“Maxwell once asked her out on a date, to dinner. She told him the invitation made her feel “weird,” and she declined. Then one afternoon he showed up at her house, jumped out of his car, and asked her for a kiss. Pearson was insulted. The expectant smirk on his face made her angry.”
“He opened the cargo gate at the back of the truck and pushed her in. He leaned in over her and put handcuffs around her wrists. Then he slid a piece of duct tape over her mouth. She shook her head violently.”
“When they searched the house, they found the winch she described and the yellow control box covered in blood. They also found the whips, the cuffs, three guns, four sex toys of various sizes, and wads of duct tape all over the place. There was blood on the sheets, on the floor below the winch, and on various pieces of clothing around the house. Police also found two tall file cabinets filled with bondage porn: movies, books, magazines. The dresser in the bedroom was also filled with porn. So was the nightstand and the top shelf in the bedroom closet. Slave fetish movies were stacked next to family photos.”
“Ordinarily, victims of sex crimes aren’t identified in the media, but after the trial, Pearson told reporters that she wanted her story to be known. She said she wants people to know that her faith in God carried her through the worst times.”
Benz first made the allegations via Twitter in late December of 2016, following the shoot in question. She tweeted, “The director himself put his hands on me and was choking me. Never in a million years did I think Brazzers would allow it.” She added, “I guess rape scenes are in now huh?” Benz also tweeted at the time that she had been stomped on. Her tweets followed several allegations of on-set abuses made against porn star James Deen in 2015. Just last month, porn performers Leigh Raven and Riley Nixen took to YouTube with allegations of abuse during a shoot.
In Benz’s case, the scene in question was directed by Tony T. and shot for Brazzers, a thriving production company owned by the industry behemoth MindGeek. Benz alleges that she was only told beforehand “that the shoot would be hardcore and what she would be wearing” and “knew nothing else about the shoot.” The suit says she only consented to be touched by co-star Ramon Nomar, but that Tony T. participated in the on-screen action, slapping her while saying, “Open your eyes bitch” and “Open your fucking eyes.” Benz alleges that she called “cut” several times to point out that she had only agreed to perform with Nomar.
The suit adds, “[Tony T.] would film with one hand and choke Benz with the other hand. Nomar stomped on Benz’s head. Between Tony T. and Nomar, Benz was hit, slapped choked and thrown on the ground and against the wall.” It further alleges that this made Benz bleed and that “water was poured on the walls and floor to cover up her blood.” It also alleges that “while Benz was gagged with her underwear,” water was “poured down her throat, causing Benz to choke.”
Benz alleges that during her on-screen exit interview after the scene, a standard practice during which performers confirm that everything was consensual, she was asked whether she would do the same shoot again and said that she would not. “Tony T immediately yelled, ‘Stop!’ He then turned off the camera,” according to the suit. “Off camera, Tony T yelled, ‘Fuck Nikki, you can’t say that!’” Benz alleges that Tony T. then made her re-record her exist interview with a “yes” response and told her that “if she did not do so, Benz would not receive her check,” according to the suit.
In addition to alleging sexual battery against MindGeek, Brazzers, Tony T., and Nomar, the suit alleges “gender violence,” a “hostile work environment,” and “sexual harassment,” citing state civil codes. Benz is seeking an award of attorneys’ fees and punitive damages.
MindGeek, Brazzers, Tony T., and Nomar did not respond to a request for comment by press time. However, Tony T. has previously deniedBenz’s accusations and filed a defamation lawsuit against her, as well as MindGeek and Brazzers, which cut ties with the director following Benz’s allegations. Benz told Jezebel in an email, “I hope me coming forward and standing up for myself will change how female performers are treated in my industry by producers, directors, and certain male talent,” she said. “We are not objects. Our rights are human rights.”
End porn.
WHEN MEN SAY WOMEN ENJOY IT THEY ARE BLATANTLY LYING AND FORCING THEM TO LIE AS WELL
Sickening.
