Category: prostitution

Confusion – Journal Entry Real Life

 

Don’t read any further if upset by injustice, neglect, poverty and perversion.

This be trigger city for some.

This is your last chance, I’m blunt but not coarse, I am going to discuss a terrible subject in the lightest possible manner.

Confusion.

When I was a child I was assaulted by an adult man (in the worst way). The most prominent symptom, apart from the physical pain was that of severe confusion. I became OCD as a result of trying to come to terms.

The whole thing was so completely and utterly at odds with everything I knew then, I was under ten years old and used to dolls, handstands and dresses. I went off dresses, handstands and dolls.

I’m fifty-one years old now. I love dresses now. Sod the handstands. It may surprise people to know that some actions are never forgotten – no matter how many other, lovely, consensual sexual moments one does experience.

If you were to get complacent and fool yourself, a flash back will remind you. Today I had one, it must have been ten years since the last. His face appeared when I was having wink. I decided to have an imaginary wiss on him. He went.

For a longest time, I thought along the lines of ‘why me?’ But then it became all about recovery, mainly because I have children. Many different pathways of recovery were tried.

I didn’t recover quickly because I was pushed towards forgiveness. No confrontation, no justice and no reasonable explanation. It took ages, as the confusion became anger, festered and grew  to become depression.

How does forgiveness help? If no one is saying sorry, you can only forgive so much.

Attending lots of therapy – when my children were young, I needed to deal with my anger and more recently, I started writing this online journal and some books to help. It really does help too. Whether it helps you or not is another matter…

These days, I feel that I am better, adjusted as much as humanly possible. I’m able to think about what happened back in Widewell Woods with less emotion and I apologise if I cause any harm or painful memories to those reading this. I understand it’s place in my life story.

It does not define me, but it is part of me, unfortunately, a regret out of my hands.

There are no safe places for children if we don’t fully understand. I feel it is not just a sexual fetish with innocence, even ‘perceived innocence’ is not the full picture. Control plays a part. It is a form of soul capture…making an imprint on a person for life. The man who hurt me was playing god.

Perhaps this is why the church didn’t help me. They couldn’t play god any more with me…I’d worked out he wasn’t really there to protect us at all because anyone could come along and trump him.

Obviously, no assault or abuse is the same. I’m going to come out with something controversial and declare that there was nothing sexually charged about the scene of my sexual assault.

It was a moment of ruination.

He wanted to ruin a female life, he planned to ruin it and he had, but it hadn’t ‘satisfied’ him. I suspect he wouldn’t have been satisfied until he’d taken more but a disturbance didn’t give him time.

He wanted to ruin a girl – in order to ruin a woman.

He did succeed for a while, but something was able to absorb the hatred I had, not the confusion, just the hatred. God was my buffer. I thank the ideology for that much, begrudgingly.

No one else cared enough for it to be effective if I was angry at them. It was only the church who had appeared in my life, made me feel some promise and then let me down, that it was worth getting angry with in my child’s mind.

No one promised life would be another way, ever. Since living with Dad and step mum I knew a life of pain. God had promised happiness if I followed certain rules. I had followed his rules.

I could be justifiably angry with him.

The assault shone a light on other confusions. Things my step mother had said some years before. I’d  started at school but was off sick. We had to go out. I’d upset her by slowing the process down. I was crying and she was pulling me about, putting my shoes on.

I said something to the effect that she was hurting me. The shoes were too small and they’d yet to be cut so that my feet could grow. This was a common thing for British families struggling in the 1970s. I had trouble with the buckles, they were too difficult for me to do up, she was angry.

In her defence, she was not my mother, I was yet to be diagnosed. Labelled stupid and clumsy because of the Elhers Danlos and extremely short sighted, it could not have been easy. I mean, it must have been frustrating for her.

It was horrifying for me, but I knew no different.

She spat her words at me,

“You should think yourself lucky, I could be shoving coat hangers up inside you.”

It was an odd thing to say to a five year old.

I had no idea of a vagina, only the vulva. I only knew the outside of my biological self.

My creative inners, ‘my vagina’, womb or ovaries were not on my radar. Biology is good like this, the female genitalia are not exactly accessible. I assumed she meant put coat hangers inside me via my belly button, that was, until Widewell, the man and the sexual assault.

In emotional health terms this is called ‘sexualization’. Children should not be sexualized early, it’s not healthy mentally, emotionally or physically. This is why we use terms like, the bird and the bees, the stork brought the baby and don’t discuss or do sexual things in front of children. We protect their innocence of creation.

