How Come You Ain’t Dead?

My past is fragmented, my past is made of holes.

I touch the many years of being prostituted, and find only an open-mouthed silent grief.

I know prostitution has rip away my adolescent, made my twenties into a grave.

I am now into my 50’s, and have finally learnt to accept their will always large parts of my own existence I can never know or understand.

What hurts is that the good parts of my past have been wiped out too, I can pretend that I remember when surround by folks who were there.

But remembering is a performance, and all too often I trip up on the familiar details.

I want to design a brain that makes the hell of prostitution small, leaving enough to know it was bad, but not interfering with the day-to-day – leaving space for the good memories.

But that is not reality, that is a dream.

Instead, my brain hold onto the horror, the sense of being empty and lost, the physical pain that was the world of prostitution.

It is not in clear memories – not logical stories to hold and speak out, not in logical time and space.

I remember many rapes as a single rape.

I see no faces on the punters only a void as endless rapes, endless smashing up my body and mind.

I remember as my body has no escape – no part of body was not polluted by punters.

My ears had sperm planted into them, were hit when I did undress quite enough.

My head was always in pain as it tried to block all reality.

My mouth and throat forgot to eat as the taste of hate drown me.

My eyes refuse to make contact with any punters. To be seen, would be like killing myself.

My arm and hands perform whatever the punter demanded, as my robot heart played lies that I would be fine.

My stomach was sick, but learn to hold it in – knowing it would just make the punter laugh or go harder.

My legs and feet were useless – I could not run, I could kick him in the balls – I just perform when waiting to be gone.

My cunt carries all his hate, his violence – it was the place were my right to be fully human was buried.

That is a short version of what it was to be prostituted. Short version of body memories, short version of living inside complex trauma.

I write this blog, inside that pain, grief and confusion.

That is why I so pleased that some of you have sent me donations, it shows deep respect. Please continue to do so and ask around or others to donate.

Now to explain the title of the blog – it is a constant refrain said to many exited folks, especially exited women with fragmented memories who now are strong abolitionists.

If it was as bad as you claim – how come you ain’t dead.

This is a refrain that is used to silenced us, implying we are exaggerating or just plain old liars.

This refrain can on occasions come a place of deep ignorance, then with care it can spoken to and if heard, education can bring change.

An education to say the prostituted are tortured, are raped on industrial scale, are made sub-humans – but somehow, not all of the prostituted died.

Those of us who have exited are living proof of this – and our testimonies must be heard, and not lessen or see as rarities.

But many who say – why ain’t you dead yet? – do not do it from a place of ignorance, but from a place of wanting to control us and silenced the multiple voices of the exited.

It said by the sex trade lobby – which is mainly sex trade profiteers, punters, and their allies in the media and academia.

It is not an innocent or naive question when by said by the sex trade – it is a statement of fury that we dare to be alive and to remember.

For to keep the sex trade going, it is vital that the prostituted have no authentic voices just the voices of being controlled and owned.

To keep the sex trade going, it is vital that the prostituted are made to forget their own realities.

To keep the sex trade going, it is vital to allow the majority of the prostituted to disappeared, to fall into silence or to be dead – so there is a constant of fresh goods to control and owned.

The exited are not meant to exist, especially if they speak their own minds, especially if they speak to torture, rape and constant fear of death.

We are meant to be dead – so there be a complete silence about the conditions for the prostituted.

Our existence is a constant threat to status quo of the sex trade – for by remembering, we are carries of deep truths.

We speak out truth to power, and shake the roots of all the sex trade

Our voices once finding their authentic truths cannot ever forget – even as our memories are fragmented.

In remembering, we must fight for justice, for freedom and full humanity for all the prostituted – for all prostituted are connected by oppression and hate.

In remembering, we lose our individual stories and find connections with other exited folks – whether from the street, strippers, from brothels, escorts etc – we all have endless violence inside our minds and bodies.

No wonder the sex trade lobby hates us, and wishes we were dead – for we never one voice, we are the multiple voices from every continent and we connect to the oppressed prostituted in the past.

