This is not a popular issue in the American escort industry, and as I don’t mind making unpopular statements I’ll give my opinion on this – Yes, I do think most women in the sex industry were abused as children. Whether we remember it or not.
The amount of sexual abuse against children is huge – we don’t even know the real figures. Yes, it’s usually by a family member – that’s why a lot of us check out and don’t consciously remember it. Plus a lot of times we were just too young to remember – like 1 or 2.
What really sickens me is the amount of complicity on this. People who pretend to themselves that they don’t know what they know, or don’t come forward to stop abusers.
I’ll begin a poll on this, please feel free to add your comments on this issue.
OK I added the poll and it’s not showing. Any ideas why, anyone?
First, I use the moniker ‘BadWrongBilly’ in homage to David Lynch’s film “Inland Empire”. At one point during the film, when Nikki/Sue is undergoing mental collapse and her fantasy world is disintegrating, she comments to one of her characters “….There’s something bad-wrong Billy…..can you feel it?” To me the scene is dripping with dissociated fragments of Laura Dern’s character and there is futher evidence throughout the film that this was caused by a traumatic (probably sexually so) childhood.
As someone involved in child abuse prevention efforts in the U.S., I would agree with the statement that most of the sex industry….escorts, porn, etc….is populated by those at one time sexually (or otherwise) abused as children. First, consider that there are documented cases of “unrecalled” sexual abuse and add to this the simple shame of admitting having been abused. Put that thought aside for a minute and, for Americans at least, think of the phrase “The fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce means that greater than 50% of all marriages (those ending in divorce and those that don’t)are unhappy to one or both spouses. This is simply due to the fact that SOME couples will stay married….even if unhappy. So if, for example, 60 or 70% of those in the sex industry were to admit to some form of childhood abuse, then it would not be unreasonable to suggest that much of the remaining 30 – 40% would represent those that either (a) don’t recall being abused, (b) don’t want to mention being abused, or possibly (c) don’t want to admit to themselves being abused.
Comment by BadWrongBilly — April 18, 2009 @ 3:02 am |
Thank you very much for your comments BadWrongBilly, I am totally behind what you said.
Also that moniker BadWrongBilly, and your description of the roots of it, makes me recall that it wasn’t so many years ago – when I was growing up – that we didn’t even have the common language to describe sexual abuse with, really. Things just felt bad, and there wasn’t such a consciousness of how to describe some bad things, like sexual abuse.
Even today, a lot of women’s skin will crawl around certain men, and I think we instinctively often know who is an abuser, who is a rapist, who is using their sexually energy wrongly – on us or others, including children. But try and articulate that and you are at risk of censure yourself – the common comment still being ‘your crazy’. See how crazy women can look when they/we are not being complicit in being abused?
Comment by Tamara G — April 20, 2009 @ 6:23 pm |