The human act of copulation is not a child’s business. Children are just the result…

The man who assaulted me knew this. He knew he had no business going in my pants. I knew too and tried to stop him. It took him seconds to ruin my life, to change my perspective. In that moment, he set me apart from everything. He distanced me from my peers, my step mother, my father and just about everyone I knew.

How could a weak man gain control over strong, healthy and vibrant women other than to sabotage her as a child? This man is a coward, no more. A terminator of women…going back to a weaker point in their biological past to ruin them.

I know now he lacks the respect for women he should have, and his action is that of a misogynist.

I stayed fascinated with sex for decades, attempting to understand it’s dynamics. I can tell what desire is and what is hatred. I recognise love and respect and can see usage and control.

He was looking at my face when he hurt me. His was not a pretty face.

The man who assaulted me did not fancy me. He wasn’t attracted to me…he isn’t attracted to children. I’ll be very clear, he was into ruination, he wanted to destroy, to take my soul – his intention was only to hurt and cause pain.

He knew I was confused, he hoped it’d be hurting me forever, but it didn’t appear to make him happy. His brown, watery eyes were sad and angry as they looked into mine.

Gaining only sour gratification of his bitter hatred for women, he assaulted me, and then walked away. For all I know, back to his wife and children. Sorry, but it could be true – it’s all too late to do anything now and I didn’t do anything then.

The last human bone fuses for adulthood around thirty years old. I’m still confused at how females can be safely ready for child birth or penetrative sex beforehand.

Perhaps a doctor could explain it to me? Vets protect the youngsters from grown adult males in zoos.

Paedophiles are nothing more than human time travelling terminators, murderers of souls. They should not be given an audience at any level other than disgust. They should be kept away from society and not housed near families. I’d go as far to say that they should all be rounded up and put in Chinese style re-education camps until they change their views.

The End.

By Samantha “unextraordinarybint” Harris.

A small part of my own life story.

 

 

 

Thinking of Becoming A Prostitute?

There are many stories a prostitute could tell you. They would range from bizarre to terrifying and everything in between. What you don’t hear often about is what happens after leaving the world’s oldest profession.

Prostitution stories fall into many brackets. Newspapers could be interested if a prostitute sold a story about a politician but generally papers wouldn’t run a story on the day to day problems and maybe people wouldn’t want to hear about them.

What most of us think about when discussing prostitution is women, sex, fidelity, risk, slavery, money and usually drug use maybe some trafficking.

There is corruption with some professions and prostitution is obviously affected. From girls being forced into prostitution to boys being abused from youngsters and going on to sell their charms, there is a dark side to prostitution. But, for the most part, prostitutes will be willing participants at time of purchase. They simply use their wares to gain money.

One of the things which I will touch upon is that human bodies wear out and feel pain. Many prostitutes turn to drugs to dull that physical pain as well as to block out the emotional affects of their work. One woman, working in Brighton, East Sussex told me they are called ‘hookers’ because once you start working you get locked in this cycle of pain and denial.

It is a lonely profession with no guides or help lines. The client is the only comfort. So, those that manage to get out alive and relatively unscathed will try to put prostitution behind them. The society in which we live does not allow the discussion of sexual exploits so any knowledge gained into human behaviour will be kept hidden.

Generally prostitutes do not lay it out on a CV. Pardon the pun. If asked how they got through college or started their little business, a well rehearsed lie will be told. Asked how a couple managed to get the deposit together for the house they just purchased and it could never be admitted that two years working as a high class escorts got them there.

All things are not forgiven so social stigma dictates that a prostitute forgets they were ever a concubine and fits into normal life. You could be standing next to one in a queue right now and never know. You may even have family members who currently advertise their delights online and it is family ties which can be the most embarrassing.

I’d like to tell you a story about what could happen after prostitution stops. From horrifically embarrassing to terribly sweet the experiences of a prostitute once they’ve retired can be just as entertaining as their lives when they were working in the sex industry for their wages. I have changed Trevor’s name.

Trevor had joined yahoo dating application and found a lovely man. He told his new boyfriend about his past. Deciding to tell him quite quickly after they’d met and Trevor was glad he had. They were able to discuss it and move on with their future.

They enjoyed each other so much. So, as couples do, they wanted to make it official and meet the friends. Their social circles became one. Trevor and Mark were a happy couple inside and out of their home. Then a year into the relationship Mark suggested that Trevor should meet with his family.

