This article contains explicit details of experiences in prostitution some readers may find upsetting

FOR THOSE, like myself, who have exited prostitution, describing the experience, that world, can be difficult.

But lived experience matters — and if we as a society are to adopt effective policy towards prostitution, it is important to take the voices of those who have left the industry seriously, to pay attention to what we have to say.

So I sit, take a breath, poised, ready to write about my lived experience of prostitution and pornography. I take several slow deep breaths to ready myself. The extent of the fallout from prostitution can be a daily challenge. 

One of the best ways to prevent the trauma, addiction, suicide, self-harm, depression, anxiety, debt, flashbacks and self-loathing… is never to start prostitution. I continually have to work through all of these on a daily basis. 

It is not uncommon for women who are are selling their bodies, on OnlyFans for example, to convince themselves that it is glamorous. To convince themselves, for now, that sex work is work. 

Having been a prostitute, I do understand why some women claim that sex is work. I regularly proclaimed the belief myself that I was “empowered” to sell my body. 

However, in reality it was nothing like empowerment. I eventually dreaded sex with strangers, I dreaded being photographed, filmed and touched. At my tipping point I realised that a certain type of feminist view was not feminism. I had handed over my body to men for money. 

My mind now boggles at the idea that “sex work is work.” I’m unsure how, on one hand, you can have an “anti-sexual harassment” policy at work, and on the other hand, a “workplace” where a man is stroking his penis and masturbating, cumming over a woman or girl, usually not his wife or partner. 

How can any such policy have any worth if prostitution is decriminalised? How would such a policy against sexual harassment in the workplace be upheld in a brothel? I am interested in how a human resources department would implement equality and sexual harassment law in this type of “workplace.”

My experience of “working” in a brothel equates to unreported rape, spitting, strangulation and misogyny. Once the money is exchanged and the door is closed, you become the sex buyer’s property. Usually with one eye on the condom and another on your safety. 

Society is sending a warped, neoliberal and covert message to children and young people. The sex industry is being normalised in such a comprehensive, pervasive capacity that we are losing sight of our way. 

So we must now turn the tide of what is believed by some to be feminism and teach our daughters and sons — children as well as adults — that we do not pay for sex and this is not feminism, nor empowerment. It is disempowerment and it is not love. It is violent. Sex is a sacred act that has been commodified and capitalised upon.

There should be systematic prevention and awareness-raising interventions in the law and courageous conversations within families and schools, universities, the NHS and other services and organisations regarding a change in thought and attitude. 

Changing behaviour will take 10 to 20 years, through generations. It will be tiring, it will be messy, sad, frustrating and shaming. I am familiar with these. However, for the sake of people and children now and in the future, I will continue to support the Nordic model as someone with lived experience of prostitution, who is attuned to the sadistic implicit intimacies of that industry. 

I will not glamorise what lies behind the closed doors. I colluded with that lie for far too long before finally exiting prostitution.  

Turning the tide will look like a change in the law to criminalise men who buy sex. To educate the indoctrinated misogyny that girls and women’s bodies are for sale and to gently challenge the internalised patriarchal feminists who have been “sold” a fantasy that selling their vagina, anus, and breasts for the pleasure of men is “empowering.” I say it is business-class grooming, on a global scale. 

It will also look like educating young boys and girls about sex, consent and love. Schools focus on sex education from a reproductive function. Rarely is there an inquiry into what love is, nor how we make love. When teenagers are asked “how do you learn about sex,” their response is usually “through pornography.”

Young boys are now being charged with rape or registered as sex offenders. Young girls are beginning to report having fissure repairs of their vagina or anus. Many teachers have reported that education systems are crumbling as sexual violence is increasing. 

I would say through lived experience that 95 per cent of the punters I saw were married or had girlfriends. None of them had sought consent from their wives or girlfriends for them to pay money for a prostitute as part of their family budget. Nor did any men on webcam, in the parlour, or on the street. Many, many men were fathers.  

I speak with men openly regarding their views on pornography and prostitution. I make no apology when I ask them how they would feel if men were cumming in their daughters, or over them through pornography or selling their bodies through prostitution. Each one said no, thank you. I would want “better for my daughter.” My response is that we should want better for all daughters. All women and children, and better for our sons alike. 

The impact of sexual practices on physical health and the self-esteem of young boys and girls is now reflective of pornography, hundreds of thousands of women, and some men, are brutalised, sexualised, coerced and manipulated, for the pleasure of the male audience, then seek to reproduce the same acts in their sexual relations. All in the guise of empowerment, financial gain and status. 

During my time in prostitution how I viewed consent had become distorted. I was engaging in sexual acts I would not otherwise want, in the name of my “right” and money. My moral compass had become so bent, I lost all capability to differentiate what was consensual and what was not.

In considering gender roles regarding the buying of sex and use of pornography, I reflect on conversations I had that women — many women, whether they have exited prostitution or not — have experienced their own sexual trauma and so would rather not their partners watch pornography or buy sex. 

For many of these women their lack of self-esteem prevents them objecting to their partner watching pornography. They know that they will be blamed for “envy.” But their lack of confidence does not surprise me in the slightest when society places men’s sexual desire as vastly more important than the wellbeing of women. 

Many women are uncomfortable with their partners’ behaviour, however, go along with the “boys being boys” mentality and accept it. 

At the very cusp of crudity, I wonder how many men would be comfortable with their wives or girlfriends making calls behind their backs and having sexual interactions with younger men, through pornography and prostitution. The social stereotypical notions that “men will be men” and “boys will be boys”  are prehistoric, patriarchal, outdated misogyny. 

I end this article, just having read a newspaper story regarding Chasey Lain, who was one of the sex industry’s biggest names in the ’90s, going from being lauded as the most stunning performer in adult entertainment to spiralling into drugs and prostitution. 

As Desmond Tutu once said: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”