“Benz alleges that during her on-screen exit interview after the scene, a standard practice during which performers confirm that everything was consensual, she was asked whether she would do the same shoot again and said that she would not. “Tony T immediately yelled, ‘Stop!’ He then turned off the camera,” according to the suit. “Off camera, Tony T yelled, ‘Fuck Nikki, you can’t say that!’” Benz alleges that Tony T. then made her re-record her exit interview with a “yes” response and told her that “if she did not do so, Benz would not receive her check,” according to the suit.”
Porn users frequently say they know the performers enjoyed themselves because of what they say in the exit interviews. Show them this.
Also, this qualifies as human trafficking. Fraud, force, or coercion.
“But women choose to do porn, porn is harmless” cry the men who can’t go a day without jerking off to a woman being brutalized on film for their entertainment.
since goblin slayer has pissed off all these idiot people looking for shit to get offended at (and some people that genuinely didn’t know what to expect cause crunchyroll is shit at labelling and age rating/restricting their shows)
i’m looking forward to all the edgy gorefiends getting alienated at the whole stretches of goblin slayer that are about the characters, worldbuilding, and revealing what happened to goblin slayer, the tedium of him preparing for everything, getting into the depths of his obsession and trauma and him doing the mundane shit in his life like turn in contracts, go patrol, do labor, pay his bills and talk with his party members he gets/priestess/cow girl/other characters without ANY goblin gangrape or extreme violence
Goblin Slayer Episode 1: TOTAL PARTY WIPE, GANGRAPE, PEOPLE GETTING TORN TO SHREDS, POISONING, MERCY KILLING, AND GOBLIN SLAYER KILLS THEM ALL! EVEN THE LITTLE BABBY GOBLINS!!! HEAVY METAL AS FUCK!!!
Goblin Slayer Episode 2: Goblin Slayer Pays His Bills And Looks At A Fence.
The second episode actually got me to pull up the manga and start reading it. Considered the light novels, but I’d rather not leave my imagination to form the pictures in this case.
Up to chapter (I think I’m on) 18, Goblin Slayer is 50% making fun of Goblin Slayer’s obsession with slaying goblins, 10% people realizing why he’s so obsessed with slaying goblins (this is the horrific stuff and/or realizing goblins are actually threatening), 25% baiting Goblin Slayer to do something other than slaying goblins, 7.25% priestess dilemmas, 5% slaying goblins, and 2.75% women fawning over Goblin Slayer.
Like. Beneath all the gory aspects, it’s unbelievably dorky. Which is in sharp contrast to everything I was told when the anime was first announced.
The banter between Goblin Slayer’s party members is honestly really heartwarming. They’re all really cool characters and it’s cute to see them interact.
Any amount of rape is too much.
Rape is NOT a plot device. And “material since viewers may consider disturbing” is not a specific enough warning.
I can handle graphic violence, especially in animation, but rape in any medium fucks with your head and we shouldn’t so easily trivialize it.
If their goal was to show that goblins are evil and a threat, the total party wipe would be sufficient. Rape is taking it too far. Even off screen. It’s not ok.
Mohammad Asif: “I keep thinking, ‘I just dropped her off, she was just a normal passenger, why has she done that?” -accused by said passenger of raping her at knifepoint – would be in jail except was exonerated by voice recording app on hsi phone.
Soner Yasa: four drunk women reported to police that he had sexually assaulted them as a ploy to refuse to pay a $13 cab fare- Once again he’d be in jail if not for video surveillance in his cab. Over $13
Here, Here, Here, Here (stole accused’s car, then accused him), Here,Here, Here, Here, Here (Also faked cancer to get donation money),Here (After girl admits she lied, he still remained in detention 15 more months and it took forever for him to be taken off the sex offender registry), Here, Here(lied to get out of work), Here (Innocent served 2 years because Granddaughter wanted inheritance),Here (Seven years in prison)
Here, Here, Here (11 claims. ELEVEN), Here, Here, Here (though it may not entirely be her fault, the accused has been in jail since 1998. She’s fought to get him out since 1999. Yet he still has a 20-40 year sentence.), Here, Here (Falsely accused kills himself), Here, Here,Here, Here (took her 25 years to start paying him back), Here, Here,Here (repeatedly abusive girlfriend), Here, Here, Here, Here (all she got was 200 hrs community service), Here (Falsely accused served 10 years and attempted suicide twice.), Here, Here, Here,Here (Falsely accused served 18 months but would have served longer)
Famous case, nearly ruined bright future of NFL Linebacker: Here(accused spends 5 years in jail and sentenced 5 years while the accuser gets to keep 1.5 million in unwarranted compensation) (Video, she admits to not wanting to get in trouble because she doesn’t want to have to pay the basically stolen money back).
