Anonymous Woman Haters and Other Animals

I had another abusive comment left for me delightfully on my blog today. It's great to see that the opposition remain as unintelligent and inarticulate in their response to criticism of their 'right' to buy women's bodies and to vent their hatred as ever.

It's good to know that I'm touching some nerves out there. This protector of free speech, this defender of men called me a 'stupid fucking whore' and a 'man hater'. Again. Please see previous post for my response to his earlier abusive comments. I don't think that the many men out there who believe in equality, who don't treat women like a set of orifices, would thank him for his vitriolic defence of grand scale misogyny in their name.

However, the ability to engage in any honest or meaningful way about the realities of prostitution or pornography has never been one of the strong points of the johns. It would mean taking responsibility, see, looking at their fantasies and behaviours, would mean acknowledging that the prostitute is there not for her pleasure and because she's a dirty slut looking for a good fucking, but because of him. It would mean taking responsibility for his own sick fantasies and twisted actions, which is evidently not too appealing.

So, that old recourse to name calling. I was called a good deal of things as a prostituted woman. After a while these things lack originality, a reflection of the johns and their limited, porn fuelled imaginations. The monotony of mindless aggression. Stupid whore? I think not. Prostituted women, battered women, are not stupid. We learn fast, just to survive. Survive I have.

And one of the things I have learned in recovery is to use negatives and turn them to positives. I'm glad to know that I'm reaching a wider audience, that my voice is reaching some of the people out there who don't appreciate a woman who's not on mute with a cock in her mouth or speaking his words that she wants it and loves it and deserves it. The johns won't like what I'm saying because it shows them as they are and so makes them look just a smidgeon bad.

It makes me smile, really. As a woman who has been sold I've been beaten and raped and close to death frequently. I would say I've got to this anonymous name caller more than he's got to me. After all, I'm used to being called shit and abused. The johns are more accustomed to having their egos massaged than hearing the truth about themselves.

Sometimes, the truth hurts. It can be silenced by violence, by threats of violence, for a while. But it will out, in the end. The truth will out.

The Opposition: The Sex Industry's Supporters Uncovered

An anonymous person recently left me a lovely comment on 'The Invisible Man' calling me (and I quote) a 'man hating twat' and saying 'I hope you die' . Another anonymous person commented that prostitutes are cunts and as such I should shut up complaining.

So I give you, ladies and gentlemen, what survivors of the sex industry are up against.

It's important to me to give voice to the reality of the extreme violence meted out against women from the sex industry. When I was pimped that was physical. Now it is verbal, but painful nonetheless.

He doesn't even know you but he hates you and he wants you to die. Too familiar to me, a scenario acted out daily with brutality against the prostituted. The fact that you continue to survive, that you continue to have some spirit, is a personal insult to these people. It enrages them.

Articulate? No. Well informed judgment? Maybe not. Verbal abuse and aggression to the extreme.

And me? Should I be silenced by such abuse, slink off in shame at who I am and what I've gone through, give them what they want and shut up and die? What these people wrote confirms everything I know to be true about supporters of the sex industry. They have a vested interest in you not telling it as it is: it shows them for what they are. I survived the physical torture, I was mute for long enough. It's hard to have a voice when there's a cock rammed down your throat. I'm still here and so I'll continue to do what I do: put the truth out there and hope it makes some small difference.

If you ever thought that survivors of the sex industry exaggerate the levels of hatred and violence though, maybe my making public these comments will mitigate a little against that imagining. If I ever needed proof that the johns want to hurt the women they use, I guess this is it. Straight from the horse's mouth.

Thanks for that, anonymous.

Good John Bad John?

The johns want their egos massaged, not just their cocks. If they fantasise about power and force and humiliation, they want to see the fear and shame in you eyes. If they fantasise about being good with women, they want you to say you love being with them, talking with them. If they fantasise about being a great lover, well ...Yeah baby, I love it when you do that... mmm, that feels sooo good... you are amazing... ooh, you've made me cum again...

