1. Feminism is abolitionist!
Raped, assaulted, left for dead, robbed, insulted, threatened with death, having narrowly escaped AIDS, and other serious health risks, as well as Russian, Albanian, and slaughterhouse pimping networks in Zurich, I am a survivor.
A rock’n roll life.
I speak, I am not a penitent. I am part of what is called the ‘old guard’. I have always had a cold (cautious, non-idealistic) view of this environment. Just realistic.
“Enslaved, humiliated, women, let’s rise and break our shackles. Stand up, stand up, stand up!”
– Extract from The Women’s Hymn, or Stand Up, Women! the anthem of the feminist movement in France and many other French-speaking countries.
When you become involved in prostitution, when you take the plunge, it is a rendezvous with the unknown. The prostitution scene is violent. Assaults, rapes, racketeering, murders, pimping… Human trafficking and trafficking of all kinds are omnipresent. Many prostitutes drink and/or take drugs to keep going.
“In a very short time, your only human contact becomes the men who buy you and the other women who stand by your side. You start to see the world in a very different way. Then comes the inevitable, rape or sexual assault.”
– Mia de Faoite (survivor)
In this system we live in a closed circle. A kind of support, with laughter, tears, sadness, loneliness, artifice, superfluity, competition, hypocrisy, everything. A creepy, even pitiful environment.
Fear is omnipresent
The fear is not necessarily just for oneself, but for others. ‘Friendships’ are created, and our hearts and stomachs tighten for some of them every day. Sometimes we want to cherish them so much. Give them your heart and surround them with tenderness. To extricate oneself from this world.
And then, some talk about their ‘exploits’, while others remain silent. Silence, like a smile, can say many things. It can be a means of communication. The chosen silence is different from the imposed silence.
It’s an alienation, where you see a lot of things that can’t be told, and things you prefer not to see. A parallel world.
The illusion of freedom of choice
Is the notion of choice relevant to the prostitution system?
Can we envisage it as a form of emancipation?
Consenting to make oneself sexually available to others for money is not freedom. Prostitution is not a real form of emancipation. In most cases, it is not a real ‘choice’, but a constraint or fait accompli because, ultimately, we become involved with it not for pleasure, but because of poverty and financial necessity due to marginalisation and rejection from society.
To survive, we convince ourselves that we have ‘pride’ in the way we live, but subconsciously we know we are a mere commodity, a piece of meat for the buyer.
Prostitution is not the oldest profession in the world.
There were hunter-gatherers, tanners, painters, etc. But the prostitutes?
It’s not a job. A person who claims to be free, when outside the prostitution network, doesn’t do this all their life. It’s a step in a life.
No one dreams of doing this and, in particular, no one would want their children to do it.
There is no empowerment in prostitution
“We deserved, or deserve much better,” sang Daniel Darc.
An environment for no one.”
It’s a social issue where it’s about human beings, about lives. Getting out of prostitution is very hard and you need to be able to move on.
One of the best ways to prevent prostitution is never to become involved with it.
Moreover, no one becomes rich through being a prostituted person.
We know that more than 80% of people in prostitution want to get out and would like alternatives. We must provide serious and adequate support to all those who wish to leave this environment.
Finally, let us be alert to the social trivialisation of prostitution which has meant that increasing numbers of young people are finding themselves involved with it to obtain money. Minors must be protected from buyers!
Shame must change sides
“Prostitution is to society what incest is to the family”
– Jorge Barudy, Chilean psychiatrist
It’s not the people in prostitution who should be ashamed, it’s the johns who should be and the society that rejected the people in prostitutoin. The banished, the excluded, who have been made marginal. Put an end to this ‘dirty’ label, because how can we live serenely afterwards, if we are to be judged for eternity.
Many of the people concerned do not dare, or do not wish to express themselves, because they do not have the same point of view as the group to which they belong. Because a kind of ‘idealisation’ of prostitution is made by some.
Trans people in prostitution
The people who refuse the debate are the first to cry censorship.
Even within a ‘community’, some people do not tolerate anyone not agreeing with them at all. We should play their game when they do not have the only answer or truth. If we speak out, we risk exclusion or boycott, insults and aggression.
Where trans women, who are most trans people in prostitution, are concerned, if the society of each country accepted them, helped them… if they were no longer rejected by their families, by society, excluded or penalised in their access to employment, careers, transitions, treatments… There would be a place for them, as for everyone else, which would lead to a virtual disappearance of the prostitution of trans women.
Some trans women need to have the courage to break their chains and stop lying to themselves 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 of ‘whores’ pride’ speeches, but they are silenced.
The International Day of Remembrance of trans people murdered or driven to suicide around the world (November 20) tells us that more than 95% of victims are trans women. And above all, that a large majority of them (about 60%) were in prostitution, which clearly demonstrates the violence related to prostitution in countries that are not abolitionist.
2. Breaking the silence, rebuilding a sense of self
For many, many years, I was silent. Silence leads to rebirth and reflection. Being in this space, I always refused to respond to requests for interviews. Because I didn’t have the same vision of things as the people I was with. I’ve never been kind to this environment. Despite everything, like many others, I have campaigned for the rights of prostitutes and this discourse that we know about sex work, holding banners, participating in actions.
