Monthly Archives: March 2008

It Goes On and On

Posted on by rmott62

Reading “The Burning Times” I read of yet another serial killer of prostituted women.

The bodies are piling higher and higher. Prostituted women and girls are murdered on a daily basis. Violence is used against prostituted women and girls and it just seen as “part of their job”.

But to say this is somehow seen as outrageous. To say the  sheer ugliness that is the lives for too many prostituted women and girls is “censoring” all the “happy hookers”.

I would never say that are some women who have the privilege of being a “happy hooker”. But it just I do believe they are a tiny minority.

And I really believe that the majority of prostituted women and girls do not have their privileges.

They do not have the privilege to “work” without the threat of violence. This violence can come from the pimps/managers who use violence to control them both mentally and physicially. The violence from the punters who treat the prostituted woman or girl as a real-life porn fantasy.

Violence is so normal for the majority of prostituted women and girls that they have deadened all their emotions.

To live as a prostitute it is often vital to detach your mind from your body.

All this violence is done, and the prostituted women and girls are brainwash into believing that they are “enjoying their job” or all they deserve is pain and humiliation.

How else can they survive all the hate pour into them.

So, murdering of prostituted women and girls is just the logical end of all the violence being made normal.

No-one pay any attention to the day-to-day rapes and battering of prostituted women and girls. 

So who will care about a dead prostitute.

Most prostituted women and girls do not have the privilege of making a lot of money.

Many have the money taken by pimps/managers.

Many, like I was, are beaten up so badly that being paid is the less of their problems.

Many prostituted women and girls even when they are paid a lot, have a very negative attitude to the money.

The money is often associated with being degraded and often being used for sexual torture.

Many prostituted women and girls can get to hate money, for it can reminds of when they had to lose all their identity to stay safe. 

When I made quite a deal of money, it was in exchange for the sexual torture. In exchange for having to forget that I had any rights to safety or dignity.

I hated the money, I often throw it away or just spent it on keeping drunk.

It did not make me happy, or feel that I had any control over my life.

What makes me mad it when the “happy hooker” said it so easy to leave prostitution if you want.

This is not true for the vast majority of prostituted women and girls. The sex trade is a trap for those women and girls. 

The men that run the sex trade may show an exit for a brief period, when they are sure you are suitable fodder for their money-making.

Women that leave the sex trade without seeing much violence are very privileged. But many have been sheltered from the reality by the men who run the sex trade.

For the sex trade needs “happy hookers” to spread the word that sex trade is empowering and liberating for women. It wants women to speak it’s propaganda.

For the sex trade need a constant flow of women and girls.

To say a reality that the sex trade can be a trap, where you will lose everything that makes you have dignity. That the sex trade doesn’t give a shit about the safey of it’s “employees”.

To say that as a prostituted woman or girl you will be cut off from real world. That you be expected to do whatever sick fantasy that a man wants.

This must not be said. Lets just pretend it is just a job like any other job.

But I go back to the beginning too many prostituted women and girls are murdered all the time.

I know there are a few women that are happy in the sex trade.

But I care much more that the majority are living without safety or dignity.

When men don’t see that murdering prostituted women and girls is a non-crime. Then maybe I can see two side.

Till then my thoughts are with the prostituted women and girls who have to deadened all of who they are, just so they can survive.   

    

Don’t Tell Me What I Remember

Posted on by rmott62

Like many survivors of male violence, I am continually told that my memories are false.

This is too convenient. Of course, it is saying shut up with a smiling face. For it always claimed that it for my own good.

Now, I know if was going to have false memories, there is no way I would or could imagine the horrors I have lived through.

I do not have that much imagination.

I do come from a background where prostitution is rarely talked about. Most women of my background ignore the sex trade completely, it is assumed to be nothing to do with their lives.

I like many women who have survive male violence have fragmented memory. This is a result of the trauma I have.

But, do remember certain events very clearly. And more important I do have many body memories of the pain I put through.

I do not choose to have this pain in my body, I fight it every day.

I have enough pride to act as if I don’t feel pain in my body. I do not want it effect how I lead my life now.

But the body does remember and will eventally force the mind to remember.

One reason I know I remember the truth, is that most of me does not want to know that I could so degraded and tortured.

I would rather be totally ignorant of male violence and hatred. I would rather not know very much about prostitution. I don’t want to know about hard-core porn. And I just want childhood sexual abuse to be outside of me.

I would really like to be ignorant that women and children are raped, tortured and murdered by men.

But I cannot ignore my past as comes back clearer and clearer into my life.

I will see who I was. I could not turn away even if I wanted to.

I know that I had to blank out the horror of the callous hatred men put into me to live . I could not know my reality.

Now, I am safe, I can remember. Now, I have the strength to believe who I was.

I can honoured the strength of will it took to build barriers around myself so I could survive. These barriers made me detached from the pain and the knowledge that the men that used saw me as a piece of dirt.

Now, I can all I was a f-k object for their sick fantasies.

Now, I am proud that I had the strength of will to not allow their hate inside me too much.