This blog is very personal, but it also calling for the revolution of the exited to be made real.

We are not dead – we are alive, wanting freedom and justice.

Do Not Go Quiet

The sex trade lobby is constantly inventing to new words to silence exited women (and some exited men).

The latest one is SWERF – which something like sex workers excluded by radical feminists – or such-like nonsense.

This made-up word is used to stop all discussion, all interchange of ideas or attempts to forge bridges.

This made-up is used word is used to stop any mention of the Nordic Approach, to say abolitionists all know nothing about being prostituted and just are in ivory towers.

And this made-up word is liberally used to shut down and shut up all exited women who speak to human rights, who speak for abolition, and speak to and with awareness that all the prostituted are interconnected.

We are called haters of the prostituted, we are told we are responsible for the violence done to the prostituted by just wanting human rights.

We are told, usually outside the public gaze, that we are traitors, that we have become murderers of the prostituted.

We are SWERFs, so must be silenced.

For it made clear, our words are meaningless, for it said we speak of a place of self-hate, a place of fragmented memory, a place where the sex trade demands facts ignoring our trauma.

Facts become a huge silencing weapon.

For to be part of the sex trade lobby, you must decide there can be no trauma after exiting the sex trade.

This is partly because to back the sex trade, you must think exiting is no big deal, especially as most of the prostituted choose to stay inside the industry.

Those who choose to exit must be to mentally weak to cope, so their word can be dismissed.

To prove their mental weakness – the sex trade lobby bombard the exited with endless questions on “facts”.

These so-called facts are never about the everyday violence of punters, or the structure of the sex trade that makes all the prostituted sub-human.

Facts to the sex trade lobby are just another to trip up the exited, and to make look like liars or too ill to remember/know their reality.

“Where actually did the so-called violence happened?

How old were you?

Was it in a legal establishment?

If it was so bad, how come you stayed/are still alive?

Why did you not buy your way out?

Where is the injuries, there no outward signs you were hurt.

You should have done self-defence.

Why did you not report it/tell someone?

Why did you take the money?

Aren’t you pass that now?”

The sex trade lobby has no interest in answers or debate – just to grind the exited until they become sub-human again.

For we are considered to be the property of the sex trade, and we have broken out. We must be broken down so we can be their property again.

It is that evil, that cruel – it is no simple name-calling or game-playing. It is part of the  genocide of the prostituted.

For genocide is fueled by the silencing of the oppressed, making their truths only be spoken or written down by their oppressors.

The prostituted have never had an authentic voice – slowly at the end of the twentieth century to now, there is a growth in exited prostituted women and a few men reaching out to discover their authentic voices.

We cannot have the history of the prostituted class written and spoken only by the sex trade lobby.

That is never the multiple voices of the prostituted, it is always the voices of the static quo, the voices of profiteers and punters.

To be called SWERF by the sex trade lobby is a back-handed compliment – for that ridiculous word shows a fear of the power of the exited to speak truth to power, and to force real revolution and gain full human rights for all the prostituted.

 

Back Now

I want to thank each and everyone who has made donations to my blog, it is vital for I cannot write without stability.

I cannot write to the heart of why I am abolitionist when I am too triggered or hungry.

Now, with your support, I can see into the future and have the strength to know how my past is part of forming it.

So now, as I listen to special Spotify mixture of jazz, blues, Cajun, oldies soul, Blondie, JJ Cale, Bluegrass and rock ‘n’ roll – I will try to do my blog.

It is hard, for I feel like I have been detached when I was worried about my money situation.

I was detached to force my mind not to think about prostitution – the so-called easy way to make money.

Money is like poison – but without money the will to live fades away.

That is the trap that many exited folks have to live with.

When I was prostituted, I hated money.

I would only spend it on trash food and drink – forgetting that money can be used for fun, for education, for climbing away from hell.

I would throw my “earnings” away on one-arm bandits, on drowning in alcohol, giving it away to people who were using me, throwing into the river.

The money of punters was acid – I had to get rid of it.

I became used to living with little money – but knowing men may buy me anything – as long as I could care if I was alive or dead.