The next Christmas holiday the couple were invited to stay at a cottage Mark’s parents were renting out for the season in Wales. Mark was delighted that his wonderful lover was going to be meeting his Mum, Dad and siblings. They drove to Wales in a new car, hired just for the occasion. All went really well, Mark’s mother seemed made up that Mark was happy and the father, a little more reserved, was being polite.

On Christmas Eve, Mark’s brother arrived with his wife and three children. They bundled into the cottage with their red faces and laughter. Greetings all around and introductions. Trevor’s face dropped when he saw Martin but recovered lightening fast.

Mark’s brother, Martin, had been a client of Trevor’s for a year in fact the brother had been besotted with him and Trevor had to refuse him as a client to avoid the embarrassing departures. Trevor and Martin recognised each other immediately but neither we’re able to say anything. They spent a week eating and celebrating without acknowledging that they’d known each other previously.

Trevor was consumed with guilt about it. His relationship with Mark was built on trust. He was keeping a massive secret by not telling him but what could be achieved by being honest? A married man paying to have sex with a prostitute was the normal client. Sitting around a table eating with his wife and children after the event was not normal.

Martin asked questions about Trevor’s work and appeared genuinely interested, as anyone would be in their brother’s partner. Trevor describes Martin as ‘being all over his wife’. Declaring that the cheater was making great strides at being the doting husband. Trevor recalls just getting through the week, saying the interactions with his perspective sister-in-law were cringe worthy in the extreme.

The relationship with Mark then became tainted in Trevor’s mind. He was deceiving his lover and found it excruciatingly difficult to live with. Trevor tried hard to find a way around it, even suggesting they move abroad but Mark was close to his mother and started  viewing properties near her. They carried on seeing each other for six months before Trevor finally called it off with Mark, saying he just didn’t love him anymore.

The break up devastated Mark and he tried to commit suicide by gassing himself in a car outside the property they’d viewed together. Thankfully, before losing consciousness, he’d called Trevor who then called an ambulance to his location and saved him. Trevor and Martin rallied around to get Mark committed into hospital while he recovered, still without talking about the past.

Mentally and emotionally the only thing Trevor could do for himself and Mark was to distance himself from the situation completely which is what he did. Eventually Trevor went on to find love with another who’s brother he hadn’t slept with.

His story is funny and heart breaking because Mark was his first love. He laughs when he tell’s me of how, when he’d first told Mark about his prostitution past, he’d asked him if he had any questions about it.

Mark had responded by asking one question, which was,

“Were you careful?”

This was, of course, a reference to HIV and AIDS, and using a condom. Trevor had responded that he had always been careful and that he’d always used protection. However, it seems, that there are some things you can’t prepare for.

I can see the irony.

Whilst there are many pitfalls to an experience it is those that you are unprepared for which are the events which leave you the most scarred.

 

 

Thanks for reading.

They say there are no new stories. I say, it depends who you listen to.

 

Prostitutes Aren’t Lazy.

A woman who had attended University and was working full time for a large accountancy firm felt the need to be very judgemental. At the time she was squatting a property with the sole purpose of saving enough money to buy a house in London.

Her name was blah as it doesn’t matter. This woman had the nerve to state that ‘prostitutes are lazy’. Her statement has stayed with me, it was said in 1991. She, and her partner of a couple of years, were hosting a party in Woodgreen, London. I’m still agonising over its implications today.

Three decades to respond is a bit of a record. There is a reason for this. Pure shock is the first reason. Imagine hearing something which you knew to be false but the consensus of all the people around you is that it is true. Also realising very quickly I was not in an environment where this could be actually discussed as I’d already been judged.

It was years later that I discovered why her perception was as it was. Her partner wanted to help me. He thought, as she did, that working as an escort was beneath me. He thought I could do more. Achieve more in the sex industry. Academics…

He introduced me to BDSM. Strange how someone can be involved in the sex industry but not know about this huge part of it. I had been in the vanilla world, working in the BDSM world without knowing the rules.

He tells of this lady’s sex life, and her thing was ‘rape fantasy’ – it is, according to several magazines,  one of the most common fantasies that women have. It did occur to me and still does that this is how she must perceive all sexual interactions. The lady lies down whilst the man takes what he wants from her and she is fulfilled by this.

However, this is a fantasy for her. For her this is a position of freedom. It’s topping from the bottom in BDSM terms, so they say. If she were to say, ‘hang on’, or ‘that hurts’ or simply ‘stop’ her partner would. She cannot perceive a real prostitute’s life. She cannot and doesn’t understand what it is like not to have sexual freedom.