I will remember the reality.

I believe to build a better future, it is important to see the past with a clear eye.

Also, as I clear away some of the past, I have more space for happiness in the present.

Good and Bad

Posted on by rmott62

I have been thinking how prostituted women and girls are treated as the “other”. This is an easy way to make any suffering that prostituted women and girls have to live with become invisible.

One way to divide is to say there “good” and “bad” prostituted women and girls. Or in other words, there are prostituted women and girls that we are allow to pity. And there are the other who have “freely” chosen their lifestyles.

When I view the majority of prostituted women and girls, I would say that most have complex reasons for ending up in the sex trade.

I would that my story is an example of falling in and out of the “good/bad” divide that stereotypes most prostituted women and girls.

I like many, far too many prostituted women and girls came from a background of child sexual abuse.

There I fit into the “good prostitute”. It is easy to make simple links from incest and other form of childhood sexual violence to prostitution.

But for a moment, see it as you would if it was a “bad prostitute”.

For as a teenager I thought I choose to be paid for sex. I thought I had power over men. I thought I had finally got some control.

I thought I had a role that was mine – I was the bad girl.

Many women get angry when they hear  prostituted women and girls speak of their lives as empowering. Often saying they feel they can control how men behave.

For me this is the language of delusion. But for me it is also the language of survival.

To imagine the unreality that prostitution can be safe. To imagine that as a prostitute, you have some power. To imagine that you are manipulating the men, not just being used.

To have the power of that imagine, is so much better than seeing the reality.

But it is the words of the “bad prostitute” so it hard to hear.

I think the vast majority of prostituted women and girls are trapped in the sex trade. So I would say when they speak in a positive tone, it is the language of someone in the Stockholm Syndrome.

The sex trade is run by brainwashing the women and girls.

They are told often how they “choose” to be there. Often told they can leave any time.

Only each time you try to leave, something draws you back.

That the woman or girl needs the world of the sex trade to be safe.

Women and girls are told how they control the men.

This is a sick joke when they repeatly raped and beaten up.

I do not think there is much control when so many prostituted women and girls are murdered all the time in every place in the world.

The sex trade needs a constant flow of women and girls. So like fattening calves for the slaughter – telling the prostituted women and girls that they are happy, makes them easier to control.

So, for me when the “bad prostitute” said she is happy, I do not believe that is her words. It does make me angry.

It makes me very sad. And reminds me of how I was.

I am saddened when so many people can only feel “sorry for” prostituted women and girls if they appears as a victim.

The stereotype of the drug-fuelled prostitute who is is in danger all the time, and may have a shortened life.

The image of the trafficked woman or girl trapped in a house, having to be screwed for many hours by many violent men.

These prostituted women and girls do exist and are very commmon.

I am very angry that they are tortured, raped and degraded.

But in my opinion all prostituted women and girls are tortured, raped and degraded.

A high-class escort can be viciously beaten to a pulp.

But she will viewed as a “bad prostitute”, for too many are willing to believe she choose that “work”.

There many angry street prostitutes who will say with defiance –

I do this coz I want.

It is easy to ignore when they are raped or beaten.

If we really cared, how come then the murders of street prostitutes is common everywhere.

And when viewing brothels, isn’t it easier to believe the sanitised and romantise images of popular and high culures.

When viewing brothels, to see it is only made up of “bad prostitutes” keep the outside world safe.

To say women that work in brothels must of chosen to be there, it must be highly paid. It must be quite safe, better than working the streets.

It must be dignified.

These myths are everywhere. From Toulouse Latrec to soap operas.

Brothels are the fun side of prostitution. So we must not know there is a vicious reality.

Brothels are just traps without much opportunity of escape.

Brothels are ideal for pimps and managers, for in them the prostituted women and girls are controllable.

Brothel are just factories for men men to have orgasms on real women and girls, not just wanking to porn.

As that they will be highly sucessful and a huge money-maker for the men that run them.

The reasons brothels are popular is because it is a closing away of prostitution behind closed doors, and therefore it can increase without scaring the horses.

Behind closed doors any form of violence can be done to prostituted women and girls. Many brothels are “private spaces”, so all the abuses that occurs go on and on without any interruption.

Indoors prostitution is considered to be “bad prostitution”, This includes saunas, massage parlours, flats. private parties etc.

 The women and girls who are involved in indoors prostitution are consider to have chosen their “work”, often out of greed for money.

Indoors prostitution is often highly dangerous. It is normal to be raped and beaten. Yes, many prostituted women and girls who worked indoors are murdered.

But often the violence done in indoors prostitution is made invisible.

Often by making out the woman or girl was to blame for the violence done to her.

For when you see a “bad prostitute”, then you are buying into some very dangerous beliefs.

The belief that a prostitute cannot be raped. After all, she was paid to have sex, so it cannot be rape.

She cannot say no to a paying customer.

The belief that she getting lots of money. This is rare, and often money comes with degradation and violence.

That if is such a terrible life, she should leave.

