They Are Liberating Nobody With Their Neoliberal Drivel

Hushke Mau, a survivor of 10 years in prostitution, writes: 

Many people claim that prostitution is about a woman choosing how to have sex, but sex is not about a woman serving a client’s wishes while having to delete her own sexuality, and herself. Plus, the “wishes” of punters are becoming more violent, more aimed at humiliation. And anyone can see that if they read the punters’ websites. They see prostitution as an expression of their power and often want to see how much damage they can inflict on a woman — for example, during anal intercourse. 

And the punter doesn’t forget this feeling of power that he’s paid for. He doesn’t forget that women are disposable. So he carries this feeling away from the brothel and it affects his behaviour towards women who aren’t in prostitution too. Germany has legalised prostitution and what has it led to? To even more prostitution and to more extreme demands from men. So prostitution has shown its true essence — violence and the complete disposability of women’s bodies. In two words: sexualised torture. 

The punters actually prefer foreign women who have been forced into prostitution, because they can make them accept practices that any well-established German prostitute would reject. This is why almost all the women in mega-brothels barely speak a word of German — these are women trafficked from Romania or Bulgaria who have been told that prostitution is a great alternative to poverty. But when women opt for prostitution because of poverty and a lack of other options, is that not coercion? 

Even the women who enter “out of their free will” are subjected to financial coercion. For example, when the room rent is so high that they have to accept a punter even if they don’t want to, because if they don’t, they will be in debt to their “landlord.” When they don’t dare reject a punter because they will get in trouble with the brothel owner who doesn’t like his girls to get a reputation for “being difficult.” 

I am one of those “voluntary” prostitutes so many people talk about. I started at age 18 after having been battered and sexually abused by my stepfather for 17 years. After I ran away from home, I thought this was the only thing I was capable of, that I was only good for fucking. At the beginning, I thought I had power and I could regulate access to my own body through prostitution. But soon I had to abandon any kind of filters because I couldn’t afford to be choosy. 

And I am not the only one. I have not witnessed one single prostitute who hasn’t been sexually abused/raped or experienced some other form of sexualised violence as a child or as an adult. In fact, childhood abuse is like breaking a horse in at an early age, because through that abuse women and girls learn how to dissociate, to delete themselves during the sex act. And this is exactly what the punter pays for — for the women to not be there emotionally.  This is why there are tons of prostitutes (including myself) who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Studies show at least 60 per cent with fully developed PTSD. 

And let’s deal with the idea that women can exit this industry if they want. Like the majority of prostitutes, I did not register as such because I was afraid that then I wouldn’t be able to exit. I was afraid of being asked why I didn’t want to work as a prostitute any more, given that it was a job like any other. And this is exactly what did happen when I wanted to get out.

What was I supposed to tell the employment office when asking for benefits so that I could have a place to stay and something to eat without having to suck 10 dicks a day? They would have asked me: “How have you made a living in the past three months?” And if I had told them, they would have just said: “Well, there’s a brothel nearby which is still hiring.” 

So I’ve had enough of people who want to totally decriminalise the prostitution industry. People who haven’t got a clue about what prostitution really is, but try to tell me that it’s a job like any other. I’m fed up with them feeding everybody their fairy tale about the oh-so-great voluntary prostitution. I can’t bear it any longer that they pretend to speak for all prostitutes. They’re a minority in prostitution who are silencing the majority of prostitutes. The majority that’s still boozing, taking drugs or enacting their abuse again and again, in the treacherous hope this will ease their pain.

They sneer at those women who speak up about the violence in prostitution and say: “Oh well, I’m sorry if you’ve had bad experiences.” As if the violence wasn’t inherent to the structure of prostitution. As if it was only due to the woman lacking professionalism, or having a damaged personality that made her unsuitable for that “job.” They are liberating nobody with their neoliberal drivel.

But most prostitutes are simply too busy surviving, too traumatised to even talk, so they cannot contradict this. When they say: “Everyone should be allowed to do what they want,” in reality, they only mean that for the punters and pimps — not the prostitutes.