It was a world where detachment was survival, where not thinking further than half an hour at the time was essential.

A world where forgetting was the only way to somehow place one foot in front of another.

The world of being prostituted has no good sides – only to survive almost all the prostituted will say or shout they are fine.

The noise of the prostituted saying that it must be empowering, that it was always their choice, that they know they can deal with the “rare” male violence is loud because that is what outsiders want to hear.

That noise is also loud because it shut out for the prostituted their own reality.

A reality where there is no place or type of prostitution that can be made safe or be empowering.

Not when the purpose of prostitution is to make each and every member of the prostituted class is sub-human disposable sexual goods.

Not when each and every punter has the entitlement to do as whatever he wants to the prostituted without interference, without any sanctions, and with the knowledge his mess will be clean up until it becomes invisible.

Not when each and every one of the prostituted know in their hearts, that torture, rape and murder is normal – so no wonder they proclaim they are fine, as their lives are slowly being made nothing.

The concept of the contented prostitute is the one that the mainstream desire.

If the prostitute is happy or at the least able to deal with the life – then we don’t have to worry that our male relations, our male work colleagues, our male partners are raping, torturing or killing the prostituted class.

If we just focus on the individual prostitute and her choices, her empowerment, her conditions – we are consciously ignoring the elephant in the room.

That the violence, the fear and dehumanising are all the foundations of all aspects of prostitution.

That it is male entitlement that forms the prostituted class.

That male entitlement will leave no place or aspect of prostitution safe or empowering to what they have invented as sexual goods.

There is nothing personal when punters are violent to the prostituted, it is just the normal exchange of goods.

So it normal for the prostituted to block out that reality – and speak the language of the sex trade that they are doing well.

I am drained now.

Setting Up as a Business

I am trying to be self-employed, but it is very scary and I not sure how to do it.

I am writing to my readers for practical help, and emotional back-up.

I am completely broke until the 23rd of this month, so I could really do with advice how to make this blog a permanent earner.

I hate writing this – but I feel I more than emotional support from my readers.

I have many long-term readers who have seen my determination, my ups and downs, my resistance to the sex trade lobby.

I know many of loyal readers have seen I do my work through and with complex PTSD.

One factor of my PTSD is when I have no money, or running out of food – I become extremely triggered.

I am used to dealing, with acting like I am fine when my world is crashing in on me.

I put on my Survivor’s face, and become an island.

But no-one can live as an island, especially when not understanding the rules of asking for help or support.

Prostitution is a cruel teacher, and some of its useless lessons are not obvious to many outsiders.

The harsh lesson of being prostituted is to assume you cannot ask for help or expect others to care.

Through this blog and its outreach, I am slowly learning that is a lie, a lie which is one way that the sex trade still destroy the prostituted whether they are exited or embedded in prostitution.

I am now reaching out, and asking if anyone respect and honour my work if we could set a long-term way of making some cash.

I was thinking if loyal readers give through PayPal the minimum of £1 a week, or £3 a month to make some kind of business.

I am new to all this, and don’t want to guilt-trip or put pressure on anyone.

To be honest, the most helpful thing that could be done is to have advice of how to get permanent contributions for my work.

This blog is making me poor, so it would heartening if that was not so.

Abolition is Long-Term

I want to thank all who have supported my recent SOS, but I do not want it to be a five-minute wonder.

I will write some personal views of what I think abolition means to exited folks, to me on an individual level and why it not easy or short-term.

It is vital to know who and what the sex trade lobby is and what they are not.

The sex trade lobby is not a bunch of individual trolls hiding behind their computers.

The sex trade is a highly organised, with almost endless funds, and recruit many punters and abused prostituted to write or make their protest.

The sex trade lobby is organised by those who profiteer from the dehumanising of all the prostituted – the sex trade lobby is pimp’s lobby, the sex trade lobby does only care about profit so is also the punter’s lobby.

So, these are the things that the sex trade is not –

It has no concern for the mental, physical or sexual welfare of the prostituted.

It not about empowering the prostituted.

