A Note From Within

So, as we continue learning and looking into the great crisis of CSET – we now come to the psychological impacts of prostitution. Before we go too deeply into this, I would like to start with an introductory letter to begin us thinking…

“Dear Mr. Trick” is a letter that was written by juvenile survivors of prostitution to the men who bought and sexually abused them. This comes from the book “Casting Stones” by Rita Nakashima Brock and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite.

This letter is difficult to read and uses strong language – so decide now if you would like to read further or not…

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Dear Mr. Trick,

You think I like your sex, dumb bastard, the thought of your sex alone makes me cringe. You could never pay me enough to like you. I took your money, but not you. I used your money to buy things for me that would help me forget about you. I hated you and you never knew. I lied to you and told you I cared. And you believed. HA! You should be ashamed of yourself…
A fifty dollar bill…When I stepped into your car you violated by body, asking me to call you “Daddy”…You not only fucked with my body, you fucked with my mind. Afterwards, I held the fifty-dollar bill to my stomach as I threw up, sickened by what had just happened. And that feeling is still the same, even after four years have passed me by. I’ve been violated by every type of man – rich, poor, ugly, good looking, every race…I have no respect for you. I don’t care if you are the head of a major corporation or you have a wife and a dog.

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These are very real and difficult feelings to grasp and deal with. As girls come out of prostitution there are all sorts of emotions and traumas that come along with them.
Again, as discussed before the misconception can be that they choose to do this, for the money, but again we have to ask, “what constitutes choice when surrounding structures of power and work provide no good choice? The lesser of evils is not the same as fulfilling, life-enhancing work” (Brock and Thistlethwaite, p. 184). Keep checking back because we will discuss more the psychological trauma of girls coming out of CSET.