Here, Here (because she didn’t enjoy it), Here (falsely accused spent 9 years in jail, accuser gets no sentence.) Here, Here, Here, Here,Here (Wrongfully accused got 11 years (would have had at least 15), accuser got none.) Here, Here
Here (falsely accused could have faced 30 years), Here, Here, Here,Here (Falsely accused had served 2 months. Accuser got 6 months for what is labelled as Ohio’s “lowest level felony”), Here
unpopular opinion: false accusations of rape are nowhere near as bad as actual rape itself. sorry 🤗
An once again it’s time to play BLACK Corpse Party.
let’s hear it for the citizens of Rosewood who had the entire town burnt to the ground all because of a lie.
Started when a black Rosewood resident was lynched because of unsupported accusations that a white woman in nearby Sumner had been beaten and possibly raped by a black drifter. When the town’s black citizens rallied together to defend themselves against further attacks, a mob of several hundred whites combed the countryside hunting for black people, and burned almost every structure in Rosewood!
let’s hear it for Robin Stacy who didn’t have it that bad he was just lynched.
Reuben Stacy, a 37-year-old black man, hangs from a tree on Old Davie Road in Fort Lauderdale, blood trickling down his body and dripping off his toes. Behind him, a white girl, about 7 years old, looks on, a strange smile on her face as she takes in the sight of the “strange fruit” her elders had just created that hot day in July 1935.
Stacy was accused of attempting to assault a white woman in her home after first asking for a glass of water. According to a 1993 telling of the story, he was arrested three days later 25 miles from the scene. But no trial was ever conducted, and mere hours after his arrest, Stacy was hanged and shot.
The infamous photograph of Stacy’s death might be one of the few visual accounts of a lynching in Florida, but a new report from the Equal Justice Initiative about lynching across the American South reminds us that the Sunshine State was among the most brutal in the country when it come to race-fueled executions of black people. Per capita, Floridians lynched at a higher rate than any other state.
WILLIE BROWN
the story of a black man who was hung,had his lifeless corpse dragged through the street and set on fire to the cheers of the Omaha citizens all for a false rape accusation.
“Sensationalized local media”reports of the alleged rape of 19-year-old Agnes Loebeck on September 25, 1919 triggered the violence associate with Will Brown’s lynching. The following day, police arrested 41-year-old Will Brown as a suspect. Loebeck identified Brown as her rapist, although later reports by the Omaha Police Department and the United States Armystated that she had not made a positive identification. There was an unsuccessful attempt to lynch Brown on the day of his arrest.
The Omaha Bee, which published a series of sensational articles alleging many incidents of black outrages, publicized the incident as one of a series of alleged attacks on white women by black men.A political machine opposed to the newly elected reform administration of Mayor Smith controlled the Omaha Bee. It highlighted alleged incidents of “black criminality” to embarrass the new administration. more here
They burned him alive in an iron cage, and as he screamed and writhed in the agony of hell they made a sport of his death!!
His name was Jesse Washington.