It does nothing to improve the human rights of the prostituted.

It ignores all health and safety for the prostituted.

And it willfully makes all the prostituted class into sub-human.

So if you even have a small feeling that abolition is an answer – than stop believing the sex trade lobby and its propaganda.

Do not believe prostitution can be made safe – or at the minimum safe enough to ignore again.

Do not fall for the myths that indoors prostitution can be made safe, can be made empowering and is somehow prostitute-friendly.

Think clearer, and think of how the vast majority of male violence done to the non-prostituted is done indoors and by men that are known to the victim.

Why, would prostituted females be the only females who are safe alone with men indoors – it makes no sense, maybe because it is pure rubbish or simple lying by those who profiteer from indoors prostitution.

Be real – punters who buy women are likely to see her as goods, these men are highly likely to be violent whilst thinking it is a non-event.

These punters, whether or not they use street-based prostitution or the multiple forms of indoors prostitution, will usually be sadistic indoors.

Look at the common murders of the prostituted – the Ipswich murderer brought the prostituted women off the street, but killed in the privacy of his flat, the same as the murders in Bradford.

In Canada, the horrific murders of mainly indigenous prostituted women by a recent serial killer, was done in the privacy of his work-space.

And, speak and truly hear exited women who did mainly indoors prostitution, and know our knowledge that it is easy to make the prostituted just disappeared from brothels, disappeared from hotel rooms, disappeared from visit to the homes of punters, disappeared from sex clubs.

It is normal for the prostituted to just disappear from the “safety” of indoors prostitution – but this not important enough to be reported, not important to be crime or research statistics.

No, put prostitution behind closed doors and like magic it is made invisible.

I am finding it hard to focus on this post, mostly because when I think of supporting those of us who have exited the sex trade, I get a deep hole of despair and pessimism inside my soul.

I am terrified that as in the majority of the history of the prostituted fighting for freedom, we will be abandoned by allies and left to face the sex trade lobby alone.

This must not happened, for the sex trade lobby will refuse to see any humanity in the prostituted class, and hope by isolating us it can make our destruction invisible.

For the sex trade lobby is creating and has created genocide of the prostituted.

It is a clever genocide for it made invisible, by having a constant supply of desperate people who will replaced the prostituted who have been killed or just made to disappear.

It is a genocide that feeds off all the miseries done to human – it recruits through poverty, recruits in times of wars or natural disasters, recruit from child abuse, recruits from racism, recruits from women being made second-class citizens, recruits from allowing people to have no self-esteem, and on and on and on.

The sex trade recruits and then will form a highly profitable market.

It should be seen for its cynicism and that it desire to silence any protest by our deaths being non-news.

So when I try to write what I personally would like to do to support and fight for the prostituted – remember my heart is broken.

I want anger – not the passive reaction of liking the efforts of the exited to break that enforced silence.

We do not need or want your pity, your tears hiding apathy, your placing our lives into boxes that you can control.

Most of the exited want freedom, want justice, want soldiers who fight for that – not signing petitions, endless talk or re-telling of token stories.

It is not a time of negotiation – how do negotiate with the sex trade lobby who see no humanity in the prostituted?

It is a time to fight on every level.

I would love to the old anger back of burning down sex shop; of photographing men entering sex clubs/shops, men going to brothels; the boycotting of porn companies; the demonstrations in red-light district.

I would love all action led and guided by exited folks.

I would love that we listen to exited on a deeper level than just politics or short-term issues – no hear what our trauma means, hear our understanding of male violence, hear our ways of living through that violence.

I would love grief, pain and trauma to be in every discussion about why we must have abolition.

I would love there to be at least annual marches to commemorate the destruction of the prostituted class – not to place as after-thought or footnote to male violence.

I would love every city or town to have a permanent memorial to that lose.

Just simple ways of showing society sees the prostituted as fully human.

I want each and every reader of this blog to question men on their use of the prostituted.

I want men who say they are abolitionists to confront other men they know who consume the sex trade.

I want there to be an environment of shame place on the punters and consumers of the sex trade.