Hell, if it was that easy. Prostitution is a trap when you are in .

I had no idea how I got out. Now, I think I only got out because I had to live.

There is no such thing as “good and bad prostitutes”.All there is women and girls who are suffering to find out how survive the trap of the sex trade.      

   

Isn’t It Just a Job

Posted on by rmott62

As usual, I have got sick and tired of the constant justications for prostitution. I find it difficult when it comes from liberal feminists.

For I cannot believe that you can be a feminist and support prostitution.

One statement that annoys me than most is –

It is just a job like any other.

Now, I feel that is complete rubbish.

First it completely eradicates that the vast majority of prostituted women and girls have been coerced into the sex trade.

Because a lot of the coercion in through mental abuse or having been abused before entering the sex trade, the coercion can and is made invisible.

I cannot believe that you freely choose to be in the sex trade, if from an early age you have been brainwashed to believe that your only value is as a sex object.

I cannot believe you can freely choose to be in the sex trade, if you are living in care and a “boyfriend” give you an escape. Only it will involve “earning” his money by having sex with strangers. This will be done because he loves you.

I cannot believe it can be a free choice when you are homeless, and you do paid sex so you can get a bed.

But then, I am told that prostitution is glamourous.

I see no glamour as I remember men standing round my bed, taking turns to screw me, taking turns to beat me up.

I see no glamour in needing to be drunk before I enter their rooms. Drunk so I could deadened the pain.

I see no glamour as I became a real-life porn object. An object that could be tortured, then threw away.

I have been told, that prostitution is easy way to get quick money.

Rubbish.

Prostitution never earn me much money. Most money I should of had was taken by the manager.

I did not see or care about money when I beaten up until I was unconscious.

And when I did earn a large amount of money, it was in exchange of sexual torture and extreme degradation.

I will say prostitution made me hate money. I always feel it has a hold over me.

But I am told if prostitution is made safer, than it can be a job like any other.

Prostitution will never be safe.

Tell me how you can stop every man who think it is his entitlement to own the prostituted woman or girl, tell me how you would stop him believing he is entitle to use any violence that he desire. After all, by allowing him to purchase a living woman or girl, haven’t you given him permission to as he can fantasie.

Tell me how you would prevent a man raping a prostituted woman or girl, when it appears to be the contract of the “job” that she cannot say no to his fantasies.

And how would prevent the continual murders of prostituted women and girls when you have already given permission for men to use violence. How to prevent the murders when you care so little about the safety of prostituted women and girls during their life.

So, don’t tell me it is a job like any other job.

Look into the vicious world of the sex trade, and stop pretending that is made up of Belle du Jours.

  

On Inner Strength

Posted on by rmott62

I am often asked, and I often ask myself – How when it was so bad I did not die.

I believe there is no real answer to that. All I can fall back on is I have a fighter inside me that refused to die.

As I have said often in my writings, for much of my life I did not want to live. I could not see the point of life when it was too full of pain.

But, always there was a place inside me, that knew without much evidence that the life I was in was not all there was.

I knew from watching TV and films, there was other ways to live.

I knew by reading life could be happy.

And I knew through my grandparents who saw as someone that be loved. They would see beyond my anger and confusion.

In their eyes, I could believe that I had a future.

My American grandmother believed I was strong. She would not allow me to be a victim.

She was tough, but though her I learnt I could respect myself.

My Scottish grandmother encourage me to use my mind. She push my intelligence.

My English grandfather encourage me to curious.

They give me the chance to believe in hope and joy.

I hold them in my heart all the time.

I believe that my grandparents belief in me, give me an inner strength.

Through their love, I could believe their must be more to me than I knew.

It did not prevent the violence, but I do believe it help me build some barriers so I could not see the reality of my life.

I find that birdwatching or being in a wild place can make me forgot.

I only like being in the countryside for a limited time, for I am very much a city lover.

But on occasions when I watch birds, I let myself disappear. I think of nothing just let my eyes follow the flight. My favourite to watch are birds of prey, for it is such alien form of life.

I have never connected with birds, I enjoy that I do not and will never understand them. That is of no importance to me.

For me watching birds is like mediation.

I can let my mind be empty of pain, grief and memory for a  short period.

I get the same escape when I walk round a city. I let myself think of history, remember what I was taught about architecture.

I like to wander round cities imaging the many lives that stood where I stand.

All my life I have walked.

When I lived inside male violence, I would walk for ages with no idea where I was.

I saw nothing. I hear nothing.

I did not know I was in a state of constant shock. I just knew I was always getting lost.

Now I can walk and see where I am. Now I choose to observe the details of where I am.

Now I part of the walk. I am not just walking to numb myself.

I feel that the strength that is inside me, has protected my mind from viewing the reality of the hate that men had.

I felt like a brick wall was slowly built so I could not feel or know how the men held me in contempt.

Many times I view the delusions I had, and I see they were my way of surviving.

To know that the men had planned and did their violence with such hate, would of been too much for me to bear.

Instead I was continually shocked that they would tortured me.