Here is the photograph. Take a good look at Jesse Washington’s stiffened body tied to the tree. He had been sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. No witnesses saw the crime; he allegedly confessed but the truth of the allegations would never be tested. The grand jury took just four minutes to return a guilty verdict, but there was no appeal, no review, no prison time. Instead, a courtroom mob dragged him outside, pinned him to the ground, and cut off his testicles. A bonfire was quickly built and lit. For two hours, Jesse Washington — alive — was raised and lowered over the flames. Again and again and again. City officials and police stood by, approvingly. According to some estimates, the crowd grew to as many as 15,000. There were taunts, cheers and laughter. Reporters described hearing “shouts of delight.”
When the flames died away, Washington’s body was torn apart and the pieces were sold as souvenirs!! more there
The 1920 Duluth Lynching began much like the Marion Lynching – a girl, 19 year old Irene Tusken and her man, 18 year old James Sullivan claiming rape and assault against six black laborers in the James Robinson Circus. Though a physician’s inspection of Tusken showed no sign of rape or assault, rumors began to spread throughout the town that Tusken had died from the incident. The six men said to be responsible were imprisoned in the Duluth city jail in the local police station. Thousands of whites gathered outside, armed to the teeth, pelting the facade of the jail and took six men, including Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie. Not a shot was fired by police, who had been ordered not to resist.
A false trial was held for the six men, and Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie were found guilty by the mob of raping Irene Tusken. They were then beaten and hung on a lamp post in the main thoroughfare of the town; the mob thereafter dispersed. The men in the mob believed to be responsible for the killings either slipped through the fingers of authorities or were acquitted by sympathetic juries; ultimately, the only resulting convictions were related to charges of rioting. more here
Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were African American men who were lynched on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana, after being taken from jail and beaten by a mob. They had been arrested that night as suspects in a robbery, murder and rape case. A third African American suspect, more here
Not seen in the picture above is James Herbert Cameron the third boy to be lynched. HE MIRACULOUSLY SURVIVED!!
On Aug. 7, 1930, 16-year-old Cameron and two older teenage friends, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were arrested and accused of murder, robbery and rape. A whyte couple was parked in a lovers lane when the trio came upon them and one of the group suggested robbing the couple. Cameron later said he changed his mind and ran away before the man, Claude Deeter, 23, was fatally shot. The woman later denied being raped. The three were caught quickly and arrested and charged the same night.
A lynch mob broke into the jail where Cameron and his two friends were being held. According to Cameron’s own account, the two older boys were taken out first, beaten and lynched by a mob of 12,000-15,000 at the Grant County Courthouse Square. Shipp was taken out and beaten, hanged from the bars of his jail window; Smith was dead from beating before the mob hanged both the boys from a tree in the square. The bodies of these two men, Tom Shipp, 18, and Abraham Smith, 19, hanging from a tree is depicted in a famous and disturbing photograph.
BY SHOW OF HANDS WHO WOULD LOVE TO SPEND
LIKE TO SPEND IT JUST BARELY SHY OF THREE DECADES IN PRISON FOR A CRIME YOU DIDN’T DO?
Clarence Moses-EL,
did 28 years in prison for a sexual assault conviction. Moses-EL was charged with rape in 1987. Initially, the rape victim named the three men she had been drinking with as her possible attackers. Then, a day and a half later, she dreamed that her neighbor, Clarence Moses-EL, was the attacker. She told the police, and they arrested him. The three men she first named were never investigated. There was no physical evidence linking Moses-EL to the crime.The dream was the only piece of “evidence” offered against him. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN! The DREAM was the only ONLY PIECE OF “EVIDENCE” offered against him !!!The FUCKING DREAM was the only ONLY PIECE OF “EVIDENCE” offered against him !!!
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that had Darryl Hunt not have been robbed of 19 years of his life and forced to live in a cage like an animal he might still be alive. He probably wouldn’t have given up.
In 1984, Hunt, an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at the age of 19 was convicted of the rape and murder of a white woman named Deborah Sykes — despite the fact that there was no physical evidence tying him to the crimes. Even with no evidence, he was sentenced by an all-white jury to life in prison. Ten years later, he was cleared of the rape when DNA testing proved he had never committed that crime. Despite the rape being central to the overall crime, he spent an additional nine years in prison until a man named Willard Brown confessed to both acts. After 19 years in prison, Hunt was finally exonerated in 2004.