I want serious punishment for punters – for serial rape, for GBH/ABH, and for torture.

I want serious punishment of sex trade profiteers – for physical/mental/sexual violence, for forced imprisonment, for use of slaves, and so much more extreme crimes.

Why is seen as good enough to just fine punters who are mostly serial rapists, capable of physical/mental/sexual torture – could be another reminder that the prostituted are not human enough to deserve justice?

I know there is tons more to say – but do whatever you can to stop this genocide – don’t look away.

SOS

I have been seeing some support around trolls writing mental violence to many radical feminists, or even women who just speak their mind.

It is horrific that there is such silencing of women, but it is wonderful that it has got good women and a few men to give support and plan actions.

There is a sisterhood for many women attacked on the net – but is that sisterhood willing to reach out to exited women when they are under constant attack.

Sadly, it appears highly unlikely, or only there if it is easy or about signing petitions or clicking “like”.

There is little or no rallying round when violence and hate to exited women becomes all too real.

Where is the sisterhood when it comes to standing to pimp/punter- thinking?

Where is the sisterhood when exited women speaks out about physical attacks from the sex trade lobby?

And would the sisterhood honoured our deaths if the sex trade did make us disappear or commit suicide or just murder us in a casual way?

I know many of you reading this, will be saying to yourself “I would never abandoned exited women”.

But please tell what you do of practical help when exited women are persecuted by the sex trade lobby.

This is an SOS, for this is beyond an emergency.

This is a time for action not clicking like, not just reading our words, not just signing petitions.

It is a time to be uncomfortable and fully face the reality of being an exited woman.

I have very lucky, for I have escaped almost entirely connections with the punters and profiteers who used.

This luck gives me the privilege to see the constant attacks on my exited Sisters with a degree of detachment, and deep heartache.

I am lucky that the vast majority of attacks done to me on a “personal” level, are done by parts of the sex trade lobby that will not bother to track me down in person, just send generalised hate through the net.

I am lucky I do not feel under physical threat – but for the seven years that I have been open about being exited and an abolitionist, the mental violence is background noise.

I know this mental violence is not done by trolls who never seemed to leave their computer seats – it is highly organised by the sex trade lobby.

This means it will be relentless, seeing as it has endless funds and many willing people to do their dirty work.

This is not just about silencing exited women, it is much more sinister than that.

It is about annihilating all the prostituted, and making sure there is no record of our protest.

This has always been how the sex trade lobby has dealt with exited women who become abolitionists.

There is a long and brave history of exited women attempting to speak truth to power – it is more than likely as long as women have been enslaved in the sex trade.

But the history of prostitution is re-written by the sex trade lobby every generation. The voices of all those brave exited women is throw into the trash.

But each and every exited carries that history of rebellion forward, we refused to be silenced despite knowing the force of our enemy.

We know their weapons – we know they think nothing of torturing us back into submission, we know they make gas-lighting into an art form, we know they would rape back into being sub-human, and we know they would kill us without any conscious.

But we still stand tall – so where is our support or actions to protect us?

I know that many of my exited Sisters live the fear and background noise of pimps and punters knowing where they live, where their children or other loved one are – or are trying to track down information to stalk them.

This is no computer threat, through the knowledge is gained through the computer – this is simple physical threat, threat of real crime, threat that all about making us sub-human.

Sometimes, the threat is just keep on the mental level, by constant stalking or sending hate through the computer.

But the reality of physical attacks, or forcing us back into the sex trade, is always a reality.

Many amazing exited women have been so terrified and persecuted that they have stop writing, stop speaking out, left all social networks and go back to isolation.

These are women who voices are powerful and needed for abolition to go forward.

I want more anger at the war against exited women – for otherwise is can appear that we are not fully human, so we should stop moaning and just cope with it.

 

The Clouds are Clearing

I am proud to say that by facing my trauma, it has cleared for the while.

I have always found that confronting my past works for me – though that is personal, and I would not suggest it for anyone else.

But I have the soul of a stubborn warrior who need to understand and confront pain.