Maybe not. It used to amaze me that any of the johns I met could have been so stupid as to have thought that what they were doing to me would actually give anyone an orgasm. Hello! Perhaps time to turn off the porn and throw out the notion that fucking any orifice with any thing will make me ecstatic. Plus maybe did you ever think about washing down there before you shove it in my face? Just a thought.

Sometimes they want to be the good guy, in the face of all the evidence. They want to differentiate themselves from your average john, they don't want to be bracketed with the sexual inadequates, women haters and weirdos. I'm not like that! The girls love me cos I understand them, cos I talk to them. The girls love me cos I'm a good lover.

BS!

You kind of think, what d'you want, a fucking medal because you've chosen not to be an out and out sadist today? So you didn't shout at me and beat me up. Hardly a qualification for sainthood. Perhaps you asked me how I am or why I'm here, in a pretence of care (you don't actually want to know), to make yourself feel better. It demonstrates either stupidity or a wilful ignorance of the obvious, that anything I say in this context will be lies for your benefit, to appease your conscience, such as it is. Disobedience and backchat is potentially deadly as a prostitute so I have to say what you want to hear. So I'll tell you I'm here cos I love sex, and I love talking to you and I love being here, love your company and your cock, and pretend I'm not here for the money for the addiction and because of the mental hell caused by the abuse I suffered in my past. And you'll ignore the self harm scars and the smell of alcohol, and go away thinking you might have actually improved my day! Gee, you didn't beat the crap out of me - thanks for that.

If you were really concerned for my welfare, you wouldn't be here, wouldn't be a john. A bit of pseudo-kindness can't hide that.

You're still paying for my body, still demanding a performance, still violating my space, still funding the system that's destroying me one lie at a time. Whether they consciously desire your pain or whether they're after affirmation of their sexual technique, johns are johns are the guys with the money, the guys calling the shots, the ones with the power. They're still there to fuck you, to use you, to degrade you. They still demand you respond in whatever way gets their rocks off, be that abject terror as they hurt you or the little sweet girl playing along with this oh what fun! They don't want you to be you - that's why they're paying rather than with a girlfriend. Even the 'girlfriend experience' is about acquiescing to their every whim. They are paying you in short to be less than human, to have no needs or wants of your own, to be used as they wish, to react as they wish, to say what they wish, your body the blank canvas for their fantasies, however extreme, the words in your mouth their words not yours. If someone talks to you before they fuck you, it doesn't lessen the violation.

The omni-presence of porn of course legitimates the johns' thinking. It teaches them that women want to be fucked in every which way possible, however extreme or painful it might seem. She'll love it in the end, used and abused and covered in cum, smiling for the camera.

You hate them, and they use you, whether that be more or less roughly, with more or less hardcore talk and moves. A lose lose situation, a web of lies designed to massage their ego, make them cum. I can say honestly it didn't do anything for me. Less than that, in fact. Just left a fuck load of emotional scars that are healing much slower than the physical ones. And a burning desire to set the record straight with the johns. They need to get honest with themselves. There's no such thing as a good john.

The Invisible Man

The missing part of all discourse centering around the sex industry is the men who drive it: the johns. The sex trade is all about supply and demand. Focussed purely on the 'rights' of women to prostitute themselves (or do 'sex work' - the word 'prostitute' is generally not used by the so-called 'sex-positive' feminists fighting so bravely for a woman's right to be abused - too seedy, too negative, too real), the men who fuel the demand are hidden from view.

Without johns there would be no prostitutes. Obvious perhaps but largely unstated. She's not there for her selfish pleasure, she's there for him, and his pleasure. Women's bodies are sold and abused only because there is someone who is willing to pay to abuse them. Take away the demand and you remove the problem.

Why then are the men who buy women not spoken about? How is it that they manage to remain in the shadows, the moral judgment cast instead on the woman being prostituted, being abused?

