By Jenna
One of the most liberating things I have done since leaving the sex industry has been to speak about it. Speaking and writing about the horrors of it without any sugar coating or glamourising, has been part of the healing process. A process that remains ongoing.
Growing up I was painfully shy and bearing the burden of secrets. I continued to silence myself for many years. Silence was safe, I wouldn’t be blamed or shamed and I could continue lying to myself. But once I had told the truth there was no going back. I felt like I had some power back and that maybe some good could come from sharing these secrets.
Witnessing Russell Brand’s recent interview with Piers Morgan got me thinking about the secrets of sex and shame and how the power imbalance between men and women leads to very different outcomes. Interestingly, in his interview, Brand talks about the truth frequently. He describes himself as a ‘truth teller’ and says that he is ‘deeply fascinated with the truth’. He also says that he is not scared of the truth.
Brand is a man with a very public history of having sex with numerous women. Too many to count. He has spoken openly in the past of visiting prostituted women with his father as a teenager. His comedy has made graphic mentions of sex and using fame to impress women. He has admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30. He is now awaiting trial for serious sexual offences including rape. With all of that going on you might think he would want to stay out of the limelight, but Brand has found religion. He claims to have seen the error of his ways and apparently wants to share it with the world.
There were several moments in the interview that stood out for me. Morgan refers back to an interview he conducted with Brand 20 years ago. This was during Brand’s ‘shagger of the year’ phase when he spoke openly and proudly about his conquests.
During that interview he told Morgan that his strategy to have sex with lots of women involved ‘unpicking the conditions’ that stop women from having sex. He makes reference to women’s shame and pride. Brand has now said that he was an immature 30-year-old (commenting he was more like a 19-year-old) and yet in this interview that Morgan references, the 31-year-old Brand was wise enough to realise that there are many conditions which can prevent a woman from wanting sex. I can’t help but wonder if he used his strategies of ‘unpicking the conditions’ with the 16-year-old girl.
Brand talks about purity and sincerity. He loudly tells Morgan to ‘be a good man’ and accuses him of ‘water carrying for Satan’. It’s a long interview with a lot of words but there are times when the mask appears to drop. He makes a somewhat jovial comment of the ‘shagger of the year’ awards not being the best look when it comes to criminal charges. He explains the words he’s using in a patronising, almost passive aggressive way and mocks Morgan when he feels he’s being negative.
He asks the crew for a bottle of water (due to not trusting the ‘government water’) and the old entitled Russell Brand seems to appear. Brand says he will accept his fate and the outcome of the trial, whatever that may be. To me he comes across as inauthentic, using flowery language and repeating the word ‘truth’ in the hope that maybe it will make it so.
The secrets I have spoken of cannot be discussed in flowery, romantic language. They are not abstract philosophical musings. My secrets were about abuse, sexual violence, degradation and feeling used in the worst possible ways.
Brand may be famous but he’s not the only man who thinks the truth is something to be shaped. He is not the only man whose ego has got out of control.
As a young woman, a sex buyer once asked me why I was selling sex. He couldn’t believe that ‘such a nice girl’ like me was doing that and he asked if I was in some sort of trouble. Maybe he thought I owed money or was trafficked? Either way he still had sex with me. His lusts, desires, ego were all worth more to him than whatever I had going on. I had several men who wanted to save me or run away with me. But they always got what they originally came for.
The truth to me is not a higher power, it’s not judgement day or something we cannot really get to grips with. It’s here and now. The reality. It’s women being raped. It’s young girls injecting themselves with weight loss drugs. It’s school children being lusted after in their school uniform. It’s the normalisation of strangulation. It’s women not being safe in their own homes.
This is what I will speak the truth about. I am currently reading The Psychology of Secrets by Andrew Gold which touches on the power of secrets and the harm they can cause by keeping them to ourselves. I know all too well the harm that silence causes, and I will never go back to hurting myself to keep abusers safe.