So, for her, the judgement of laziness upon ‘women of ill refute’ is well deserved. Because for her, sex is a pleasure she can give and take at will. She can choose to let her partner have her or not. She literally doesn’t know how to work up a sweat performing head because she wants to or is made to.

When a person is the product and that is what prostitution is, there is a service to be delivered. That service is undefined. getting to what the client (western civilised speak will not allow me to call him ‘john’) actually wants can be a real chore, basically it’s trial and error, often resulting in wasted efforts of the prostitute until the client finally indicates what he wants.

Then the client has the choice to to see the same girl again as he doesn’t’ want to explain again or he wants someone different because he likes to see the agony of the girl not knowing what she should be doing. His choice, not hers – generally. As with all work a client can say they are dissatisfied.

Most people do not have the communication skill to interpret what sex they want until that sexual behaviour has been shown to them and has a label. For the uninitiated this can be a disturbing and dangerous journey. There are many illusions about sex.

One of the most basic and necessary parts of our lives is sex. Yet so many people are still in the dark about sexuality. How can this even be? I feel it’s time to hear from the muse, the model and the whore. I’d like to hear everything they have to say. I’m fed up of hearing the client side all the time. Especially politically.

Well, lady in the garden in Woodgreen, you with the academic, mental, social and emotional capability better than Me – I managed to grow and educate myself enough to be able to tell you that you’re wrong.  Your judgement of me during those years ought to haunt you. I doubt it does. I’m suspecting you have a pretty great life to be honest, you seemed to have it all sorted back in 1991.

Perhaps you have children now and have mellowed your judgements, I suspect not as I suspect you still sit in judgement of others less well off, less educated and more desperate than you are. Ah, now I judge you and I don’t ‘even know where you are, I hope that I am wrong. Perhaps you already confronted with your prejudices.

Perhaps her sex  life is how most women’s sex lives are. I have no idea. I only know what my sex life is like. I only know what my sex life has been like over the last fifty years and can only comment what I know to be my facts.

For thirteen years of my adult life I prostituted myself. I worked, when necessary, as a call girl or escort to cover rent and food. I didn’t work the streets. Thankful for this one fact as I thought that should I ever work the street I may as well just throw the towel in altogether.

I met women who did work the streets. Those girls with knees like sandpaper and bones like feathers. The really lost ones. They aren’t just women of course, there are men and boys too. So often it’s only women who are ‘fallen’ etc…

It’s a hidden society used and abused by those with money and power. The street prostitutes would try and gain some protection, a dog or a friend, the authorities would find a way to take the protection them. Not allowing them into premises if they were high or had their dog, forcing them back out on the street again.

No one reports on sex worker rapes or deaths as they are the lowest of the low.

Sex workers are hard workers. They work harder than you will ever have to work. That woman sat there in judgement of me and prostitutes whilst squatting someone else’s property,  didn’t pay rates, rent or council tax the whole time. You bought a lovely little house in Southgate, you had family and support from friends and will never really know what it is like to struggle.

Well I ask you to look in the mirror at yourself and ask you to judge yourself under the same criteria. I ask you to judge yourself rather than me or other women who decide to or are forced to work in the sex industry. Shame on you not them.

You and your partner were huge cocaine users. Yep, I’m going there. As you should know cocaine does cause nerve deadening. You try getting your man off after he has been using coke all night, the feeling in his mind does not mean blood is going to where it ought. Jaw ache is an understatement. That is hard, hard work.

There will be hundreds of men calling prostitutes tonight and tomorrow night. When those girls arrive at that client’s door they don’t know what is going to happen to them. They are the bravest women on the planet and they keep the secrets of the powerful.

Prostitutes aren’t lazy, blimey just think of all the poor girls your old man has had to convince to help him over the years. He did convince me to check out the BDSM world, it’s not for me but I did learn so much about the real power in our country.

Maybe I will start sharing a bit more about those thirteen years…

I’m thankful to have a voice. Comment or move along…

Viva la web, past caring, not sharing.

I am jealous and frightened of transgender women. But I may live longer now because of it!

As a natural born woman I am jealous and frightened of transgender women. But I may live longer now because of it!

Jealous is a strong word. It’s more envy. I just did a little research on the condition and within minutes I found a great treatment, clinic and medication and a huge array of doctors as well as support groups and laws protecting transgender or non binary persons NBP.

I met my first NBP in 1990 when I was 21 and living in Brighton, East Sussex in the UK. Stephen, a pilot, had been in previously with his family and done a modelling course at the model agency I worked at. He came into the agency again once he had transitioned. When he presented himself as Stephanie on his return I did the right thing and ignored the change. Being polite and professional was easy. I was more than a little in awe of them.