I see my hidden essence like the Samurai in classic Japanese films, only willing to fight when pushed to their limit and only fight against forces of hate and sadism.

To be a true warrior, is to mainly walk away from violence especially violence that from a place of deep fear or inability to find justice.

To be a true warrior, is know what battles to fight – know many battles may be lost or bring about deep despair, but always to keep your eyes on the prize.

To be an abolitionist against the sex trade, that warrior is needed.

For to bring about abolition, great patience is needed whilst at the same time being willing to be ready for sudden action.

Another part of being a warrior is learning to able to be still enough to know deep grief, and see the reasons you have no choice but to fight.

A true warrior comes to the battle after the reality of pain, seeing unspeakable actions, knowing a sorrow that may not be repairable.

Part of the warrior spirit is to sat in stunned silence knowing how evil humans can be to other humans.

A true warrior is able to be racked with grief.

A true warrior can feel no hope, but somehow has the strength to keep going forward.

To be a true warrior is choose the hard path over the easy road.

To be a true is know how isolated you have been and will be – but also have the courage to seek out other warriors.

For no end of the sex trade, can be done by one woman – we must build an army of warriors who know grief and pain, but never let that stop the fight.

Each and every warrior in this war, carries the lives of those still embedded in the sex trade, we carry the many deaths and disappearances of the prostituted class.

We hold each and every person inside the sex trade as heroes, we remembered those we have lost with honour and deep respect.

Each warrior in the movement fight to end the hate, sadism and destruction of the prostituted’s humanity that are the foundations of every aspect of the sex trade.

We will never leave any prostitute to suffer – even one prostitute being raped or torture is one too many.

This is a war where our enemy see the prostituted as sub-humans.

How is possible to have respect for an enemy that viewed the prostituted class as throwaway sexual goods, has made it out that prostituted deserve no human rights – an enemy that create an invisible genocide by replacing the goods.

The sex trade, punters and supporters of the existence of the sex trade have created a world where millions of the prostituted are living in conditions of torture, living under the constant threat of violent death – and frame this as adult (male) entertainment.

Our suffering is just one huge joke to our enemy

So we must fight even if only to silence that laughter.

Crashing Back to Life

I have going through, crashing through trauma for quite some time now.

Each day I wake with my body shaking, my mind full of despair – but all the time there is a deep desire to force my way forward.

This is not depression, I have no wish to fall away – this is deep trauma, and is just a natural reaction to the poison put into me by punters, people’s ignorance of what it is and was to be prostituted, the sex trade profiteers and the utter lack of any justice for the prostituted.

Trauma is not a mental illness, it is a healthy reaction to extreme abuse/torture and having no justice.

No-one is born into trauma, trauma is forced into us by terrible events that can be natural, by man-made disasters, by man-made wars, and by man-made violence.

It is thought that the prostituted have some the higher rates of trauma, higher than soldiers in the front-line, higher than domestic violence, and higher than most rape survivors.

I always wonder why that is news, or even a surprise – could it be by not looking at the conditions of the prostituted, then it become easier to ignore our trauma?

For I see understanding and empathy for many women and girls on the receiving end of male violence – but a constant turning away from the prostituted.

I see understanding and political action for men and women who are tortured by a State – but a refusal to acknowledge that prostitution is a form of torture.

Could it be that the prostituted are still considered to non-humans, so cannot have real trauma? – if not, I cannot see another logical reason that our trauma is made invisible.

I need to know why rape is considered to worse than death when done to the non-prostituted, but rape to the prostituted is made into a non-crime?

I need to why torture is horrific when done to a political prisoner, but the exact same torture plus rape is just leisure or entertainment when done to women inside the sex trade?

I need to know why chicken in battery farms get more sympathy and passionate anger than women in crowded brothels or the horrific conditions of the porn industry?

I do not expect answers, maybe just the endless cliché reasons or turning away, the usual justifications that do nothing to end the pain of no justice or even being considered fully human.

That is the surface reason that all the prostituted live with trauma – knowing our right to be human is still a long way off.

I know and understand what it is to be raped outside of prostitution.

