Photo: Anna Belkina Spb/Shutterstock

I Talked to an Ex-Prostitute in Amsterdam and Everyone Should Hear What She Had to Say

Travel
by Elisa Coll Mar 2, 2016

“I don’t really know where I stand as for the legalization of prostitution, because I’ve never talked to someone who’s been in it”.
“Well, you are now”.

This was the beginning of one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had. For hours, this amazing woman and I talked about the myths and truths of the “oldest business of the world”, and by the time we said goodbye the way I saw the world had meaningfully changed.

For the past few years I had been noticing an increase of online posts and articles by feminist women praising “sex workers” and defending their right to sell sex if they choose to do so. “It’s their body and they can do what they want with it” — and it sure is hard to disagree with such a statement. However, after this conversation, I became very skeptical about what “choosing” really means when speaking of prostitution. After all, no choice is a choice if it’s not a free choice.

no choice is a choice if it’s not a free choice.

Most women who escape prostitution suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, on a similar or higher rate than war veterans, this lady told me. She has been working with them for years, helping them out, and she experiences PTSD herself. And while media and mainstream movies sell us the myth of the shy, lonely, insecure guy who never gets laid and needs the help of an amused prostitute to get some experience, reality is very different. Most clients are actually married men who know exactly what they’re doing and seek in prostitution what their wives don’t (or wouldn’t) allow them to do in their bedroom. This, of course, doesn’t imply the type of fun, kind sex that the lonely boy would be seeking — where the lady has control of herself and teaches him what to do — but the objectified use of a woman’s body to fulfill every sexual practice that would embarrass the man outside of that environment, from scatology to violence. Where control means everything. And the client, as we know, is always right.

So, we all know that most prostituted women are forced to take this life, but what about the ones who do it because they want to? Why do they choose it? Or why don’t they leave once they realize what’s behind?

“Because they don’t know any better” were the exact words she used to answer this question. There is a strong link that connects poverty and child sexual trauma to “chosen” prostitution. When a woman has no resources, or hasn’t been able to access an education, or has suffered from sexual abuse as a child, it is not difficult for her to fall into the prostitution net. As The Guardian’s Esohe Aghatise points out, many of the women in this business were just little girls when they started. Long story short, abusive sex gets normalized from a young age and ends up being used as a way to earn money. And the longer you’ve been in, the more difficult it is to leave.

There is a strong link that connects poverty and child sexual trauma to “chosen” prostitution.

“But prostitution prevents rape!”, some say — I might even have found myself saying this at some point of my life. This assumption is not only misleading, but also dangerous. It is misleading because, if a man is so violent that he is likely to rape a woman and take the risk to be sentenced to jail, there is no reason why he wouldn’t be be violent towards a prostitute — the issue here is: Do we care as much for one as we do for the other? But, most of all, this statement is dangerous because of the way it deals with the problem of rape — if a man feels the desire to force a woman to have sex with him, by offering him a gateway we are basically validating this desire, instead of fighting to eliminate it. Not to mention that this “gateway” is an actual human being.

If a man feels the desire to force a woman to have sex with him, by offering him a gateway we are basically validating this desire.

The truth is that many of those who praise “sex workers” are white, middle-class feminists (just like myself) who, despite their best intentions, haven’t interacted directly with the environment of prostitution and take for granted that choice is, in this context, a free concept, and thus they speak in the name of women they’ve never met or talked to. And this happens to allies in every social movement. We tend to put words in the victims’ mouths and validate our opinion without listening to them. It happens to us all and it is an issue not only in activism, but in worldwide society, that we can only get rid of by being aware of it.

What I learned that afternoon was not only that I stand for the abolition of prostitution and the criminalization of its clients, but a broader, deeper lesson: No matter our position regarding a specific issue, the process to form an opinion should include listening to the people affected by whatever it is that we are trying to defeat or defend. This basic idea, I found, is essential to have the freedom to change our minds.

This article was originally published on Revolution on the Road and is reposted here with permission.

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