Prostitution -  Testimonies

These are just some of the many testimonies that women's rights groups have gathered. Visit Demand Change! to hear - and see - more.

 

'KATIE'* (January 2009)

“I worked as an escort and later in a brothel. All of the women I worked alongside had drug or alcohol abuse problems and or a history of sexual abuse or mental health problems.

But I have found that people are unwilling or unable to listen when I have tried to open up about the truth behind the lies of the sex industry. I have found myself isolated and felt utterly hopeless with it. I am still trying to get over the emotional damage that working as a prostitute has done me”.

*please note that 'Katie' is a pseudonym
 

'JO'* (July 2008)

“The vast majority of women start working as prostitutes before the age of eighteen (in fact, the average age is just fourteen...I was thirteen, and yes, I'm British, and yes, I worked in Coventry, in the late 1980s, and no, not one punter complained or refused due to my age) 

My argument against legalisation is not a moral one, it is purely functional.  You cannot ensure the safety of women in sex work by making it legal, because by creating rules around it you will automatically marginalise a lot of women who have to work outside of that framework.  The only way to ensure the safety of women in prostitution is to ensure men treat them as equals, not just a doll to smack about and come inside.  Because trust me, no matter how fancily the trade is dressed up, no matter how legalised and expensive, the violence (whether physical or verbal) and disrespect are always there.  Men regard buying a prostitute in the same way as hiring a slave that they can do with as they please, despite any laws or verbal agreements.  It is that dynamic of prostitution that is so dangerous, and this dynamic will not change unless women are seen as on an equal footing with men, and not just sex objects.  

Legalising prostitution only compounds the problem and legitimises regarding women as sex objects - 'oh, she was a whore, she was asking for it'.  The illegality of prostitution is not the problem, and it's not the reason why so many prostitutes resort to drugs, self harm, and even suicide - it's the endless violence that is.  And you WILL be called a whore, b*tch, sl*t etc and treated like dirt, even in a legal brothel.  No amount of health checks and security guards will make the hurt of that, day in and day out, any easier to deal with.  Why legitimise it in the first place?”

*please note that 'Jo' is a pseudonym
 

REBECCA* 

“I am so p*ssed off with the ‘choice’ argument being used to dismiss so many women and girls. I, for one, would never deny there are some women who may choose to be in prostitution. But they are very privileged and a very tiny minority, maybe around 2-4% of prostituted women”

*Read Rebecca's blog here

 
THE PARENTS OF MARNIE FREY, A YOUNG GIRL MURDERED IN PROSTITUTION*:

“To think the best we can do for these women is giving them a safe place to sell their bodies is a joke. There’s no such thing as a clean safe place to be abused in. For a man to think he can buy a woman’s body is insane. And should show us the attitudes that women have to fight against in society. Marnie did not choose prostitution. Her addictions did. And any man who bought her body for their sexual pleasure should go to jail for exploiting her desperation” (Lynn and Rick Frey 2008).