And I continually let my mind forgot their actions.

For most of my life I thought that I was stupid to be shocked when the violence was so regular.

I thought I was mad to forgot all that pain.

But now, I wonder if was an inner strength that would not let my mind connect the reality with my my mind. A strength that saw survival was all that mattered.

Survival meant I could not know the reality that the men that used did completely hate everything I was.

Those men chose to use underaged prostitutes, seeing them as easy targets for their hate.

Those men chose to use women and girls that they know were beyond being silenced. They chose women and girls that had given up hope that anyone would care.

Those men know how to choose women and girls to torture and have no fear of punishment.

I could not see that and live. So I do believe I built inside me a wall that closed reality from me.

It did mean that I had to delude myself to believe I “choose” to be with the men.

But, even with that terrible delusion, I have no regrets.

For I did live. I did keep my mind.

And I live to say the reality.

Words Do Hurt

Posted on by rmott62

Language is not harmless. Words hurts. The pain left rots under the skin.

I will write some of the words used to silenced me. Words use to make me look as if I am the abuser.

I will show the words are used to allow the men that abused me to become invisible.

All the tactics used on me are common ways to silenced women and girls who dare to speak the truth of male violence.

The silencing of women and girls is deafening. It is time to for women who were abused or believed other women to shout out above the silencing.

My silencing was from three main angle. That I am a liar, that I am mentally ill and that I am a “whore” in my nature.

LIAR

This is a common tactic, and can be very effective.

Every word I said was untrue. If I spoke, my words were reinvented into my abuser’s truths.

I could tell the truth from lies. I would say a cat was an elephant, if my abuser told me enough time.

When you live inside male violence, and you continually told it is not happening, the mind survive by choosing not to believe.

I was brought up to know my word was worthless.

I try to tell my mother of my stepdad’s abuse. I was told I was lying.

I was told I was jealous. I was told I trying to break up the family.

I was told I was bitter.

I could not understand, so silence seemed best.

By not speaking out, my stepdad became invisble.

When I was in prostitution, lies were everywhere.

The world of prostitution is built on lies.

It lies that it is non-violent. It lies that it a money-maker. It lies that it easy to leave. It lies that the women can have control.

Prostitution has no reality, but the reality of pain and degradation.

I enter that world, and it made no sense.

I had to lie to myself to survive.

I choose to believe I was not a prostitute.

I reframe that I just was with a lot of strange men. Men who I did not know their names. Men who did not talk to me. Men who not even made eye contact before the sex.

I had to lie to survive.

I had to be in constant shock as each time I was raped. Shock each I was smashed up. Shock each time they were sadistic with me.

I had to lie that the men were one-off, I was just unlucky to have lost count of the one-offs.

I could not let in my mind see that I was a prostitute.

I could not see with open eyes as money was exchanged. Often I receive little or no money, so it was of no relevance to me.

Even when I receive a great deal of money, I had to reframe as me using the men for their money.

I choose to shut out the degradation I went through to “earn” the money.

For my sanity I had to lie.

Now, I am living outside of male violence. Now, I continually shocked by the lies that I hear to defend male violence.

I am angered and saddened by pro-sex “feminists” who claim to support prostitution, or as they reframe the women as  “sex workers”.

Their words have nothing with how I remember prostitution. Their words are treated as the gospel truth of prostitution, so need to be questioned.

I feel deeply angered by placing prostitution as “sex work”, that is a job like any other. It is not.

Women and girls in prostitution have no rights or autonomy. Their safety is of no relevance to their “bosses” or the men that used them.

No-one bats an eye when a prostituted woman or girl is raped. The usual lie is that you cannot rape a prostitute, isn’t it just her job.

No-one hardly notices when a prostituted girl or women is battered or tortured. It was just rough sex.

And prostituted women and girls are are murdered or “disappear” every day.

Sounds like working in a shop, doesn’t it.

I am sick of the lie that prostitution is a money-maker.

Too many prostituted women and girls have their “earnings” stolen by pimps or managers. Too many prostituted women and girls may recieve large amounts of money in exchange for sexual torture and degradation.

Prostitution made me hate money. Money reminded of how I was in a sewer.

It is a lie to say that prostitution can be safer.

Men will feel entitle to use prostituted women and girls with whatever violence they can fantasie.

Women have no control over how a man may treat them.

Most prostituted women and girls cannot turn away a man without fear of retaliation from their boss or the punter.

Also many violent men give out no signals of their hate and violence. Steve Wright was just any other punter.

In my experience, violence is very fast and often sudden. I remember thinking I was safe, and ending up in life and death situations.

I believe that most prostituted women and girls have experienced violence and hate from men. Most cannot defend themselves for the violence is so extreme.

If there are women who are the “happy hooker” they should stop lying that their experience is the “normal” lifestyle of the majority of prostituted women and girls.

This lies is highly damaging for is ignoring the pain, degradation and terror that the majority of prostituted women and girls are forced to live with.

I think the “happy hooker” should shut up, and let the voices of survivors of the sex trade be heard.