The johns are given this privilege, this privacy, because they have the money. The customer is always right! What he wants, he gets. The johns are consumers, and what they want is access to women's bodies, to be used as they see fit, without repercussion. They want a consequence-free, conscience-free fuck. Or wank, in the case of porn. And boy, do we give them that! Society gives them its blessing.

The sex industry, the takers of the johns' money, the makers of their fantasies, re-labels and re-packages what it does to make it more customer-friendly, more feel good. Instead of speaking about women's bodies for sale, the financial imperative, they speak of sexual liberation, of a carefree, consequence free, damage free experience for the woman being sold. Spotlight on her. A win-win situation, these women just want a good fucking and the men do them a favour by obliging. These women enjoy it, and the exchange of money far from being a negative thing with power connotations is seen as the icing on the cake - she not only gets laid all day, as much cock as she could wish for in every hole, but she gets paid for it!

Society has just lapped that story right up. We bent over backwards for them. Problem is, if you bend over too far backwards you're likely to get fucked in the arse, which is exactly what's happened here. We've been done over by the sex industry. Or at least, we are complicit. As a society, we choose not to notice or to question because it suits us, we live with what we have become by splitting things off, by wilfully dismissing logical coherent thought. Wondered why people are so touchy if you question the helpfulness of porn? It has very little if anything to do with whether or not porn is helpful. It has everything to do with them. Wouldn't want a conscience to dim the pleasure! And maybe on some level they realise that there are problems with the thin excuses they use. It looks as if responsibility might fall on them, as if they might have to do something other than sit gazing at the tv or magazine, pleasuring themselves. Quick! Turn the attention back onto the women in porn! She loves it, she's paid for its, she chooses it, and I respect her for it. Phew - attention back on her, no need to look at myself or change my behaviour. 'Users' of pornography defend their right to buy women under the guise of loving women, respecting women. The irony! Hence immediate recourse to name calling for those who question if porn's really so harmless - frigid, anti-sex, jealous, prude! - I'll make you the bad guy to cast attention away from what I do.

Women are bought to be used for sexual gratification, whatever that takes. Not that you'd hear it couched like that, nothing so unsavoury. We lack coherence as a society in our logic. A couple of examples of our lack of joined up thinking? Child pornography is (rightly) illegal. But as soon as she turns 18? She'll be snapped up for 'Barely Legal' or some such shit, all thought for her welfare magically evaporating at the turn of a number. Rape is illegal, battery is illegal. But mainstream porn is increasingly aggressive, with spitting, name calling, hair pulling, women gagging on cocks and retching, women's bodies distended and their damage glorified and laughed about - 'Goddess of Gape!' et al. How can we punish one abuse but defend the other? How could we be so stupid as to think there would be no cross-over, no change in mentality towards women in general, affecting interactions with women in everyday life, caused by consuming hardcore porn? How naive! Or wilfully ignorant. We want to be able to buy women to wank over, so we'll ignore any consequences beyond reaching for the tissues.

And so that great magical feat, the vanishing of the johns, the absolving of the men who abuse women from any guilt or responsibility. Abracadabra! I will vanish the john and give you instead the prostitute. Her fault, her choice, her right (!) to be there. Let us look at her instead of him, add insult to injury. She's fucked anyway, literally - surely a little additional blame laying and putting words in her mouth won't hurt. After all, her mouth has so many uses.

Let us forget him, mumbling something about men naturally needing a constant sexual outlet and visual stimulation, about boys being boys, about harmless fantasy and a bit of fun. These wonderful women who call themselves 'sex positive feminists' instead start spouting bullshit about women's rights to 'empower' themselves as 'sex workers' and 'use their sexuality'. As if they knew anything about what they were fighting for! Don't fight for my 'right' to be abused, sister. They've bought into the sanitised language, maybe tuned into the highly publicised 'face' of the sex industry - a very few women saying that they love it and there's nothing wrong with it and how liberating it is to be fucked so much. 'I just enjoy sex, I'm really filthy, and I'm proud of my body'. It's all about them again, the woman again - no mention of the audience they're performing for, the men behind the camera, the power dynamics, just re-affirmation that they want to be fucked.