Stephanie was so brazen. Wearing sexy clothes during the day. Great wigs and make up. She usually hung-over too, so must have some form of social life, even if it was the ability to enjoy a bottle of wine alone. I can’t drink. But I assumed, rightly or wrongly, that these transgender women were definitely having a better life than I was! She was more confident than I could ever dream of being.

Brighton being the town it is I imagined that they were dancing away the nights and to be fair they didn’t appear to really work. I knew that the club’s stilt- walkers were often transgenders and when I went to London night clubs NBP would be present on the dance floors with their colourfully outrageous outfits.

Stephanie introduced another NBP who was pre op. Nikkie. Nikkie was on feminising hormones but essentially still a man. Nikkie wanted set of transitional pictures. So at her first photo shoot he had budding breasts and a penis. We did an assortment of poses with the penis out with the penis in etc – penis was never hard and the session was in no way sexual.

After her op Nikkie came back with her vagina, bigger breasts and great hair. We did the final pictures and I did try to help with her makeup but kept getting the cotton wool stuck in her stubbled chin. Embarrassed, I eventually just let her do it. I like to think that I took these things in my stride and if Nikkie is still out there she remembers it as a positive experience. I’m still unsure how I feel about it all. I do remember that I wasn’t asked.  Stephanie and I kept in contact.

Stephanie and I met again when I lived and worked in London in the late 1990s. She had become older and wiser basically, but was wearing female things –  nylons with court shoes. She hadn’t shaved her legs that day so the hair was matting on the inside of the nylons. I’ve seen natural born women doing the same thing. It looks bad, like squashed worms.

I also have my own, until now, private, issues towards gender. When i was very young before five years old I used to pull my inner labia out to try and make it a penis. As I got older, during puberty in particular , I tried to shove it all in again, desperate to try and make my genitals look like the dolls we used to have. But with inner labia falling a good centimetre below the outer labia that wasn’t going to happen. I hated my whole genital area. I never touched myself or investigated other than to wash very quickly – in case God was watching (oh the shame).

How I envied how these transgender women, knowing so much about their bodies and sex. In my father’s eye women behaved like women…they didn’t pick up tools, they cooked, cleaned, looked after children. For example both my sister and I had to do the dishes from before we were ten years old. Neither of my brothers did. When I showed an interest in working on the tools with him he would not have me in the garage.

It was no surprise that I decided on becoming a secretary and learnt typing and cooking skills. My school in 1984 would not let me do Graphic design or continue with the woodwork as I was female. To say I was disappointed with being female would have been an understatement but I got on with it and as I went on to became a mother I suppose I am grateful. In many ways I am blessed but it’s not easy.

So, as a female, I have had to deal with others being intolerant of my personal needs and stomping all over them all my life.

Also, as I was given up by my natural mother, driven into prostitution by poverty and child sexual abuse I have actually begged for mental health help. I’ve told them the truth. I’m angry. I want to get better. I don’t want more diagnoses = I want treatments. Coming off the antidepressants was the best thing for me. The brain fog lifted. I started researching. I found no help for me or others going through much worse.

When I found the gender identity clinics in the UK I felt cheated. When I found out that they get 40% of the mental health funding I got suspicious. Seems like something is wrong there….when I rang the rape/sexual abuse crisis line I discovered that the number on the shiny lip gloss was only good for Thursday evenings between 7.30pm and 9.30pm.

So my envy is not, in my view, ill placed. I felt even more justified when during my research I found that transgenders tend to be living longer… the combination of good health monitoring and hormone therapy is prolonging their lives. I was fascinated.

The very next day I contacted my GP. I’ve now been on the patch for five weeks. I feel great. And I have my envy at how well transgender people are treated within the NHS to thank for it. Now that the brain fog, continual chills/hot flushes/flashes, nausea and memory problems have cleared I’ll be insisting on that mental health help too.

Oh I’m angry. Real angry.

I’m updating this post as I decided after another wasted visit to the Upton Road adult mental health unit to discharge myself from mental health services. Four years waiting for treatment was doing me harm.

The HRT and this blog have saved me from acting out on my anger, it’s important to understand how beneficial these hormones are to our mental health as well as our physical health. Let’s make sure that there is enough hormone replacement for all.

 

Edited as I’ve now come off HRT. UK national health service kept swapping brand, amount of dosage and the breast clinic wouldn’t take me seriously over pain and cysts whilst I’m on the HRT. All very disappointing.