MAD

I was taught that I had the most convenient mental illness for any man that choose to abuse.

I was taught that I could not feel pain. I had those genes knocked out of me.

As I lived inside male violence as a constant, I had deadened much of the pain in order to survive. This made me believe that maybe I was mentally ill.

I saw with detachment men doing acts that I know must hurt, I felt so little.

I did not know that my detachment was keeping me safe.

I did not know my detachment was increasing the painful their actions were.

I just know I was mad.

That made me silent, for I felt my word would be dismissed or ridiculed.

I was almost driven mad by being shown hard-core porn.

I know I hated it. But, I was told that I was “silly”, that it was just fun.

I feared the porn, but I was told to look and I would get used to it.

I never got used to that hate I know was there.

I had no words to say why I hated those images. So I fall into silence.

Porn made feel mad, as I thought I would be torture as in the images. I was close to madness as the images burnt themselves into my body.

I could say nothing. Silence was killing me, but I could not speak.

When I became a prostitute, the silence increase as I know that the fantasy that the men did to me were the same as the images of hard-core porn.

I thought I am mad now. I am just nothing but a real-life piece of porn.

I know to survive I had to be silent. I know not to say I saw what they were doing to me.

I was convince that if I spoke a word, I would be murdered.

I had no evidence to say I was safe.

I have found that in my life now, that many people who refuse to hear survivors of child abuse or the sex trade, will say it is a delusion.

A common tactic is to say survivors cannot tell fantasy from the truth. It is implied that they “fantasied” the abuse.

Survivors are often protrayed as mentally ill, that their word is false.

It can be said that ideas of abuse are “planted” in their poor vulnerable heads. That they are easier manipulated by others who like keeping them as a victims.

I do not believe that women fantasied about abuse, or that is extremely rare.

To reframe abuse as an individual woman’s madness, means that society can be apathetic in confronting the men that choose to be violent.

WHORE

The final bastion when I could not be attacked for being a liar or mentally ill, was to say I was a “whore”.

I was told that I “forced” myself onto my stepdad. It was I that made him abuse me through my sexually provocative behaviour.

He could not help himself, because I was so forceful.

Somehow, I was made to believe that I raped him.

I learnt I was a “whore”, as I accepted money and presents from my stepdad.

I learnt to associate money with sex through my stepdad. I learnt I only got things I wanted by being a sexual object.

I will say I hate my stepdad, for he made me easy prey for prostitution. He brainwashed me to the point that I just thought I deserved was to be used to men.

I have no proof, but I believe that the vast majority of women and girls who enter the sex have been brainwashed to think that they are worthless. That their only purpose is as a sex object for men.

It is bloody hard to be in the sex trade if you have high self-esteem.

This is my experences of how I have been silenced.

Often other people’s words have sent me into a place where I lose who I am.

Now, I am believing myself. But I still can deeply hurt by words that say my reality does not exist.   

On Trying to Imagine

Posted on by rmott62

I look back on my life, and I can see that one way I able to survive was by having an imagination.

For much of my life that was destroyed or lost. But always, I felt that my imagination carried my hope and knowledge that there was more to life than violence and hate.

All my life I had disappeared into books, TV, sports and films. There I found other lives, there I could touch an idea that there could be some a future.

As a child, I could feel the slow poison of my stepdad’s abuse begin to paralyse me.

I would not let in my fear. As I was scared out my wits by “Star Trek” and “Doctor Who”, I said I was never scared of my stepdad.

Only, I was terrified. I begun to hear his every move in the house. I didn’t like him looking at me.

I didn’t who I was when he was in the room with me. I would argue. I would go silent. I did not know how to be.

Always I felt he was watching me even when he was away.

No, I was not scared.

As a child, I was scared of all films, scared at the children’s parties, scared of being scared.

When he enter my life, I wet my bed again.

I could not let into my head that my stepdad did not mind my fear. I could not know he saw I was controllable.

Instead, I imagined that TV scared me. I read “Treasure Island”, that scared me.

I was a frightened child.

As the abuse grow, so did my need to be elsewhere.

I imagined a safe world. A world without adults. A world without pain. A world where I could forget.

I saw the movie of “Water Babies”, and it became my dream.

I know that children died. So I imagined that abused children who died lived underwater. There they were safe, there was no past there, only playing.

My dream was to dream of death. I thought that was ok.

I see me as a child, and grief has finally enter my heart. Death was a friend for me then. Death had replaced hope.

I look back, and I can hate my stepdad for forcing me to give up on hope.

One thing that nearly murdered any imagination I had was viewing hard-core porn.

I saw images that I could not allow into my mind. Images that enter my body, and would not leave however much I try to fill my mind with TV, sports, reading and films.

I saw pain cutting into my heart. I saw as I was told it was just fun. I was told it was not real, just acting.

I was made to look when I said I didn’t like to see. I learnt to hide how sick I felt.

I could not bear that the images burnt into my mind. I could not sleep without thinking that I was in the images. I thought that is why I was shown them.