They forget, these people, these 'sex positive' feminists, that women who are still in the industry aren't free to tell the truth. And that in fact, the women who do act as the PR face of the sex-lobby are paid handsomely for so doing. You can't be pro-sex and pro-prostitution and porn in any case. Making it a commercial transaction eradicates the possibility of good sex because it brings power into the equation and so eliminates freedom and truth.

These so-called feminists look right through the ranks of the destroyed, of the sold, of the hopeless, of the women who constitute 98% of prostitutes. In fact, they don't just ignore us - they slander us, saying we exaggerate, that most women enjoy it, they point to the smiles on the faces of women in porn as if that meant anything. They fail to connect with the reality of what it is to be prostituted. They can't look us in the eye but they judge us to be wrong and dishonest about our experiences anyway. They invalidate us without thought. You are wrong! You liked it!

Funny really, they say the same things as the johns. In fact rather than the label 'sex positive feminist' we should perhaps use 'pimp and john friendly woman hater'. Or 'BS Artiste', as I wrote in an earlier entry.

What they have totally ignored, and what society at large ignores in its daily bleatings along pro-sex industry lines is that out there quietly going about their business without question, going about the buying and using of women, all around us, are the johns. We are looking at things from the wrong perspective. Ask a woman who is constrained by finances, addiction, mental health or violence why she prostitutes herself and she will tell you a lie, not because she is a bad person but because she has to, to survive. It is her self-protection. She'll tell you what you want to hear. So if you want to hear that prostitutes, and pornstars (same thing, really) enjoy what they do, we'll tell you that. And reassure you with a smile - all part of the job.

If you really want to know why she's there, ask the johns. They are the reason. The things that she does, the sex acts she performs, are for them, not for her. Thing is, the johns have a bit of a problem with honesty. And openness. They wish to remain faceless. The woman in porn has no such luxury, splayed open for your delectation and delight, frozen smile in place to aid your orgasm. But he hides in the shadow of a thousand excuses offered up on his behalf for his behaviour. Keep the focus on her, and you protect her abusers, the johns. And they are abusers - there's no such thing as a good john. Time we stopped defending the wrong people, excusing the inexcusable, and shifted the spotlight onto the johns. I can't think of a better way to kill the demand. His disgusting, perverted fantasises shown to be his, not framed in her mouth as something she wants and then wanked over. Until then, we have something of an invisible man situation.

Freak Show

Pretty woman starred Richard Gere. Sadly, dear Richard is not representative of the men who buy women, either looks-wise or behaviour-wise.

There's a reason that the men who buy women have to buy women.

Let me paint you a more accurate, if less pretty, picture. The johns are there for a reason, and if you think that reason has anything to do with loving women or entering into a simple financial contract, you'd be wrong. Let's have a closer look at the johns.

The woman hater. This man has a personal history which has led him to hate women. It may go something like this: his mother abused him as a kid. Or he feels a girlfriend / female work colleague humiliated him. Or he has a female boss which he can't bear. Or he can't get women like he deserves. The history may differ but the result is the same: he wants to teach women a lesson. He wants to make women, that woman, any woman, this woman he pays for, feel pain as he believes the women in his life have made him feel pain. No matter that this is a different woman. The point is, the prostitute is available to him as a means of expressing his hatred and aggression in a way that the woman or women he wants to even a score with are not. He can't get a relationship with a woman because of how he treats them. The thing is, and he knows this only too well, with a prostitute, there are no consequences. If he beats her, if he rapes her, half strangles her, threatens to kill her, nothing will happen to him. No blue siren will arrive to take him away. That's what she's there for isn't it? An outlet for the rage. He gives her money, or maybe he withholds payment and just uses her and leaves her bleeding on the street as a final snub to her (she should be grateful to be alive. Bitch).

Then there's the conventionally unattractive man. He can't get a relationship with a woman because of his looks or his personal hygiene. For him, the prostitute is the woman who can't say no. An attractive prospect? Maybe not. Was it good for me? NO! But I'll fake it because I have to.