So what if you lost your mom and brother to Suicide cuz of a false rape accusation. HEY IT’S JUST DEATH. LOL Just ask Camellia Cheshire. She was driven to the brink of suicide herself as she organised funerals for mother Karin and her brother Jay, 17 LINK
as a sexual assault Survivor I cannot forget what happened to me and it may hurt me in some way for a long time BUT DEATH IS ABSOLUTE.
Sometimes I think people like this should be forced to see the final result of their opinion.
Lawrence McKinney served more than 31 years in prison – for a crime he did not commit. Now, he’s trying one last time to formally clear his name.
In 1978, the victim of a gang rape identified Mr. McKinney in court as one of her attackers. Then-22-year-old McKinney, who lived near the victim’s Memphis, Tenn., apartment, where the attack took place, was convicted and sentenced to 100 years in prison. His co-defendant was also handed a jail sentence. Three decades later, DNA tests of the woman’s bed sheets identified stains from three people, including the victim and the co-defendant – but not McKinney. His conviction was vacated, the charges against him were dismissed, and he was released in July 2009.
OKAY YOU FAKE LAUGH AND PRESS THE BLACK BUTTON NOW
Heavy-handed equivalence aside, it should also be be pointed out that false accusations hurt the victims too. You ever read “the boy who cried wolf” as a kid?
Some people are so hard-headed nothing else but I heavy hand will do.
Man I think yall forgot a big one, Emmit Till. Baby boy was beaten and then bragged by the back of a pickup truck for miles until he died. All bc he “whistled” at a white lady.
She made a death bed confession saying she lied.
I stand by the idea that anyone who accuses another falsely of rape to gain some kind of power over the other should be charged as a sexual offender
Benz first made the allegations via Twitter in late December of 2016, following the shoot in question. She tweeted, “The director himself put his hands on me and was choking me. Never in a million years did I think Brazzers would allow it.” She added, “I guess rape scenes are in now huh?” Benz also tweeted at the time that she had been stomped on. Her tweets followed several allegations of on-set abuses made against porn star James Deen in 2015. Just last month, porn performers Leigh Raven and Riley Nixen took to YouTube with allegations of abuse during a shoot.
In Benz’s case, the scene in question was directed by Tony T. and shot for Brazzers, a thriving production company owned by the industry behemoth MindGeek. Benz alleges that she was only told beforehand “that the shoot would be hardcore and what she would be wearing” and “knew nothing else about the shoot.” The suit says she only consented to be touched by co-star Ramon Nomar, but that Tony T. participated in the on-screen action, slapping her while saying, “Open your eyes bitch” and “Open your fucking eyes.” Benz alleges that she called “cut” several times to point out that she had only agreed to perform with Nomar.
The suit adds, “[Tony T.] would film with one hand and choke Benz with the other hand. Nomar stomped on Benz’s head. Between Tony T. and Nomar, Benz was hit, slapped choked and thrown on the ground and against the wall.” It further alleges that this made Benz bleed and that “water was poured on the walls and floor to cover up her blood.” It also alleges that “while Benz was gagged with her underwear,” water was “poured down her throat, causing Benz to choke.”
Benz alleges that during her on-screen exit interview after the scene, a standard practice during which performers confirm that everything was consensual, she was asked whether she would do the same shoot again and said that she would not. “Tony T immediately yelled, ‘Stop!’ He then turned off the camera,” according to the suit. “Off camera, Tony T yelled, ‘Fuck Nikki, you can’t say that!’” Benz alleges that Tony T. then made her re-record her exist interview with a “yes” response and told her that “if she did not do so, Benz would not receive her check,” according to the suit.
In addition to alleging sexual battery against MindGeek, Brazzers, Tony T., and Nomar, the suit alleges “gender violence,” a “hostile work environment,” and “sexual harassment,” citing state civil codes. Benz is seeking an award of attorneys’ fees and punitive damages.
