Vice magazine describes what it’s like to be a prostituted woman (April 2004 issue):
…No matter what the empowered academics in San Francisco pretend to believe, whoring—in any form—is hell, and the only reason women do it is to get money for coke NOW! If you want to try it out, be prepared to have nothing to show for years of suffering but a blown-out septum and some lumpy fake tits. It’s like extreme waitressing. You make hundreds of dollars a night licking ass and then you immediately spend it on drugs just to feel normal again.
If you’re really, truly still interested, please at least do us a kindness and read this A–Z before your first day on the job.
ANAL
A few years ago it might have been acceptable to be a whore who “doesn’t do anal.” Now you’d be lucky to get out of there without him making you cry on demand, gag on his dick to the point of puking, and THEN have anal sex while two dildos are simultaneously jammed into your pussy. I don’t know why things have gotten so raunchy. Maybe guys have been corrupted by the internet and endless mpegs of Cambodian babies getting fucked by dogs. Point is, their idea of humiliating a woman (what sex work is all about) has been ramped up quite a bit, so don’t think you’re going to get away with smoking a cigarette in high heels while he takes pictures…COCAINE
Coke is what this whole industry is about. The majority of the clients are doing it in some capacity, and so are all the hos…FUCKED BY YOUR DAD
Second-wave feminists like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon made up this cruel stereotype that everyone in the sex industry got fucked by their dad. What do they know about it? Shit, that’s not fair. I mean, I got fucked by my dad, and every single woman I’ve met in the industry (stripping, prostitution, internet, phone sex…everything) got fucked by her dad, but…oh shit, wait. It is true. I guess that’s why we can lie underneath someone who has no business being on top of us and not give a shit. Statistics on incest are hard to gauge, but when you look at the number of women in the industry today and consider the fact that they ALL got fucked by their dad, it kind of makes your stomach turn…HATERS
You know you’re in it for the long haul when you hate your coworkers. In this business EVERYONE hates everyone else…JERKING OFF
Massage parlors will tell you in your interview that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to and you can just jerk them off with a glove if you’re grossed out. What they don’t mention is, that means you’ll go home penniless. The money you make is all about what you can negotiate for yourself after the massage…ORGASMS
Whores cum on the job about once a career…QUITTING
The average sex worker’s career is six months. If you work for an agency or (ugh) a real pimp, they will try everything from relentless nagging to kidnapping you with a bag over your head to keep you from quitting. Women aren’t that great at saying no to begin with, and when you add getting fucked by your dad to the equation, cutting the cord ends up taking quite a few tries…SUICIDE GIRLS
…They are not in the porn industry. Porn is about subordinating yourself for money. If it feels good, you’re not doing it right…YOUTH
The younger you are, the better. You’re stupider, you’re easier to manipulate, and you have a tighter pussy, which means less ass fucking…ZZZZZZZZZ
Falling asleep. This skill, otherwise known as disassociation, comes in handy. It usually sets in around hour three of sucking a rich cokehead’s limp cock. The old daddy-fucked-me thing means most whores are old friends with disassociation…
See also:
Vice: “Slavery’s Back! – Part 1” (September 2006)
In Bucharest, you can buy a young girl for 8,000 euros. I mean buy them as in you own them forever or until you sell them to someone else. Most of them are sold by their parents in Moldova when they are little children. As soon as they’re bought, the owner brands them. This is normally a tattoo of his name.
Pioneer Valley Gets 300 Posters This Week to Protest Valley Advocate Escort Ads (3/21/10)
Contact Daily Hampshire Gazette/Valley Advocate Publisher Jim Foudy and ask him to drop massage/escort ads from the Valley Advocate.
Escort Prostitution: A Response to Tom Vannah, Editor of the Valley Advocate
Mr. Vannah concedes that “there is some percentage of people who are not willing participants in the sex industry”, but believes that if the Advocate refuses to accept Massage/Escort ads, this will unacceptably crimp “artistic freedom”. He mentions Mapplethorpe pictures as an example. How dropping ads for commercial sex enterprises will compel the Advocate to turn away Mapplethorpe pictures is not clear to us…
While a few women may choose a life of prostitution in a truly voluntary fashion, the reality for most is a history of sexual and/or child abuse, separation from their family and/or country, and poverty. Addictions to drugs or alcohol are common. They are routinely lied to, coerced, abused, threatened, and blackmailed (e.g. ‘I’ll hurt your family back in the Ukraine if you don’t cooperate’).