I know and understand it can and will feel as if you have been stripped of your humanity – but most victims of rape regain their right to be considered to be human, many never truly lose it.

This is because many rape victims are believed by friends and those who campaign to end rape.

Rape is seen as a crime – it is rarely punished – but it is considered a terrible event.

Strangely, the more a woman or girl is raped the less she is believed, and the less human she is seen.

Maybe that is some answer to why raping the prostituted is made to be nothing.

For most of the prostituted are raped by hundreds if not thousands of punters – we are raped beyond statistics, beyond remembering the men’s faces, beyond the body ability to hold pain.

But our rapes are non-existent, it becomes just who we are.

We cannot be raped for we are sex-crazed, we force men to use us as sex-dolls.

We cannot know rape for we do not feel pain like real women, we have no sense of shame that real rape victims have.

It cannot be rape if we took the money or gifts, it is not rape if we go on to another punter after.

These are a few of the millions of reasons given for ignoring the constant raping of the prostituted – reasons used as a silencing tool.

No wonder the prostituted are drowning in trauma.

Please be more radical about listening to the prostituted.

Hear their trauma and stop turning away.

Speak to That Pain

It is the middle of the night, and I am listening to Northern Soul, and trying to ignore trauma.

I could say I feel low, depressed, restless, unable to sleep – but that is just the surface.

No, trauma is a rat gnawing at my will to go forward.

Trauma is the laying in bed and sleeping, only to wake physically wrecked.

Trauma is running on a hamster wheel on and on and on.

I thought maybe writing may help.

May help my body to know satisfying rest.

May make the rat saying I just a failed experiment, what is the point of my work, my wanting to have a future, my reaching for some friends or community.

I thought if I wrote, with Northern Soul hitting my heart, I would speak to this pain and not run away.

So, this post is an experiment, a flow of consciousness.

A reaching into what trauma means to me as an exited woman.

I write to that pain, to get you readers to know why you must keep fighting to free the prostituted.

Know a small part of our pain, and that may armed you for the long fight for abolition.

I write to my trauma, for I want my readers to know why there can be no half-measures about our freedom.

Harm reduction is not good enough – for that is just to patch up the prostituted then send them back to torture.

Reform is only worth if it, if the long-term goal is full abolition of the sex trade.

Each and every moment, the prostituted class are being murdered, being raped on an industrial scale, being torture in all known methods – so it is too late for half-measure.

I speak from a place of multiple rapes, gang-rapes, mental/physical/sexual torture, and knowing it is to be made nothing.

That is the place of trauma that I have to hold each and every day.

I have learned to close all visual memory – the sights I have known and lived through, I have no interest in replaying as pictures again.

But I may see nothing – but every cell in my body carries the sickness and hate that put into by punters.

I had no ownership of my body.

How can I own the holes in my body as fists, penises, objects rammed each and every one?

How can I own my own voice when it stuffed with penises till it lost all hope?

How do I own my own sexuality when so hate, so much pain and so much death was associated with forced orgasms?

Trauma for the prostituted is full of gaps and silences.

The gaps of stolen memory, lost time, lack of hold of what happened.

How can I remember how many punters raped me – when numbers only become a blur?

I know I counted to 300, but that was a very small number of what destroyed me. I know I can never how many men raped me, only that rape was so normal that I could know it was rape.

How can I record the locations I was tortured in?

Only know many rooms become the same, that being fucked against walls and in subways was not strange, that I still do not like posh hotel rooms.

I have learnt to accept that I will many holes in my memory – I can grieve that lost, feel fury at the hate and violence that made my mind erase so much of my life.

These holes are a major spur for me to be an abolitionist. For I no more of the prostituted to have to live with having to block out their realities.

This post is relatively short, but I hope it a rallying cry.

Remember to place the voices of the prostituted to the front – and hear their trauma, don’t run from it.

 

 

Wish I Did Not Know

Surviving prostitution is horrible.

I know we are strong, we have empathy, we can be the bravest people I know – but to all my fellow exited friends and colleagues, we live with knowing what we would rather not know.

We know and understand male sexual violence.

