A woman who wants to remain anonymous sent this piece in through our Share Your Story page, which provides a space for people to tell of their experiences of the sex trade anonymously and in their own words.
Andrew [Tate] isn’t just a problem in of itself. He’s a symptom of a systematic problem that trickles down and hurts people.
I am a former cam girl who was forced in to it by an ex. As I sat there watching Tate talk so nonchalantly about how he acquired girls, a wave of nausea came over me. I swallowed it, the bitter bile fighting its way to leave.
I think of a quote:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu
You may be wondering why am I quoting The Art of War at time like this. The answer is: because this is a war – just not the usual type. There is no honour in it. It’s not even two dogs baring their fangs in the street. No. This is a different type of war. A silent insidious war.
We may not realize it, but for every woman like me, who bought into the idea that sex work is a choice, and have it horribly come back to hurt her, there’s a woman who thinks there is nothing wrong in it.
For every man who claims they’re feminist, and will passively tout women’s rights, only to revel in their outright degradation in the dark, there’s a man who has no shame, who will openly flaunt their exploitation of women in public, while millions of men and boys cheer them on as a hero, a saviour of the western nation, a holy man of religion.
It’s really not a new story. Men will do anything so long as it benefits them; women must oblige, lest they want to suffer some kind of consequence. The only difference between now and then, is that it’s much easier to influence people. It’s easier because those who might reasonably object to a man like Tate being on a social media platform like TikTok and Twitter have most likely aged out. The sheer number of 15-year-old boys going off about how Tate is their hero indicates to me that our boys are being targeted.
Men like Tate existed before. I remember at 15 watching a video of men ripping to shreds pick up artists (PUAs) who got rich selling men a lie: that relationships are always transactional, that instead of approaching a relationship or even a casual parting conversation like you would normally as two adults, the very essence of humanity behind such interactions was stripped away; replaced with a method, a formula, a logical equation.
As for how these methods were put into practice? I wouldn’t know. All I know is that anyone with common sense would look and see they were selling a lie.
I remember seeing that and giggling at how absurd it was, thinking that this trend of PUAs selling ‘get women fast’ guides would die and it would be seen as a cringe part of internet history. I was wrong, because as I grew up, we saw first the rise of the manosphere, as I like to call it. The age in which men complained. Then we got MGTOW, or men going their own way, where men complained further. Then finally the incels had their reign, and we had all sorts of venom and hatred towards women. Some of it was deadly. Looking back, Tate seems nothing more than a next step evolution to that.
I should’ve paid attention then, but how do you live in a world that actively hates you for being a girl, without tuning out somewhat? How does one live at such a young age in a world that both objectifies you, and hates you for the mere crime of being a girl, a woman, someone of the female sex?
I cannot think of any other reason why a man like Tate was allowed to spew his nonsensical, but direct propaganda to our youngest, other than that the very world hates women.
Tate does not directly upload to social media, that has been established ever since he was banned from most places. Instead, he relies on his underlings. His ‘Hustler University’ is a pyramid scheme. Membership requires constantly recruiting others – to avoid falling on the ass end of the pyramid.
This is enforced by incentivisation of getting others to join by offering 40 percent on new sign-up fees if they sign up using a referral link. Part of the plan gives you access to short clips designed to sell you an idealized version of Tate – an image of him as a rich millionaire playboy, jet setting to faraway places, living the high life, having countless women, an endless party of decadence and hedonism that you too can live for the small amount of 50 dollars a month.
What they don’t show you is the dirty truth, the clinical cold reality, that in order for Tate to even be where he was, someone else had to pay for it with their body.
I know the truth. I’ve lived it. Tate never pimped me out online but he taught someone else to. To weaponize love, to lower my guard, be pushed into an abyss, a void. It’s not really a new concept. Men have been pimping out women in prostitution since the dawn of time. It’s not even new that we romanticise it.
The only difference is that, now unlike then, no one would see such a thing in public as honourable or good (while men might revel in their degeneracy in private). When no eyes can see, they outright flaunt it.
In fact, Tate’s followers see this as less of a pimp making money off trafficked women, and more of an attack against him from the establishment itself.
Men cannot be faced with the error of their own ways. So instead of seeing a bad thing for what it is, a bad thing perpetrated by a man who in any other era would be rejected by polite society (despite pimping existing in those times too), they need to rationalise it and blame someone else.
It’s easier to believe that the matrix is desperately trying to end Tate, than to acknowledge that passively they approve of a man who would be happy to sell their daughters on the net. Some outright revelled in it, desired it, thought how Tate treats his women was not only acceptable but how every man should.
I am not going to mince words, but this, my fellow women, this is a war against us. It’s not a new war, we’ve always been at some point fighting for what we have now, but an escalation. The casualties are the next generation of girls, who are already suffering the effects now.
We live in a society that on the one hand says passively and half-heartedly that women and girls are equal, and should be respected, etc, yet at the same time we’re openly parading our basest of degradation as empowerment.
How do we expect our next generation of women to live in such a world?
How do we fight back?
Well first and foremost, on the Tate problem, as a free speech absolutist, any time a Tate fan pops up we need to challenge them; there’s no use in reporting social media posts on platforms like TikTok or Twitter – because of Tate’s pyramid scheme. If there’s one account there’s bound to be at least five more. We need to challenge their ideas at a fundamental level. We need to stop being nice about it too. These types would be happy to live in a world where our most basic of humanity is denied.
We need to report Tate’s scam to government oversight. If you strip the misogyny and degeneracy at its core, it’s a pyramid scam, that most likely launders money for his cam business. If we can get the government to shut his pyramid scam down, it would remove the financial incentive of recruiting through clips on places like TikTok and YouTube.
We finally need to abolish sex work. Tate is proof that we failed in making sex work okay. He’s the prime example of why it’s almost impossible to separate voluntary sex work from involuntary trafficking and pimping. If we’re successful in the other two things I mentioned but fail to eradicate this system that churns and burns through women and children then all it takes is another weak sad little man with no chin who a has a bridge to sell you to begin the cycle anew again.
I am tired of living in a world that hates me. I don’t want the next generation of women to feel the same.
Share your story
If you’ve been in the sex trade, or have been affected by it in other less direct ways, and would like to share your story anonymously, please see our Share Your Story page.