‘I was their ashtray’
In this article, Sian (one of our survivor panel reps) interviews Carmen, a Spanish transwoman, about their experience of street prostitution in Spain.
Do you remember the first time you sold sex?
The first time I sold my body, it was for €30 and I was 18 years old. That’s when I lost my virginity. They say you never forget the first time. How right! I was thrilled and excited. I thought it would be an opportunity to enjoy myself while earning money. That’s what everyone thinks about prostitution, isn’t it? I have long idealised that occasion. Even in an interview I did for a local newspaper. But now I am 35 and when I look back I see it was a real horror. I ended up crying and vomiting from the tension.
What brought you to that point?
I was working as a maid, an intern. My parents took me out of school to work there. I was being mistreated. I was bullied at school, insulted and slapped. I was also threatened and blackmailed by the church, where I was abused for the first time. I was desperate to escape from that job, and started to investigate other options. I thought that prostitution would be a wonderful alternative – I’d be able to start earning money and have a better life.
What was your usual day/night like? Did you have a specific spot?
I spent hours outdoors on the street, waiting for a sad car to stop. I always stood at a bridge near the entrance to a famous Andalusian city. I would get very hungry, and very cold or very hot, depending on the time of the year. Although I spent days and days on the street, I also practiced in my house, but the neighbours gave me a hard time. I was sick. The few friends I had didn’t want to be next to a whore. They knew me in town.
Did you have a certain number of buyers or amount of money you wanted to make each day?
I worked for 24 or 48 hours at a time, sometimes even three days in a row. I’ve even slept with a client. It’s nonsense, crazy, but I ended up hooked on sex, each time I needed more, I was not satisfied, I felt dirty. They used me as their service, doing their needs on top of mine, and they even put out their cigarettes on my body. I was their ashtray.
What were the buyers like?
There were all kinds of customers, people with money, people who bargained with you, including people who left without paying for the service. My effort and dedication were not rewarded,
Was there an “average” buyer, anyone who stood out?
They varied, the main ones were married men with children, whose wife wanted to “give them lentils” when they “wanted roast chicken”. That’s why they came to me, a poor prostituted woman, to take out their anger, rage and horniness. Was I empowered? Hell no! There were “gentlemen” and there were inhuman ones.
Did the buyers vary over time or with the weather?
When there was soccer, the demand increased considerably. Passing truck drivers were the main ones who picked me up on the street. Others would simply masturbate, insult you and walk by.
Looking back now, this is what I’d like to say to them: “I wasn’t interested in your excuses. I didn’t care if your wife had a headache and didn’t want to fuck you, or if she was simply disgusted by you, for sleeping with me, or with how many others? Or that you couldn’t get by without sex. Or when you offered any other pathetic excuse.”
What was your mental process at the time?
Mentally I felt bad. I was sad. I felt rage and helplessness. People were disgusted with me; I was also disgusted to be smelling like men all day long. I slept on the street, I lived with my parents but I preferred to stay on the street than to arrive in such a pitiful state. I looked at myself in the mirror and cried with rage and impotence.
The men would throw the money on the floor, and the drugs, which I would desperately reach for. I would shoot up drugs a couple of times a day, and would drink, drink, drink a lot of alcohol. I would snort every now and then, two or three times in a row, and I would shoot up again, which would calm my anxiety and pain. Throughout the whole day, every day.
What was going through your mind at the time?
When I was having sex with buyers, I would pray, or watch the clock, wishing it would be over as soon as possible. I would be saying the rosary, humming, or planning the next day. There were different ways to keep my mind busy. Maybe it could last an hour, two hours, or half an hour. Often you didn’t even have time to think about what could be better. At home at night, I couldn’t sleep, my head would be spinning, and I also had nightmares, which I still have.
Did you have a routine for afterwards?
I often ended up tired. I didn’t even have the strength to walk. I had a long walk to get home. I was so exhausted, I didn’t even feel like eating, just shower, toilet, sleep. And the same thing again the next day. It was a routine, as you say. I would rub myself with very hot water in the shower. I used to tear my skin from rubbing so much. Even though it was clean, I still felt dirty.
Now, I love to read, watch TV, listen to music, or just sit in a green meadow and admire nature. But then I lived for prostitution 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, totally full time, 24 hours a day. I was a sex slave.
How did you feel afterwards?
I ended up hooked. I needed more and more. I was not satisfied with the sex I had with clients, as I thought I would be when I started. I also ended up hooked on washing myself. I was disgusted with my body after having touched so many guys every day, which translates to thousands over almost 20 years. There wasn’t enough bleach to get rid of the smell on my body from so much sweat, so many cumshots, so much treacherous removal of the condom, which was a common trick. Condoms bothered the gentleman! On top of that, I always had to give them a nice smile.
There were good days and bad days, like everything else. In the solitude of the dark or the heat of the day, the hours, minutes and hours went on forever.