MindGeek, Brazzers, Tony T., and Nomar did not respond to a request for comment by press time. However, Tony T. has previously deniedBenz’s accusations and filed a defamation lawsuit against her, as well as MindGeek and Brazzers, which cut ties with the director following Benz’s allegations. Benz told Jezebel in an email, “I hope me coming forward and standing up for myself will change how female performers are treated in my industry by producers, directors, and certain male talent,” she said. “We are not objects. Our rights are human rights.”
End porn.
WHEN MEN SAY WOMEN ENJOY IT THEY ARE BLATANTLY LYING AND FORCING THEM TO LIE AS WELL
Sickening.
“Benz alleges that during her on-screen exit interview after the scene, a standard practice during which performers confirm that everything was consensual, she was asked whether she would do the same shoot again and said that she would not. “Tony T immediately yelled, ‘Stop!’ He then turned off the camera,” according to the suit. “Off camera, Tony T yelled, ‘Fuck Nikki, you can’t say that!’” Benz alleges that Tony T. then made her re-record her exit interview with a “yes” response and told her that “if she did not do so, Benz would not receive her check,” according to the suit.”
Porn users frequently say they know the performers enjoyed themselves because of what they say in the exit interviews. Show them this.
Also, this qualifies as human trafficking. Fraud, force, or coercion.
“Despite what many rapists would like to believe, arousal does not mean that an assault was enjoyable or that a victim was asking for it. So what does it mean?Quite simply, our bodies respond to sex. And our bodies respond to fear. Our bodies respond. They do so uniquely and often entirely without our permission or intention. Orgasm during rape isn’t an example of an expression of pleasure. It’s an example of a physical response whether the mind’s on board or not, like breathing, sweating, or an adrenaline rush.Therapists commonly use the analogy of tickling. While tickling can be pleasurable, when it is done against someone’s wishes it can be very unpleasant experience. And during that unpleasant experience, amid calls to stop, the one being tickled will continue laughing. They just can’t help it.”
“Recent experiments suggest that vaginal lubrication in women may be an adaptive response designed to reduce injury from penetration. The body is not enjoying itself – it is trying to protect itself.
Finally, horribly, some rapists enjoy making their victims’ bodies respond to the assault as a sign of dominance. These rapists work to get a physical response from their victims. They have learned how fear and anxiety can correspond to other forms of heightened arousal, and they exploit the connection.”
“Unsurprisingly, rape survivors who experience arousal and rape report confusion and shame thanks to this conflation of the physical response of arousal and its usual association with enjoyment. A survivor may ask, “Was this something I subconsciously wanted? Am I in some way guilty? If my body responded this way, does it mean I’m mentally disturbed?” The reality is that the body’s arousal response is no more an indication of guilt or mental illness than an elevated heart rate or adrenaline flood would be under the same circumstances.”
this is a Very important post and i hope any girl or woman who needs to read it can
And any boy or man who needs to read it can as well. Basically any rape survivor should read this.
I grew up in the 1960s on the West Side of Chicago. My mother died when I was six months old. She was only 16 and I never learned what it was that she died from – my grandmother, who drank more than most, couldn’t tell me later on.
It was my grandmother that took care of me. And she wasn’t a bad person – in fact she had a side to her that was so wonderful. She read to me, baked me stuff and cooked the best sweet potatoes. She just had this drinking problem. She would bring drinking partners home from the bar and after she got intoxicated and passed out these men would do things to me. It started when I was four or five years old and it became a regular occurrence. I’m certain my grandmother didn’t know anything about it.
She worked as a domestic in the suburbs. It took her two hours to get to work and two hours to get home. So I was a latch-key kid – I wore a key around my neck and I would take myself to kindergarten and let myself back in at the end of the day. And the molesters knew about that, and they took advantage of it.
I would watch women with big glamorous hair and sparkly dresses standing on the street outside our house. I had no idea what they were up to; I just thought they were shiny. As a little girl, all I ever wanted was to be shiny.