I closed down my visual imagination. I would not see the images. Only, I could not see anything.

I thought closing down my visual imagination would e short-term. It was not. I can see nothing when I shut my eyes. I see nothing when I relax. See nothing as read describtions in books.

My mind is often a void.

Porn made me believe I could not imagine, I had to be dead inside.

Porn made know my future was of pain. My future was to not show any fear any more.

Porn taught me to hide, and to look as if I was happy.

Porn made hope seem pointless.

Although there is no simple cause and effect, I know living with my stepdad taught how to “accept” the violence I had to lived with as a prostituted girl and young woman.

As I enter that world, I had forgotten how to dream.

When I was used by men over and over, my imagination was throw into the dustbin.

When I caught glimpses of imaging, I could only hate myself. To see flashes of hope, when all I know was I ended up back in violence, made me hate myself.

But my imagination refused to disappear.

It was there as I carried around books. At the time I could hardly understand a word I read. Only I read in small moments I was alone.

I read when men found my books and rip them up. I read after I had left the violence. I read before trying to sleep.

Now, I find I can remember some of what I read. It was retain, I am glad of that.

I read for it was the only thing that was private in my world.

I became a movie buff.

I disappeared into any and all films.

For a short time, my mind could have a break from just working how to survive. It could relax, not for long, but I give it time to escape.

Thes things did not stop the violence. But it did allow my mind to have more thoughts and dreams.

The men that used me hated that I had any life outside their fantasy. I could not be real.

I learnt not to speak in case I said words they refuse to hear. I learnt to forget all I know.

I learnt to fit in with whatever they wanted.

This turn my imagination into a place where I learnt to read their body language. I would do what they wanted without being asked, I learnt this as I try to avoid the violence.

I thought I had some power. I had none.

I thought I was being clever, I was just surviving.

I had no control over their violence, however I behave.    

The men did not need an excuse to be violent. Once they had me in their rooms, they had planned the violence. I was nothing to them.

Nothing more than an object to screw and beat up.

How I acted was of no consequence.

This was impossible to accept whilst it was happening. To know you are nothing, that cannot be known.

So I had to split my mind from my body.

I made that nothing had happened. I refuse to know that I had been tortured.

I would not feel the pain. I would not know I had been degraded.

If I told myself it had not happened, then I could live.

My mind went back to imagination. It imagined a life where I was “normal”. I went to tea with my grandparents each Sunday. There I watch rugby, discuss birdwatching and books. I could imagine I was happy.

Gradually, I begun why my body was so often in pain. I would see injuries and wonder where they came from.

I was trying to live a double life, and they were both destroying me.

I was close to death, but I felt nothing.

That time is the most terrifying time of my life. I lived inside so much danger, but I could not see how much I killing myself.

The violence with the men was getting more and more extreme. I was getting more and more like a zombie.

I have no idea how I stay alive at that time.

I did nothing to prevent my attempts of suicide, just could not die.

The men that used me played at murdering me. Sometimes I thought I had died, only to crash back into their fantasy again.

I was not living at that time, all I was doing was breathing.

Now, I can finally see that time in my life. I can see through fragmented memory.

I see and know it is true.

I have huge blanks, but I feel the pain and grief so intensely.

I believe myself.

I know it is true, as I remember things I don’t want to know about.

Now, I allow my imagination the freedom to dream.

I can dream that my words and my reality can be a small part of building a future where male violence becomes unacceptable.

I want to dream that child abusers are punished with serious sentences. I want child abuse to slowly vanish.

I dream that all of the sex trade is abolished. That the words of survivors of the trade sex are listened to and heard.

I dream that rape is vanished from the earth.

Now, I want to go back to allowing my imagination can be a pleasure.

Now, I watch films for the fun of them. Now, I enjoy my sports for the moments of escape they give me. Now, I bring TV back under my control.

And now I can read without fear of being attacked.

I need imagination, I need to know there is more to live than male violence.

Things That Kept Me Down

Posted on by rmott62

I feel that I am finally in a place where I say my life as remember it. I do not know any more than how my body remembers, and how I feel connections.

My life has always been a blur, but in my writing, and through connections with people who can hear my words, I am very slowly learning to see.

All my life, I have lived with the belief that my version of my life was a lie.

All my life I have told I was born with a mental illness.

It was a very convenient mental illness. In my illness, I could not feel pain. I could not tell truth from fantasy. In my madness, I imagine many horrible things that men did to me.

I was taught that I was unable to communicate. This meant I did not know how to express to men I did not like what they were doing to me. That when I said I was being abused, I was deluded.

My madness made all the abuse invisible. It sent me into silent.

I was taught that I was a liar.

I lie to destroy my family out of bitterness. I lie I was having bad sex, coz I was really just sleeping around,

I lie because I was angry. I lie because I was selfish.

This silenced me.

I would say that I did “lie” to myself, that I refuse to see the reality of my life. I did lie but then I could see the truth.

I was taught all I was a “sex object”.