Meanwhile, I was praying to God to help me. Did anyone think I was capable of getting mentally or physically aroused by making love to men I didn’t choose? Sometimes I am human and I enjoyed it, even though I was like a robot and a sex machine. Sometimes it was scary.
My genitals burned from the lubricant and condoms. Sometimes the body odour was so disgusting, I had to put on gloves and even a mask, which made it seem like science fiction. Maybe the gentleman was pleased to see me vomit. He didn’t even brush his teeth, nor his dick, not even his hands. And everything got worse during the COVID pandemic.
When blood appeared on the condom, it wasn’t because I got my period. I don’t have that biological ability. It was because I was having sex with so many men. But my body was a machine that mustn’t be interrupted, so I would put a sponge in my anus to clean the remains of the blood and semen. I had to approach it in different ways just to be able to continue between the sheets, in the car, or a hotel, or on the street, with every client.
The smell and taste of latex condoms are as odious as scrubbing gloves, although it was preferable to suck the rubber rather than a dick, especially when it was not clean. So one after another, whoremonger after whoremonger, cleaning them with a wipe, and then I put it in my mouth. And they would use spit as a lubricant. It was totally disgusting, sickening, it turned my guts, and my heart, from the effort.
Now I try to avoid men. I became very afraid and scared of them. The time I spent on the street is indescribable. I have stopped having sexual relations, and I am going to stop having a couple relationship as well. I am open to friendships, but I don’t feel like having sex. I ran out of batteries, I was a Duracell doll, but I’m done with that.
What made you leave prostitution?
When I was sick and went to the hospital, they would look at you differently. They would say in a low voice: “Watch out, she’s a whore! and we don’t know how many people she’s fucked. Don’t touch her without gloves”. That was very hard: to be judged when they don’t even know what’s wrong and what you need.
It wasn’t just giving up prostitution, it was also giving up alcohol and drugs. I got to the point of thinking that my health was worth more than a bill of money in exchange for those paid rapes that I consented to. You are hungry, and the only thing they offer is “milk”, but from a human penis. It was a waste. They would buy me a loaf of bread, and stick the penis in me, that was my sustenance to endure. All day long undervalued. Prostitution promises that you make money, but you end up alone, sunk in shit and misery.
Was there a particular moment or event that made you decide to stop?
All of the above. The beatings, the insults and humiliations. I was blind, very blind, but in the end I burst, I exploded. I could not go on any longer. In 2022 I began my first work contract, in the world of healthcare. When I worked in prostitution, I didn’t have a contract. I was happy to help people, I have also served women in my situation, prostituted, and I did give them all my warmth, my affection and love. I treated them as a person deserves to be treated, as a human being.
How did you feel at the end, during the last days, compared to how you felt at the beginning?
Raped, assaulted, robbed, insulted, threatened, recovered from many STIs transmitted by so many thousands of clients. I narrowly escaped AIDS and other serious health risks. I have also escaped the Spanish pimping networks and dark criminal environments. I am a survivor of the street prostitution system.
What is the strongest feeling that comes up when you think about prostitution?
Fear, sadness, anger and impotence, and a lot of respect that I survived it. I started with a lot of illusion, but prostitution has destroyed my life with its after-effects, due to illnesses, physical and psychological abuse. I cannot look back, the wounds close, they will heal, but they will remain in my memory forever.
I am tired of being silent, I am a transsexual woman, we demand to be respected, not to be harassed or have our lives made impossible. Help your neighbours, don’t destroy them.
What would you tell your younger self before you started in prostitution?
Trans women, who are the majority of trans people in prostitution, we need to have the courage to break our chains and stop lying to ourselves and living in denial by talking like others about “sex work”. A large majority of trans women are not in favour of “sex work” or “whore’s pride” discourse, but they are silenced. I was a whore, yes, but now I realise that I was a poor prostituted woman. I am not sorry for what I was, I was a prostitute with great honour, but I would have changed many things.
As for trans women, if the society of each country would accept us, help us… not give us away, if we were no longer rejected by our families, by society, excluded or penalised in our access to employment, career, transitions, treatments… There is a big rejection from heterosexual people. Whether you are a man or a woman, gay or lesbian, everyone has the right to enjoy and live as they feel and as they wish. On the same planet there is room for all kinds of people. There would be a place for us, as for everyone else, which would lead to a practical disappearance of prostitution of trans women.
I feel like a prostituted woman who wants my voice to reach the farthest corners of the planet. This was my second interview. This one has been long, beautiful, and very, very hard. I have written it crying and unburdening myself. Thanks to Anna and Sian at Nordic Model Now! and to Sara (Pozos de Pasión) for her help, and for her teaching, cultivating my brief and poor writing, making me richer in vocabulary and helping my learning, for the opportunity given, for listening to me, and making me feel heard and fulfilled, also listened to, giving rigor to my truthful testimony, supported as one more woman on the face of the earth. No human being deserves to be prostituted.
This page was published on 6 September 2024.