I was introduced into prostitution after an abusive teenage marriage. Needing to support a child with little resources, economic desperation took over and rendered me vulnerable to what eventually became years of exposure to violence and abuse. This was early 1970’s. I started as an escort; the money became the lure. In the beginning I felt like I had two lives, a prostitution life and the straight life, trying to hide it all until it all meshed together and eventually I became fully entrenched in prostitution. I didn’t start off abusing substances, but as years went by I started using heroin to deal with it all, heroin made it all easier.
Eventually, I became a full-fledged heroin addict. As time went by I became more entrenched, until everyone around me was living chaotic, dangerous lives, hustling, drug dealing. I eventually succumbed to a pimp/boyfriend relationship until violence and dysfunction became the norm. Abuse and violence escalated until I finally fled and hid to break away from it all. All total it was almost twenty years lost to a harmful, destructive life.
When I left, I left poorer than I went in, years lost from gaining any education or viable options till we are no longer commercially sellable. It’s often a long journey out for us. Many people ask me, how did I get into prostitution, was I “trafficked” or was I a willing participant? What many don’t understand is – however we entered – what the act of prostitution does to us; how it slowly strips us of any semblance of ourselves, as we try to sell part of our bodies, while keeping our soul intact. Prostitution preys on the most vulnerable; it takes us places we never intended to go, all driven by those who feel entitled to pay for our bodies.