This I believe too much and too often. I believed each time I felt fear as a man look at me, and my heart was screaming – 

Please not again, please god, I can’t take no more. 

Each time, I was used I became dead inside. Each time I was used, I had to forget what had just happened.

I did become an object. I could not allow feelings in. I could not let my mind know what my body was suffering.

I forgot, and I choose silence.

A huge barrier for me is that I have blanked most of my childhood, teenage years and young adulthood.

I stare into my life and see a massive empty space.

But it is not completely empty.

As I stare unblinking into the void, I feel a sorrow from the pits of my stomach. I feel sorrow as I can feel pains in my body from rapes and tortures going through me.

At first, I thought these pains were delusions. But when, I try to ignore them or try to say it must be my madness – the pain became bigger and bigger.

I was getting nightmares and flashbacks that were so real. I was seeing and feeling things I did not want to know.

At first, I refuse to believe it. I decided I was mad.

But, I just remembered more and more.

I decided it may be true.

I decided to say out loud the things I had felt or remembered.

I never believed if it was true, that I would not be believed.

I spoke out, but in a whisper. I fall back into silence out of fear.

I found that once I got glimpses that I may of been abused, I could remember that all my life I had know in my heart that I had been abused.  

Outside of the silenced part of me, was part of me that carried the truth.

I know in my heart that I was not mentally ill. I was mentally damaged by living with hate and male violence.

I had to survive in a world that undermining everything that give me a sense of self. I had to use all my mental energy on trying to work how to be safe and maintain a tiny bit of dignity.

I know I acted out. I know that I behave in very strange ways. I know I had no idea how to live in a “normal” way.

My “madness” was one of the reason that I did not die.

It was part of my defiance.

I believe that I did lie. I lie for I learnt at an early age, that no-one was interested in the truth. I learnt my words were of no important.

I lie because I wanted to believe that I had a happy life. I wanted to fit in.

I lie to the world and I lie to myself.

I lie for the truth that I was being raped, beaten , tortured and being an object to hate was to too hard to bare.

To say that truth to myself – if I had said that, I don’t think I would be here to write now.

I lie because I could not understand the truth.

I lie coz I thought it give me strength.

My lies help me to be deluded, which may of allow me to survive.

My lies give some defiance.

I feel that detaching my mind from my body, becoming a sex object, allow me to not feel the reality.

I hate that has meant I remember my past still with detachment, sometimes like a scientist viewing an experiment. I can still on the outside looking in.

I can see my suffering. I can see my confusion.

I can imagine I had fear. I can imagine I wanted to fight back.

But I scared that I still a slice of ice in my heart as I view myself.

So when I feel grief, I am relieved.

I do not know what to do with grief. It seems so out of control.

I am starting to feel beyond just pain and anger.

I can let myself feel confusion, not always wanting tidy answers that always let me down.

I see now that my detaching my mind from my body meant I could survive.

My mind retain my defiance.

I belive now that I could not allow the reality until I had a stable and safe life.

I could not see the truth until I had people who believed me.

For me finding women who believe and understand how confused I am, has save my life.

I could not live beyond the blank of memory, until I could say my truth out loud.

I can say in my own words with all the confusion, pain and sometimes wanting to retract everything.

To hear and see my words. To have them not rejected. That is what have made finally know all my body memories, flashbacks, and fears are true.

I have no evidence for anything in my life.

All I know is that I do believe now.      

A Big Thank-You

Posted on by rmott62

I want to thank all my readers.

This has been a roller-coaster trip for me. I have needed your support and more importantly your faith in me.

I wish to thanks radical feminists for enclosing inside your community.

I have never believe that I could belong anywhere. I always believed I was unacceptable.

I am slowly learning that radical feminists are not rejecting me.

In this time that is important, when I have been thrown back to my doubts and fears that I may be worthless.

I have for too much of my life been told that my truths were lies. That I have fantasie my life. That I was born mad.

So for much of my life when I try to speak out or to ask for help, I have told I do not know the truth.

So I learnt to disbelieve myself. I wonder why the same memories and event came again and again.

I could not understand why I got so physically sick when I remembered what I was told was false.

And I wonder why if I was having fantasies, why were so horrible. I thought a fantasy life would entertain me, not torture me.

For me, finding radical feminists has made know it not madness. I was not lying.

I found instead I had taught myself to close down my reality. I sent all the pain into silence.

When I lived with male violence, I could not be whole. I had to cut my mind from my body.

I could not allow my mind to know the pain, I would not let my mind know the degradation.

Instead I made it invisble.

I made that it never happened.

So when people say I was a liar or that I fantasie. I say I did not know the words to say the truth.For I had close the truth from myself.

I could not see the truth until eight years after I had left male violence.

For me that shows how severe the violence was, rather than I was lying.

I learnt through radical feminist friends that my blanking out so much of my life was a natural reaction to constant and severe abuse.

I learnt very slowly to believe myself.

I really want to say a massive thanks to any readers who are survivors of the sex trade.

You are my most important readers. That you choose to read my words and choose to believe in me, means the world to me.