Prostitution: Factsheet on Human Rights Violations
Estimates of the prevalence of incest among prostitutes range from 65% to 90%. The Council for Prostitution Alternatives, Portland, Oregon Annual Report in 1991 stated that: 85% of prostitute/clients reported history of sexual abuse in childhood; 70% reported incest. The higher percentages (80%-90%) of reports of incest and childhood sexual assaults of prostitutes come from anecdotal reports and from clinicians working with prostitutes (interviews with Nevada psychologists cited by Patricia Murphy, Making the Connections: women, work, and abuse, 1993, Paul M. Deutsch Press, Orlando, Florida; see also Rita Belton, “Prostitution as Traumatic Reenactment,” 1992, International Society for Traumatic Stress Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA M.H. Silbert and A.M. Pines, 1982, “Victimization of street prostitutes,” Victimology: An International Journal, 7: 122-133; C. Bagley and L Young, 1987, “Juvenile Prostitution and child sexual abuse: a controlled study,” Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, Vol 6: 5-26…
A Canadian Report on Prostitution and Pornography concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average. (Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution, 1985, Pornography and Prostitution in Canada 350.)
Prostitution Research & Education: How Prostitution Works
Real sexual relationships are not hard to find. There are plenty of adults of both sexes who are willing to have sex if someone treats them well, and asks. But there lies the problem. Some people do not want an equal, sharing relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to ask. They like the power involved in buying a human being who can be made to do almost anything.
Even Dan Savage Has a Clue about the Realities of Prostitution
Testimony in Massachusetts: Johns who like porn are the “most dangerous and potentially violent” (explicit language)
Some of the most violent pornography that I saw was in the houses of customers that I saw through escort services. Sometimes they had magazines with women being gang raped, urinated on, defecated on and being penetrated with inhuman objects like scissors. A lot of times these men were high on cocaine or other drugs and would watch pornographic films for hours and hours while having sex with one woman after another. I considered the men who were into pornography to be the most dangerous and potentially violent since that is what aroused them. One time a customer took out a heavy leather belt and started beating me across the stomach and breasts. He was into pornography which showed young girls tying each other up and whipping each other. I tried to remain calm and keep it like a game even though I was in a great deal of pain. I convinced him to reverse roles and let me whip him instead. I had large purple bruises on my body the next day.
At least fifty percent of the men that I saw professionally were into fantasies and pornography such as I have described. They were men from all over the world and all types of professions. Every prostitute I know has had similar experiences. Often we keep it to ourselves because it is very painful to remember. I have been scarred for life both mentally and physically. I have violent nightmares on a regular basis which replay my worst experiences of sexual violence over and over. I have difficulty relating to people in normal social situations. I cannot make love with someone without having flashbacks of being a prostitute. I have very little self confidence.
The Village Voice Earns $80,000/Month from Prostitution, Sex Trafficking and other Adult Ads (explicit language)
[Manny, a former pimp,] says it’s not difficult for a pimp to recruit his harem.
“You don’t have to tie a girl up — you just keep her high.”
…Betty looks Vanessa over and observes that the more decrepit a hooker looks, the more they get picked up. Johns see vulnerability; they see a weakness, they see a five-dollar blow job…
MSNBC Investigates Human Trafficking and Prostitution in the US; Valley Advocate Advertises “Foreign Fantasies” Where “Everything Goes”
Prostitution looks chic, but truth is ugly (Chicago Tribune, 4/27/08)
News Roundup: Age of Entry into Prostitution Declining
Puncturing Alan Dershowitz’s Delusions about Prostitution
Levitt and Sudhir Venkatesh analyzed arrest records and sexual transactions in Chicago. Far from earning a thousand dollars an hour, prostitutes typically receive $25-30 per hour. The risks of getting a disease are high–condoms are used in only a quarter of tricks. The average prostitute experiences one violent assault a month…
The Science Behind Pornography Addiction
[Performers in the sex industry] have high rates of substance abuse, typically alcohol and cocaine, depression, borderline personality disorder which is a particularly serious disorder and dissociative identity disorder which used to be called multiple personality disorder. The experience I find most common among the performers is that they have to be drunk, high or dissociated in order to go to work. Their work environment is particularly toxic. One study on strippers indicated that they were likely to be punched, slapped, grabbed, called cunt and whore and to be followed home or stalked. Not surprisingly, these women often work with bodyguards. This live form of pornography causes violence and the customers receiving these Permission-Giving Beliefs become carriers of these beliefs back to their homes, onto their jobs, into the street, onto the school yard. There they encounter women and children who do not have bodyguards.
The terrible work life of the pornography performer is often followed by an equally terrible home life. They have an increased risk of sexually transmitted disease including HIV, domestic violence and have about a 25% chance of making a marriage that lasts as long as 3 years.
Strip Club Tips: How to Savor an Exquisite Blend of Fantasies, Lies, Exploitation and Despair (explicit language)
For a stripper’s perspective, we present a selection from 37 Stripper Rants, as posted in March to gripe site Ofuzi…
Martin Amis: “A rough trade”
“Some girls are used in nine months or a year [says performer turned director Jonathan Morgan]. An 18-year-old, sweet young thing, signs with an agency, makes five films in her first week. Five directors, five actors, five times five: she gets phone calls. A hundred movies in four months. She’s not a fresh face any more. Her price slips and she stops getting phone calls. Then it’s, ‘Okay, will you do anal? Will you do gangbangs?’ Then they’re used up. They can’t even get a phone call. The market forces of this industry use them up…”