One day I asked my grandmother what the women were doing and she said, “Those women take their panties off and men give them money.” And I remember saying to myself, “I’ll probably do that” because men had already been taking my panties off.
To look back now, I dealt with it all amazingly well. Alone in that house, I had imaginary friends to keep me company that I would sing and dance around with – an imaginary Elvis Presley, an imaginary Diana Ross and the Supremes. I think that helped me deal with things.
Even though I was a smart kid, I disconnected from school. Going into the 1970s, I became the kind of girl who didn’t know how to say “no” – if the little boys in the community told me that they liked me or treated me nice, they could basically have their way with me. By the time I was 14, I’d had two children with boys in the community, two baby girls. My grandmother started to say that I needed to bring in some money to pay for these kids, because there was no food in the house, we had nothing.
So, one evening – it was actually Good Friday – I went along to the corner of Division Street and Clark Street and stood in front of the Mark Twain hotel. I was wearing a two-piece dress costing $3.99, cheap plastic shoes, and some orange lipstick which I thought might make me look older.
I was 14 years old and I cried through everything. But I did it. I didn’t like it, but the five men who dated me that night showed me what to do. They knew I was young and it was almost as if they were excited by it.
I made $400 but I didn’t get a cab home that night. I went home by train and I gave most of that money to my grandmother, who didn’t ask me where it came from.
The following weekend I returned to Division and Clark, and it seemed like my grandmother was happy when I brought the money home.
But the third time I went down there, a couple of guys pistol-whipped me and put me in the trunk of their car. They had approached me before because I was, as they called it, “unrepresented” on the street. All I knew was the light in the trunk of the car and then the faces of these two guys with their pistol. First they took me to a cornfield out in the middle of nowhere and raped me. Then they took me to a hotel room and locked me in the closet. That’s the kind of thing pimps will do to break a girl’s spirits. They kept me in there for a long time. I was begging them to let me out because I was hungry, but they would only allow me out of the closet if I agreed to work for them.
They pimped me for a while, six months or so. I wasn’t able to go home. I tried to get away but they caught me, and when they caught me they hurt me so bad. Later on, I was trafficked by other men. The physical abuse was horrible, but the real abuse was the mental abuse – the things they would say that would just stick and which you could never get from under.
Pimps are very good at torture, they’re very good at manipulation. Some of them will do things like wake you in the middle of the night with a gun to your head. Others will pretend that they value you, and you feel like, “I’m Cinderella, and here comes my Prince Charming”. They seem so sweet and so charming and they tell you: “You just have to do this one thing for me and then you’ll get to the good part.” And you think, “My life has already been so hard, what’s a little bit more?” But you never ever do get to the good part.
When people describe prostitution as being something that is glamorous, elegant, like in the story of Pretty Woman, well that doesn’t come close to it. A prostitute might sleep with five strangers a day. Across a year, that’s more than 1,800 men she’s having sexual intercourse or oral sex with. These are not relationships, no one’s bringing me any flowers here, trust me on that. They’re using my body like a toilet.
And the johns – the clients – are violent. I’ve been shot five times, stabbed 13 times. I don’t know why those men attacked me, all I know is that society made it comfortable for them to do so. They brought their anger or whatever it was and they decided to wreak havoc on a prostitute, knowing I couldn’t go to the police and if I did I wouldn’t be taken seriously. I actually count myself very lucky. I knew some beautiful girls who were murdered out there on the streets.
I prostituted for 14 or 15 years before I did any drugs. But after a while, after you’ve turned as many tricks as you can, after you’ve been strangled, after someone’s put a knife to your throat or someone’s put a pillow over your head, you need something to put a bit of courage in your system.
I was a prostitute for 25 years, and in all that time I never once saw a way out. But on 1 April 1997, when I was nearly 40 years old, a customer threw me out of his car. My dress got caught in the door and he dragged me six blocks along the ground, tearing all the skin off my face and the side of my body.
