Because I think many people would need to read this, for eyes to open, for hearts to encourage and for action to spring forth.

http://texnews.livejournal.com/

Excited utterances about the sexual prowess of these women, their desirability and availability, the mail-order bride fantasy, the crudeness and the naked superiority complex – all of this served my conscience well. I’ve been shocked out of my shell, reminded of the fact that while I was growing up in a cozy little enclave in Charlotte, North Carolina my compatriots were being beaten into submission by meaty thugs and pawed by drooling clientele

We need to get people to see this and never forget it. Much love, XOXOXO

Thank you for your kind words.

I don’t see myself as being on one side of a divide or another. WIth so many women’s lives at stake, the careful fostering of a divide is tragic and ultimately quite irresponsible. Much of that conversation on feministe, all the ‘debate’ and cruelty, was pathetic and narcissistic. I regret I let myself get dragged into the bullshit. I support the nordic model, but I am not interested in fights or being on one side of things or another. The nordic model will only work if women have a way to survive outside prostitution. It won’t work places where the government functions primarily as an instrument of oppression. In the USA and western Europe most ‘sex workers unions’ are led by pimps, and they welcome Johns as members. I don’t like this and I think it’s my right to object. I think the any movement focused on the devastation of trafficking should be ultimately led by prostitution survivors (and anyone over 30 or so isn’t interesting to pimps or traffickers or the majority of Johns — someone saying they’re a 45 year old sex worker is ridiculous). I think if the movement were survivor-led we wouldn’t have these divides.

I care about the women in prostitution. I think what’s needed is profound social change. People need to think of women in prostitution as human beings — they don’t. As you brilliantly put it above, many see prostitutes as sexual fantasies rather than women.

So we need to get the stories about women in prostitution out there. So people think “hey that could have happened to me, or my sister, or my daughter.” Which is what you did brilliantly in this post.

Women like me who’ve beent through prostitution don’t see it as a polarized ideological argument. It shouldn’t be. Pasternak wrote brilliantly about how ridiculous ideological ‘clubs’ are in Safe Conduct, which is about his friendship with Mayakovsky Ultimately the idealogues are responsible for M’s suicide. And one of the most destructive ideological groups? The futurist poets — who demanded M posture and present a false self well before the revolution. Have you read it? It’s amazing. The last line: “He was spoilt from childhood by the future, which he mastered rather early and apparently without great difficulty.”

I am working on forming an international network of prostitution survivors. A leaderless organization, flat, each woman with an equal voice. One voice one vote. We’ll vote on what to speak out about, what to address. So we can support each other in activism and life, and speak out as a united group on what matters most to us. We vote on what we want to speak out about. If you know anyone who might want to be connected with a warm international survivor activist community — not ideologues, not arguers, but women who’ve been there and care about those like them, I’d be grateful if you’d pass along my email address: casualflocks@gmail.com. Our mission is to be constructive, not divisive.

I have family and teenage nieces in Siberia. I think what you wrote about in this post is so important — so much MORE important than any ideological arguments. The story you’re telling above needs to be told, and by someone like you — who sees women from the former USSR are belittled and demeaned in the USA, and understands what it’s like in Ukraine, and perhaps other countries such as Russia and Byelorus and Kazakhstan. Understands the mass scale of trafficking and prostitution. I can’t tell the story the way you can. I’d love to see you write a book about it.

I don’t care what ‘side’ you are on dear Natalya, I’m so glad you’re in the world and writing. Keep at it. It’s so important.

Dostoyevsky told us much more about prostitution than any of these ideological arguments.

“In truth little heart, we are each responsible to all for all. It’s only that men don’t know this. If they knew the world would be a paradise at once.”

Love always,

Stella

Unfortunately, I have become quite disillusioned with government action around this issue as well – but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t out there, doing good work on behalf of the victims of the traffickers.

Let’s tell the State Department that it needs to do a better job in placing responsibility on governments complicit in the sex-trade. While we’re at it, let’s also tell the feds to get off their moral high-horse and focus on women trafficked into the good ol’ US of A. And let us not forget that while some of us are enjoying our lives as students in prestigious universities, certain people are making billions off the backs of women who are much like us.

So well said. Thank you again. I’m glad you are in the world and writing. XOXO

It’s very important to read ALL of the articles posted. ALL of them.