The Purrostitution Experience

[LaBelleThatcher]

You know, Ruhama might have even got to me with this one:
http://theprostitutionexperience.com/?p=78

A few weeks ago, before they let me have a ringside seat at how unscrupulous, childish and spiteful they can be, to *me* let alone to others...provided they said it straight out and honestly, of course, instead of wrapping it up in a synthetic "purrostitute persona" they created to be manipulative, they honestly might have even got to me except for two things:

First thing:

If you are a sexworker, for any reason, and somebody offers you an opportunity of some kind that is genuinely better for you, I am absolutely certain that you will have the good sense and intelligence to choose to cease to be a sex worker without legalised coercion.

So why the need for legalised coercion at all? If you cannot offer a sex worker an alternative that is better for her than sex work what is the point in harassing her and making her life more difficult? What does society actually get out of being drawn into that kind of senseless bullying?

Second thing:

Here it comes again:



Yes, those paying to use the bodies of women and teenagers who submit and comply through a lack of any real choice should be guilty of a criminal offence. The criminalisation of the demand for prostitution is an important start;


Either everybody who pays to use people who submit and comply through a lack of any real choice *FOR ANY PURPOSE* is to be guilty of the same criminal offence, or nobody is. You cannot have it both ways.

There is also another problem. A lot of intelligent adults who seem perfectly sane and self aware to me, are telling me that they choose sex work freely. So how will the law make a distinction between sex workers who have no real choice, and sex workers who choose freely? For example, how do you classify paying a sex worker who (like a lot of people) has no real choice but hang on to the job she has like grim death because of the recession, but, if she *did* have more choices, would probably still choose sex work?

...and no, I am sorry, taking the word of an organisation that the majority of sex workers refuse to have anything to do with, run by people who have never been sex workers, and have never knowingly met a client for how sex workers feel, or what sex workers want, or even for what clients are like and deserve is *NOT* a solution.

I am an adult, and I have been an adult for longer than most of those working for Ruhama have even been alive. I am quite sure I know a great deal more about sex work and clients than they ever will.

Ruhama DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME.

[LaBelleThatcher]

...and then it got worse:

http://theprostitutionexperience.com/?p=113

I have no doubt in my mind this woman is a total fake...even if she was really there and being economical with the truth she wouldn't have so many background details wrong already...

(If you aren't with Ruhama or "Turn Off the Red Light" best to skip to here *** rather than waste your valuable time with yet another rehash of the reality they are too ignorant to see and acknowledge)

This is appalling me on several levels, firstly, of course, that a state funded NGO would actually *GO* this far. Why invent sex workers to "support"? What is so wrong with the real people?

C'mon, Ruhama...you read here, you see the same ladies I see, so why aren't they good enough for you? They are smart, they are decent, they are in WIDE variety (shhhhh...tell no one but there aren't many saints...but on the plus side there isn't a single devil :) ).

Most of them are pretty much together and in control of their lives and situations, but, hey, this is real life, they run into problems, just like anyone else, and I know they could all use some help with the insane, draconian stigma they function under - so *WHO* would die if you came on over, apologised for all the misunderstandings, and supported them instead (after first, of course, making sure you understood EXACTLY what they want support for)?

(Ok guys, I am kidding, I really, SERIOUSLY would NEVER expect you to even be civil to people after seeing them behave the way Ruhama have - it would be too much to ask! On step short of asking if Larry Murphy can be a mod, still if Sarah Benson wanted to use her Ruhama ID to log in no-one would ban her as long as she was not abusive here. That is the HUGE difference between being here with the grown ups and being around the overgrown spiteful adolescents around Ruhama and "Turn Off the Red Light".)

Then I could bring you to some other ladies, who are pretty desperate, they are nice people too, but life hasn't been very kind to them, often through no nfault of their own. They know you, and have learned, through harsh experience and disillusionment to avoid you and dread the next negative impact you will have on their lives. They can't stand up and fight you, and you know it, because they might as well throw themselves and their families into the Liffey as be recognised. They need *ALL* kinds of help and support...but the LAST thing they need is you cutting off their only income stream and solution. WHY CAN'T YOU CARE ABOUT THEM???

Then there are the guys...the big surprise when you actually meet and know clients is that they are honest to god *just people*. If anything they have a distinct bias towards being the kind of people who hate using anyone - and certainly do not get off on the idea of notching their bedposts with manipulative one night conquests.

Some of them are short bald and tubby, some of them are tall dark, and devastatingly handsome, I hated having to have sex for a living, but not because there was anything wrong with the clients. The only abusive clients I ever came across would be abusive if you stood next to them at a bus stop...and, sooner or later, someone is going to have to.

I remember the other side of the purrostitution-persecution dyad:
Seductive sirens choosing to corrupt innocents sons and husbands - PUNISH THEM! (The would have been pre 1993)

But people like me put in years of work into changing that lie into something closer to reality. I put my life on the line, when I didn't even have an income, constantly under threat from organised crime, with constant obstruction rather than help and support from Ruhama, to explain one simple fact - from years of devastating experience:
"Women sell sex because they have to, not because they want to"

Only problem is, the way I wrote it, that song had a chorus, is goes something like this:
"Women sell sex because they have to, not because they want to,
Making their lives even harder is just cruel, so for pity's sake leave them in peace to get on with it"

Those women still exist - and they are still scared to death by Ruhama, not least because what Ruhama want to do could tip the survival balance of some of their lives in a really bad way. Most of them would rather sell themselves to white slavers than place their lives at the mercy of Ruhama anyway (someone should look into why that might be some time and fix it...to start you off I assure you you couldn't go far wrong by dumping the condescension, the lies, the spite and the hypocrasy).

Now, I tried a little, groundbreaking, experiment this year. I took a little time to find out about sexworkers who did *not* agree with me and every aspect of my own experience - just to see what would happen.

OOOPS!!

There are also women in the sex industry who like to do their own thinking and deciding, and have gotten enough practice to be pretty good at it, and most of them would like organisations like Ruhama to stop trying to invade their autonomy by imposition (that is another word for "coercion") and go away and mind their own business.

They all seem to be sane adults, who know what they are doing, so I have no choice but give my full support to their position too.

***As for the synthetic "purrostitution experience".

What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive

It isn't that easy to create a synthetic past life in a real past place and time, there are too many variables, too many forms of hard evidence you cannot "reverse trace", unless you know the truth...and I lived the truth...and I am not the only one. I have already been in touch with a couple of people who lived parts of that truth too.

:)

This is not going to be as easy as you imagine.

[LaBelleThatcher]

PS:


"Women sell sex because they have to, not because they want to,
Making their lives even harder is just cruel, so for pity's sake leave them in peace to get on with it"


...and campaigning to remove the demand for the only thing they can offer in exchange for an honest income that will allow them survival and a sustainable quality of life does *not* constitute "leaving them in peace to get on with it" by any stretch of the imagination...let alone supporting them.

That's just a lie you tell yourselves and others for a chance draw a hefty salary and/or kid yourself you are a superior being while imposing control other peoples' real lives.