condemn them.

13 responses to “The Men That Used Me

  1. Hello Rebecca

    Now I will bookmark you and come here often.

    Thank you for what you do. As I read your essays, I nod. I cannot do what you do. It is too hard. You are so courageous Rebecca and so eloquent. You are a singer. Keep on.

    xxxooo

    Sis

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  2. Damn Rebecca, you said it! I can relate to some of your words- about the stare, yeah, that stare. That stare is why I won’t go to professional basketball games anymore, because of the sick stare all the men in the place get when the “dancers” come on stage. It just makes me feel violent when I see that look. All they see is a thing to fuck.

    This: “But all men that buy women and girls to get an orgasm know they have permission to rape and torture.

    They just choose if they want to be gentle, pretend it is a “girlfriend” exchange or act decent.”

    This is so amazingly right! God, I didn’t really see it like that before. So yeah, not all rapists are “rough” or whatever, but they are still rapists. They get to decide whether to be “gentle” or to be rough. But it’s all awful, and it’s still paying to rape.

    Sending you compassion and comfort 🙂

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  3. Dear ((( Rebecca ))), you are a valiant woman. I am awed more and more every day by what you do.

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  4. Thanks everyone. This was one of the hardest things I ever written. This was because seeing the punters as they really were, makes me sick. It brings back the terror into my heart.
    Sis, I am delighted that I can make some connections with you, because I have a great for your comments.It so beautiful to called a singer, thanks so much

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  5. Rebecca what a clear-sighted post. Telling it as it is – the way men manipulate and justify multiple rapes of women and girls. Because these men really do believe that what they do is never, ever rape but just enactment of their male sexual rights and entitlements. Irrespective of their background, ethnicity or culture these men and I include those men who continue buying women and girls to rape and sexually exploit all believe the same thing. It is their male right and privilege to commit multiple rapes because they not women are the ones who define what is and is not rape. Such men are all rapists and you are right – judge and condemn for the rapists and murderers they are.

    This self-same denial and justification is used by men and boys who commit acquaintance rape. The male rapists often claim ‘but I wasn’t violent, I was gentle and I didn’t harm her. After all she is my girlfriend.’ Just saying there is a continuum with regards to men’s justification and denial of their violence against women and girls.

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  6. Rebecca,

    I thought of your work when I saw this story, from

    news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080730/wl_uk_afp/entertainmentbritainartphotographyprostitution&printer=1;_ylt=Ah6FtfJKELE4T1GqFqRVbevjOrgF
    ———————————-

    London prostitutes use cameras to alter shadowy image

    by Loic VenninWed Jul 30, 11:32 AM ET

    Joy, Sue and Amy are among the countless army of prostitutes working in London’s sometimes shadowy underworld — but a new project aims to shed light on lives often tinged with quiet desperation.

    The U-Turn Project gives each woman a camera, asking them to document the reality of their everyday existence and revealing stories of homelessness, drug addiction, rape and worse.

    “I’ve been a prostitute from the age of 13,” said 49-year-old Joy, who has chosen to tell her story with a photograph of a red light with the word “Stop” on it.

    “My mother and dad sold my body from the age of five to my caretaker for 10 pounds (12 euros, 19 dollars). I was 16 when I had my first baby. He was 14 weeks when he died,” she adds.

    The U-Turn Project deals with 250 women like Joy ever year at their centre in Bethnal Green, in the heart of London’s East End, areas of which are blighted by crime and deprivation.

    Its chair, Jan Woroniecki, says he is ready to do anything “to help them or simply keep them alive”.

    Two years ago, Jan went to an exhibition mounted by PhotoVoice, another not-for-profit organisation which helps some of society’s most vulnerable people by giving them cameras.

    Cameras have been given to Afghan street children, the mentally ill in the United States or refugees in London.

    “I saw that the work they were doing with children in other countries and the similar kind of victims as the women we’re working with,” he said.

    “I saw the way they were using photography as a means to coming to terms with their environment and their lives.

    — I want to be seen as a human, not just a sex worker —

    “It’s proved to be extraordinarily effective, a very powerful tool and one that everybody would understand because everybody knows a camera, everybody has used a camera in their life.”

    The exhibition led to a joint project with PhotoVoice, called “Change the Picture”.

    Equipment was installed at the U-Turn centre and over eight months, the women learnt the basics of photography before taking the cameras and documenting their lives.

    “The purpose is to use photography as a tool, as a platform to speak out about their issues that are important for them, and also to try to raise awareness because they’re a very unrecognised group and there’s very little public understanding on the story of those women,” said PhotoVoice’s co-founder Tiffany Fairey.

    The response has been “extremely positive”, she said.

    “Many of the women were aware they have an opportunity to learn, to have something to use in a positive way, a thing they could create and achieve and be proud of, an opportunity to be taken seriously and to learn,” she added.

    Sue, 26, has been on and off the streets since the age of 13 and is a crack cocaine user in east London.

    “It has made me see more things differently now,” she told AFP. “I sometimes see something and wish I had a camera because it just looks so beautiful and I want to take a picture.

    “No-one can stop me seeing beautiful things now. This project has really been great for me. I was going to nick the camera anyway to sell it, but after a few weeks, I began to enjoy the workshops so I didn’t steal it in the end.

    I wanted people to see me as a human being not just a… sex worker.”

    Amy, 38, agrees. She was systematically abused, as were her siblings and she is now on medication for mental illness.

    “I found it really good, although at first I wasn’t sure if I could understand how to use the camera. I ended up loving it and it took my mind off other things for a while,” she said.

    “At first I did it because I had nothing else to do that day.

    “It gave me the chance to focus on something other than our normal and rather depressing lives. We have never had the chance to do something like this before.”

    “I was upset when they said the programme would end as I enjoyed being part of the group and doing something positive with my life.”

    Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse.
    Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc.

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  7. That’s what prostitution is: rape on a daily basis. And still people cannot recognize the sex trade as a system of abuse. This is so depressing. 😦

    Thanks for this wonderfully compelling and eloquent piece, Rebecca.

    Each man that pays money is paying into the sex trade that makes it ok to rape, tortures and even murder their product.

    This is the TRUTH and it is so appalling. 😦

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  8. “I was raped by men who thought they were being gentle. Men who imagine I was their girlfriend, that I would marry them”
    Yeah, it seems like there are johns out there who think that they’re the “good” or ethical johns, or who have patriarchal fantasies about “rescuing fallen women”. But in the end, even a “good” or ethical john is still exploiting women.

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