I hope my blog in a small way can help with the confusion and very hard journey that leaving the sex trade can be.

I will always speak just for myself, for I can never know any one else’s experiences. But if my story does make connections with any other survivor, I feel very honoured and humbled. 

If any one reads my blog and is questioning whether prostitution whether is a good or bad thing, I hope my story will help dispell some of the pro-prostitution myths.

I was thrilled that some men read my blog especially if they are questioning pornography.

Finally, I want to thanks the many who have become my friends through this blog, or before I started writing it.

Your friendship has been vital to me. I have lead you on a very bumpy journey. I have often been a difficult friend.

I have found and finally understood what friendship can be.

For too much of my life, I have been afraid to allow friendship into my heart.

I was terrified that if anyone saw me, that they would hate me.

I have found, greatly to my surpise, that when I am honest about who I really am, that I get friends who are reliable. I cannot believe that half the time.

My friends now know the ugliness of my past. They know how it has left me with a legacy of mental welfare problems.

They know that and don’t reject me as a lost cause.

Having friends that see me has forced life back into me.

Having friends has reminded that I can feel joy. I can laugh.

I have learnt to have faith in myself.

I am learning to believe that the future is more important than the past.

So to all my reader, a big thank-you. 

More to Cheer Myself Up

Posted on by rmott62

I think because I have been told that I keep “harking on” about the past, I would write about interests.

Birdwatching.

I like to enter inside an alien world. I am reminded of walks with my grandparents and learning how to still and quiet.

TV

I watch TV and have always enjoy it. As a child it shut out all I didn’t want to know. I had years when I hardly watch TV for my life was so unstable I could not concentrate for long periods. Now, I enjoy TV for for it is a symbol of a stable life. I tend to enjoy dark dramas – “Boston Legal”, “Dexter”, “6 Feet Under”. I like trashy sci-fi/fantasy – “Star Trek”, “Buffy”, “Zena”. I want TV to make me escape, so I don’t want too much realism. The only soaps I watch are wonderfully unreal, “Emmerdale”, “Home and Away”, “Neighbours”. TV for me give the gift of relaxing and allowing joy into my heart.

Films

I an unreform film addict. I mainly love “Hollywood” films from the 30’s and 40’s – but I am interested in most films. I am huge fan of film noir. I love the twists and turns, that many of great film noir can be exercise for the brain. I love “The Postman Only Knocks Twice”, “Farewell My Lovely”, “Gilda”. I love that “bad” women were played with such gusto, and make sure the audience were rooting for them. I fall in love with Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Veronica Lake, Yvonne DeCarlo, Barbara Stanwyck, Peggy Cummins, Mary Astor, Kathleen Turner, Angelica Huston – through seeing them strong bad women in film noir. I love the quick-fire comedies of the 30’s and 40’s. In them again my mind is put to work. I love “Bringing Up Baby”, “The Maltese Falcon”, and any Marxs Brothers movie. I love musicals especially – “West Side Story”, “Carmen Jones”, “Meet Me in St Louis”. The more over the top the musical is the more it can send me to another world. I love older French films. “400 Blows”, “La Belle et Le Bete”, “Le Grande Illusion”. I live my life of pleasure in many types of films. They calm me and help see other ways of being,

Books

I have always read fiction. As a child I was read to by my dad and grandmother. I was read Robert Louis Stevenson, my favourite Scottish writer. I love being scared by Blind Pew coming up the stairs. As I grow I read the Brontes, Wilkie Collins and other exciting Victorian books. My Dad was a publisher, so his house had all types of books. I read loads of crime. Starting with Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, gradrating to Patricia Highsmith and Josephine Tey. I read classic horror especially Edgar Allan Poe and M.R. James. I read “Dracula” with relish like riding a roller-coaster. Now I read novel all the time. I am attracted to women writers from the American South, I like many Australian women novelists. I have found “unknown” women writer from 18th century to the 1940’s that I have really enjoy. I love Jean Rhys, Muriel Spark, Joyce Carol Oates. I read in order to sleep. I read to remember that I am sane.

City Walking

I love architecture, so walking cities full me with pleasure. I love London, because different centuries and cultures fall into each other with reckless abandon. London is a messy city, that is one of it’s pleasure. It is not sterile.

America

I am quarter American , and that part of my family that I love live all over America. It feel more my home than with the English side of my family. I have been 5 times and to 13 states. I have seen the good and the bad of America, but I go mainly for the people I love. I did fall in love with the South-West when I was there. But then, me and my Dad love old-fashioned Westerns. So being in the canyons and savannas was a dream for me. I fall in love with Santa Fe, for my grandmother live there in the 20’s, and became an independent artist. I also enjoy being in Georgia and Virginia. I loved San Francisco, Philidelphia and New York. I love the architecture of Charlottesville. America allow me to be more open to finding out who I can be, I can so shut away in England.

Those are a few of my joys. I write them because there is so much more to me that the abuses I was forced to live with. I know having many pleasures and interests made me survive, so I am grateful for all that has been attracted my magpie brain.