Next up is the porn addict. He might or might not be in a relationship with a woman. He may even be married. Point is, he wants to try out some of the more extreme sex acts he's witnessed in porn, which his partner won't do or he's afraid to ask to try maybe because somewhere deep down he knows it's not something women who can choose will choose. This might be anal sex, taking pornographic photos on his 'phone, two girl shows, DPs, fisting, watersports... you get the point. Driven by his porn fascination, he divides women into two groups: madonnas and whores. He dates madonnas, but he sees it as his right to explore other sex acts brought to his attention by porn and he knows that for the more unpleasant stuff, prostitutes are the only option.

Finally there is the john who just can. He likes to pay for women to have sex just because he can - it's a power trip to him. He can get women for himself, he might not be physically unattractive, but he also gets off on knowing that if he offers cash to a prostitute, she can't say no. He can do whatever he likes with the prostitute and then pick up his current girlfriend and whisk her off to an expensive dinner, smiling even as he does about where he's just been. To him it's a thrill, a buzz.

In short, the johns are a group of men who are accountable to no one. They demand to use and abuse in whatever way they wish to get their orgasm, with not a humane thought towards the woman they have used. The prostitute is at the bottom of the heap, the subject of hatred and fear, the stuff of fable and folklore. She is fucked, discarded and laughed at. The john holds all the power and he knows it. That she is desperate for his cash is self-evident: it is her reason for being there. If he rapes her and beats her and leaves her half dead, the law won't come for him because as a prostitute, she has no recourse to the law. He is safe in the knowledge that even should she try to speak out, her voice will be dismissed as unbelievable, hysterical, extreme. In fact, the worse he hurts her, the less chance she has of being believed. It can't have been that bad.

I write this from my experience of johns during my time as an escort and in the brothel. The men varied but their reasons didn't, their behaviour didn't. Being pimped was even worse.

Richard Gere? Not a hope in hell.

The Defence of the Johns

His is the voice of every single man who ever hit me; every man who ever touched me when I didn't want to be touched; every man who ever bought me. 'Lads will be lads... it's just a lapdancing club'. I can read the subtext, no problem. What's wrong with you? What a prude! It's just a bit of harmless fun.

Harmless fucking fun.

I don't think so. It is the buying of women, the sale of an inequality, the legitimisation of abuse. All justified in the name of a 'good time', all squared off by the exchange of money (though most of that won't go to the women being looked at, being touched).

Yet I'm the one who's being charged with being extreme, unreasonable for daring to object, suggest there might be another way of looking at this. !!!!. Fearful of being termed prudes for not joining the cacophany of voices in support of the selling of women, too many women choose to be liberal about the oppression of their sisters. I have felt that pressure myself! Young and naive, I joined in the laughter of my companions at pornography, at some of its more extreme images (fancy putting that in her pussy and arse! You'd think it'd hurt but she loves it, she's smiling!) - until I found myself at the wrong end of the camera, being hurt, being used, being sold, torn apart - smile please! - and realised what this stuff means for me.

If she can be treated that way, as a collection of holes, as a piece of meat to satisfy men, so can I, so can every woman. It would be foolish indeed to think that people who regard lapdancing and pornography as the norm don't carry that mindset with them in their everyday dealings with women. To regularly look at material, or go to places, be that a lapdancing club or a brothel, where women are treated as less than, changes you.

Away from the pimping, the beatings, away from being a prostituted woman, I still rub up against people who think that way all the time. For me, it touches on old nerves, reflecting as it does that throw away attitude of the johns. It takes me back. I cry, I shake, sometimes I vomit.

Perhaps if these people could see the aftermath, see the reality of what they do to the women they use, they might grow a conscience. Maybe, maybe not. I don't feel too trusting of that right now. Sometimes people don't want to see the truth. It gets in the way of the fun, of the orgasm. I guess all we can do is keep putting the truth out there. We got rid of bear baiting, didn't we? Perhaps someday women's rights might catch up.