Being an abolitionist is never easy.

Being an abolitionist and an exited woman is terrifying.

But it is a long hard road where freedom could some reward.

I am writing in sound-bite coz my trauma is so bad that I have re-learn how to write, re-learn to connect my typing to my heart.

I am in pain from old body memories, I having my sleep pattern is all over the place, and I feel like a zombie.

But I try to write in and through trauma – find a place where my words can have some meaning.

Trauma is huge push to being an abolitionist – trauma goes to heart of the unspoken, unknowable hell that is the everyday of prostitution.

Recently, there have brief reports of prostitutes being murdered.

These reports only appear if the media have a way to be sensational – it is reported if there racist or anti-Muslim angle, it is reported if the murdered prostitute is famous or not the type of girl who do such a thing, it is reported if it may be a serial killer.

But the ordinary common mass murders of the prostituted go unreported.

It is too normal that prostitute is murdered, so there is no news in that.

It is through the lens of extreme trauma, I remember and see the truth of the constant murdering of the prostituted.

Trauma remembers that murder was always round the corner in all aspects of prostitution.

Trauma knows that any punter of any belief system, any class, any ethnicity, any culture can at any time and in any place make the choice to just kill the prostitute.

He may kill because he “accidentally” forget about checking if the prostitute is still breathing.

He may kill the prostitute to “release” his guilt, or tell himself he is killing the evil.

He may kill coz he just love the ultimate power of snuffing out life.

He may kill to get rid of the dirt on him.

Or he may just kill in order not to pay and throw the goods that are used.

All I know that the prostituted more often murdered in domestic violence or men in wars.

There is a genocide of the prostituted – and it is allowed to go unnoticed as the vast majority of murders of the prostituted are made invisible and not even made into statistics.

No, we have allowed the sex trade profiteers and punters to make the prostituted just disappear, without any record of their lives or even their names.

There must be trauma for those lucky enough to exit the sex trade – for we all have the empty spaces of the nameless, of those we wanted to love but were too damaged to be fully there.

Each and every person I know who has exited the sex trade, knew that murder was random.

If a prostitute disappear, each and every other prostitute would close down knowing if it is murder, it was never personal, just ridding the world of a whore or throwing away used goods.

I know I was almost murdered three times, and those are just the event that I can remember – but each punter was not murdering me as a human, just killing some random whore.

How do you feel about murder being just throwing out the trash – does it not remind you of any other genocide?

I have learned to forgive myself for the coldness I had when the prostituted disappeared round – I had to be hard for it was just random, and death hang over me every moment I was inside the sex trade.

Trauma is that grief I had to destroy.

It is a grief, that cannot see an end without full justice – a justice that makes each and every murder or disappearance of the prostituted a matter of deep importance.

It is a crisis what is done to the prostituted – but we are told it can wait, it is a small matter for it is decided that the prostituted must have chosen their lifestyle, so should just deal with the consequences.

That is said as the bodies of the prostituted pile high in all cities of the world.

We refuse to see these murders, for we refuse to see how ordinary the murderers are.

We want to believe the murders of the prostituted is done by lunatics or fanatics.

Some may be, but the majority of murders are done by ordinary men who hold down a job, have friends, have a relationship – just a man who think of buying the prostitute in the same as buying a burger.

The punters and sex trade profiteers who were violent to me were from England, Europe, America, Middle East and Africa.

They were white, Asian, Black,

They were atheist, Christians, Muslim, Buddhist.

They were rich and they were poor.

They were just everyman.

The only thing they had in common was that they never saw the prostitute as human.

All I remember there no class of a punter that I would trust, for at any moment he could and would become a sadist, and leave me just remembering to breathe.

I was never safe even though I was always indoors, in the so-called safe aspects of prostitution.

Trauma is natural after that – but it is a long bloody hard road.

I am in extreme pain, as my body remembers what my mind does not want to know.

I believe that this pain is a reminder that it was never small what is done to my body, to the bodies of the prostituted alive or dead.

The mind cannot handle knowing every detail, every torture, every humiliation, every moment when death was so welcoming.

The body holds, contains and only open up to pain when in a place of safety and long-term security.

Heck, the reason I in total agony is coz I rebuilt my whole life away from prostitution.

Yesterday, the doctor deleted from my records that I had gone back into prostitution.

I think I have gone into shock at the very thought I could ever re-enter that so-called life which is death.

Of course, like most survivors of the sex trade I could easily all back into that lie.

Just enough self-hate, more and more bills, more wanting to deaden emotions and access to pain – all that makes is seems an answer.

But I cannot remember what the question was.

Except maybe how do you kill yourself without actually physically dying?

I would never go back into that world again – the world of lies, the world where women just disappear, a world rape is just the norm of the “job”.

I have been in shock and deep agony just at the idea that I could be a prostitute again.

My anus is killing me – but it also giving the strength to know why I would always be an abolitionist no matter what.

Music brings life into to me. I know it does for everyone else, but music for me is proof that I must be alive.

I am now listening to Al Green, as I try to soothe my sense of nothingness.

This soulful bring me back to the time when I was on the edge of choosing life or death.

I played punk to try to force anger into my body, but there was nothing.

I played Mozart to find a sense of beauty, there was nothing.

I played Louis Armstrong seeking some joy, there was nothing.

I played Madness to know I was in a certain time and place, there was nothing.

Prostitution had made empty, made suicide seemed logical.

I wanted to stop.

Stop the pain. Stop the hate. Stop every hole in my body from being filled.

I wanted an end.

End to stupid hoping. End of men lying to me. End of me not knowing how to end it.

I was nothing so I wanted nothing.

Nothing comes of nothing.

Then for some reason, I put on the greatest hits of Al Green.

And before I could understand, his voice reach into my soul, and soothe it.

I was crying. It was painful, but I was crying.

I was silently singing along, and tapping my hand on the table.

I was becoming alive.

I was becoming someone not nothing.

His soulful songs of love meant nothing to me, except feeding me with hope, joy and a reaching for life.

I could not do human love, I had no idea what spiritual love was, I was struggling to even like myself – but Al Green spoke to the part that never stopped reaching for any form of love.

Al Green said, you never really lost hope, you always were someone who should be loved, sing with me and maybe we find a way out.

Hope usually is poison when you are prostituted, especially hope sent by do-gooders who are there as long it not too difficult or become too long-term.

To survive prostitution is can be vital to forget about hope.

But Al Green and other soulful soul music give me a safe pathway to start to understand hope.

I listen to Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, The Impressions, Northern Soul, Martha Reeves, Dusty Springfield, Percy Sledge, Otis Redding and so many others – and slowly learnt I was fully alive.

But Al Green was the way in, so I will always be deeply attached to his music.

I was learning the way to hope was to know and trust that it would never be an easy or quick journey.

Hope comes with many depressions, many blockings of the way forward, with moments where hope feels like a curse.

Hope is no quick fix – it is a layering of safety, a layering of happiness, a laying of a sense of self.

It is a discovering of what may be called your inner core or soul.

This inner core may have been hiding away as prostitution rips away all contact with safety, rips away a senses of self,  and makes any happiness a fake emotion that may keep you alive.

It was hiding, but it never ever disappeared.

I found I had a soul when I found I was crying listening to Al Green.

My tears were not for show, they were not fake – my tears were private and my tears were life.

My tears were the way to hope and love.