By Jasmine Grace, New Hampshire Union Leader, May 18, 2020
ON MAY 7, the New Hampshire Union Leader published a Reuters article on its back page with the catchy title “Streetwalkers to Sweet Talkers” outlining the dilemma Chile’s prostitutes face under Covid-19 now that they cannot engage in the “intimate” aspect of their trade.
As a survivor of the sexual and physical trauma of prostitution, it makes me angry to see the Union Leader share such a misleading piece of reporting with their readers. By portraying prostitutes as liberated and independent business owners whose only worry is how to connect with clients, it ignores the ugly reality of their lives. Even talking about the “very intimacy” of trading sex for money glamorizes an act that by its nature exploits and dehumanizes women.
If you had asked me as an 18-year-old if I saw prostitution as a career choice, I would have laughed. I had dreams of being a writer and was attending community college. All that changed with someone who could see I was vulnerable who patiently cultivated me to “work” for him by selling myself to strangers. He painted the life of a prostitute as a glamorous one filled with luxury goods and more money than I could make anywhere else. And the money was good, giving me a false sense of empowerment and security although it was never “mine” for long. I wanted to leave the life right away but was caught in a spiral of trauma, self-loathing, and self-medicating to numb myself to what was happening to me, all under the thumb (and the fist) of my pimp. It took me six years to find the strength and support to break free. In all my time of offering my body to strangers, I never met that idealized version of a liberated self-employed sex entrepreneur. We all wanted out.
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