I went to the County Hospital in Chicago and they immediately took me to the emergency room. Because of the condition I was in, they called in a police officer, who looked me over and said: “Oh I know her. She’s just a hooker. She probably beat some guy and took his money and got what she deserved.” And I could hear the nurse laughing along with him. They pushed me out into the waiting room as if I wasn’t worth anything, as if I didn’t deserve the services of the emergency room after all.
And it was at that moment, while I was waiting for the next shift to start and for someone to attend to my injuries, that I began to think about everything that had happened in my life. Up until that point I had always had some idea of what to do, where to go, how to pick myself up again. Suddenly it was like I had run out of bright ideas.
A doctor came and took care of me and she asked me to go and see social services in the hospital. What I knew about social services was they were anything but social. But they gave me a bus pass to go to a place called Genesis House, which was run by an awesome Englishwoman named Edwina Gateley, who became a great hero and mentor for me. She helped me turn my life around. It was a safe house, and I had everything that I needed there. I didn’t have to worry about paying for clothes, food, getting a job. They told me to take my time and stay as long as I needed – and I stayed almost two years. My face healed, my soul healed. I got Brenda back.
Usually, when a woman gets out of prostitution, she doesn’t want to talk about it. What man will accept her as a wife? What person will hire her in their employment? And to begin with, after I left Genesis House, that was me too. I just wanted to get a job, pay my taxes and be like everybody else. But I started to do some volunteering with sex workers and to help a university researcher with her fieldwork. After a while I realised that nobody was helping these young ladies. Nobody was going back and saying, “That’s who I was, that’s where I was. This is who I am now. You can change too, you can heal too.” So in 2008, together with Stephanie Daniels-Wilson, we founded the Dreamcatcher Foundation.
A dreamcatcher is a Native American object that you hang near a child’s cot. It is supposed to chase away children’s nightmares. That’s what we want to do – we want to chase away those bad dreams, those bad things that happen to young girls and women. The recent documentary film Dreamcatcher, directed by Kim Longinotto, showed the work that we do. We meet up with women who are still working on the street and we tell them, “There is a way out, we’re ready to help you when you’re ready to be helped.” We try to get through that brainwashing that says, “You’re born to do this, there’s nothing else for you.“
I also run after-school clubs with young girls who are exactly like I was in the 1970s. I can tell as soon as I meet a girl if she is in danger, but there is no fixed pattern. You might have one girl who’s quiet and introverted and doesn’t make eye contact. Then there might be another who’s loud and obnoxious and always getting in trouble. They’re both suffering abuse at home but they’re dealing with it in different ways – the only thing they have in common is that they are not going to talk about it. But in time they understand that I have been through what they’re going through, and then they talk to me about it.
People say different things about prostitution. Some people think that it would actually help sex workers more if it were decriminalized. I think it’s true to say that every woman has her own story. It may be OK for this girl, who is paying her way through law school, but not for this girl, who was molested as a child, who never knew she had another choice, who was just trying to get money to eat.
But let me say this too. However the situation starts off for a girl, that’s not how the situation will end up. It might look OK now, the girl in law school might say she only has high-end clients that come to her through an agency, that she doesn’t work on the streets but arranges to meet people in hotel rooms, but the first time that someone hurts her, that’s when she really sees her situation for what it is. You always get that crazy guy slipping through and he has three or four guys behind him, and they force their way into your room and gang rape you, and take your phone and all your money. And suddenly you have no means to make a living and you’re beaten up too. That is the reality of prostitution.
Three years ago, I became the first woman in the state of Illinois to have her
convictions for prostitution wiped from her record. It was after a new law was
brought in, following lobbying from the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual
Exploitation, a group that seeks to shift the criminal burden away from the victims
of sexual trafficking. Women who have been tortured, manipulated and
brainwashed should be treated as survivors, not criminals.
So I am here to tell you – there is life after so much damage, there is life after so
much trauma. There is life after people have told you that you are nothing, that you
are worthless and that you will never amount to anything. There is life – and I’m not
just talking about a little bit of life. There is a lot of life.
Obscure Fandoms 