We know and understand what it is to be made sub-human.

We know and understand what torture is and how the human being somehow survives torture beyond knowledge.

We are carriers of deep knowledge – heck, we are a resource.

But I and most of my survivors friends would love to turn back time, and to be ignorant.

You live five minutes with even a small part of our knowledge, and tell me you would not turn back time.

I would imagine I never went down the path I did – I imagine the normal upper-middle class background I was born into.

I imagine a world where I had a mother who loved me, or at least put my safety and welfare as a major purpose.

Not the world of knowing I was nothing to my mum – knowing she saw me as an inconvenient, as born evil, as a blockade to her progress.

I imagine a world where my stepdad never meet my mother, a world where he was not even a thought in our family.

Not the world where his wants and needs were more important than my safety.

Not the world where he could randomly abuse me when his whim took him – and always my mother told me how I provoke him.

I had pushed him too far.

I would eat down my hate, my sense of no justice, my fury that wanted burn down my home.

I would imagine a world where I had no knowledge of prostitution, no idea that sex could be nothing, no connection of pain with that sex.

Not the world that I knew from too young.

The world of my six-year-old who run away from school into King’s Cross and Soho, surrounded by noises of women and girl’s desperation, by noises of men wanting to buy me – the child is cheap and ignorant.

The child can be molded into being a sub-human, and it will be no big deal.

The world of my seven-year-old – where she is stood still in Soho, acting tough, acting beyond her age.

She is street-wise, but knows nothing.

She is walking prey.

The world of my nine-year-old – who begun to make death her best friend, and knew suicide was some answer.

I don’t want to know how much my childhood was stolen even before I was 14 and enter the sex trade.

Now, I see the age 14, and see how bloody young that is – but then I thought I was all grown, that I could be hurt or know pain more than I did then.

I like so many survivors of prostitution, was used to abuse but still a child who naive of what torture was and how bad it could get.

Thank god, we were naive for how would still be alive if we had known what we were entering.

For we were entering hell, but like all hells on earth, it was hidden in plain sight.

I cannot write to prostitution without stating that all that I speak to is just common practice in all aspects of prostitution.

I must state that the vast majority of violence done to the prostituted is done in legal, semi-legal setting.

There is no such thing as underground prostitution, for all prostitution is easy for punters to find and consume.

Prostitution is never about sex and relationship – it always about money, power and male entitlement.

So it never hidden to men – those who do not see the violence and hate that is prostitution, have made a conscious decision to turn away

I will see my prostitution, knowing I connect to all the prostituted class. Now I can rise up and find I was never alone, only completely isolated.

So I speak to my prostituted self – speak words of comfort, words of revolution, words letting her know at last she is someone who can be respected.

Speaking to my prostituted self – I hope is part of building a world where all prostitution has vanished.

A world where all the prostituted class can stand tall.

But to build a future, we must grieve and know our pasts.

I will speak to the heart of my prostituted self – to my silent screaming, to that place where body memories come from,

I try by writing over and over and over, to ease my prostituted self – but without full justice, and a sense that the prostituted are respected – her pain seems endless.

I write to my reality of indoors prostitution, a world with no Julia Roberts, no Richard Geres – just desperation, pain and wanting to forget.

I write to each room with a bed where I was raped, tortured and put myself on the ceiling.

I write to not knowing pain – but seeing blood, seeing bruises, and being unable to walk or eat.

I write to not knowing the men – not looking at their faces, not hearing when they spoke, not breathing in their clothes or alcohol breathe.

I write to being in the of being gang-raped – with that sense of having skin, of my guts being pulled out, of hounds of men panting all over me – but finding not only was I still alive, but being gang-raped was quite common.

No wonder I don’t want to know my own truths.

But to understand and to end prostitution, we must know what is done to the prostituted, and name it as torture, as a human rights emergency.

We must allow all those exited folks strong enough to speak to that reality to be published, to be leaders at all speaking events about abolition, and to listen to your exited friends without asking them to censor their truths.

Abolition is a revolution – so don’t dilute it by censoring the truths of survivors of the sex trade.