But I was never very enthusiastic and had a lot of reservations and concerns about the ‘whores’ pride’ and ‘sex worker’ slogans, perhaps because I have always been an abolitionist. Some groups can’t stop themselves bringing the subject up in every discussion, meeting, or other occasion… creating an amalgam.
Total shame. I have always campaigned for real alternatives to be given, for us to fight against rejection, discrimination, exclusion, precariousness, and for the regularisation of refugees/migrants. Unlike others, I have never advised people who were rejected and in precarious situations to become involved in prostitution.
I listen to everyone, analyse, de-clutter and often say nothing. Gradually I moved away. I totally disappeared for many reasons.
I’ve also used the term ‘sex worker’ (a mistake) in my last interviews, although I said I was a survivor of many things, which said it all. I remain a free thinker with a critical mind. I have very few regrets and little remorse. What is the use? It’s no good crying over spilt milk. You can’t rewrite history.
I’ve often been told that I’m a miracle worker, in my life in general, that I must have had a lucky star to still be here, maybe the survival instinct, the will to live and luck. Even in the worst moments of ‘despair’ and ‘distress’, I have always loved life deep down. Otherwise, I won’t be here to talk to you anymore. Despite everything, I built myself alone. The blows and experiences of my life or existence contributed to the person I am today.
But today, it’s all over. I speak. In all sincerity. To be a humanist is above all to be sincere.
I supported the French bill to combat the prostitution system. I was supposed to take part with Rosen Hicher, Anne Darbes and others in the World March of Survivors of Prostitution from Strasbourg to Mainz in 2019 but I couldn’t go. I campaigned against the repeal of the 2016 law when it was challenged as unconstitutional.
On 13 April 2016, the French law criminalising sex buyers was adopted, along with the establishment of exit pathways from prostitution offered to people who are victims of prostitution, pimping, or human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and who wish to access alternatives and leave prostitution.
We are asking for phase two of this law. Throughout life, we should support and help people once they have managed to get out of this spiral.
Rebuilding
“The only mask you can wear in life is the one that makes you hide your pain behind a smile so as not to lose your dignity.”
– Alda Merini
The prostitution system marks you forever like a red-hot iron and it is difficult to emerge unscathed. Disgust and revulsion never leave you. Sometimes the disgust and revulsion leave you and sometimes they come back. There is no pleasure in prostitution except for the ‘client’. Pleasure does not exist for the person involved in prostitution.
Repair is painful and long, sometimes very long. There is no construction without the ordeal of repair. Denial, which can be comfortable for oneself, or intolerable for others, prevents any form of repair.
The façade smiles, to maintain appearances and to answer the famous question, “How are you?”. I always answer. “It’s still okay!” Even when I’m in the middle of a descent into hell. A frozen, default response.
“There’s nothing repairable, only irreparable.”
– Stéphane Habib, philosopher and psychoanalyst
The process of recovery provides a glimpse of the end of an era, bringing about changes in certain points of reference, confronting us with our ability to engage in a long journey made up of setbacks, discouragement, small victories…
Feelings of shame take hold of victims, so we try to forget, we hide, we disappear.
It is important to be able to speak, to be listened to. It is liberating.
Then to be helped, without being rushed, because steering risks breaking the cycle of this reconstruction.
Being surrounded by beautiful, deeply human people is essential. It only takes a few people. Withdrawing, in peace, meditating, writing, painting, helps to liberate what is inside, and to rebuild oneself. But it takes time, and it is necessary to take this time.
Then it is essential that the victim be recognised, so that she can leave this status behind, be devictimised.
Rebuilding oneself is essential to being able to move forward again. We want to move forward, to move on. And finally, we are going on the road to resilience. We have projects again, and we are looking ahead.
Resilience, moving forward. Moving forward, without looking and re-thinking about the past.
“To be happy, we must eliminate two things: the fear of future evil and the memory of a past evil.”
– Seneca
Today, my armour is being restored and the light is coming back. I have stars in my blue eyes again.
Live.
We who fight for a better, egalitarian world, without exploitation.
We are abolitionists.
3. Let’s be revolutionaries, let’s be abolitionists!
“They are showered with shame because they have been made prostitutes, as if the shame were for the victims and not for the murderers.”
– Louise Michel
Feminism and its various currents are like society, divided on prostitution. It’s a subject that annoys, ‘debates’ that are very violent. Prostitution is an eminently political, social and feminist subject, because it affects most women. The prostitution system is the last bastion of a long history of patriarchy where the desire of the man has always taken precedence over that of the woman.
“The survivors are warriors.
You are not a victim all your life.
We are strong.
We are here.
We are alive.
Let’s raise our heads.
Live.
France is an abolitionist country
Prostitution was a reality of the ‘work’ of some women until the closure of brothels in France following the implementation of the Marthe Richard law of April 13, 1946. In 1960, France also ratified the 1949 United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.
Prostitution law: For, against. The great No man’s Land!! A ‘debate’ of great violence, whatever your view on it, with the risk of rejection and even the destruction of friendships.
For some time now, every year, neo-regulatory groups have been attacking feminists at rallies for International Women’s Day. It is counterproductive and it’s not feminism. Women who use violence against other women are not feminists.
It’s shameful to use the pretext that they are abolitionist to attack people who are survivors of prostitution. Using physical and verbal violence to attack those who don’t share your views is nonsense and calling abolitionists ‘whore killers’ is unacceptable. It’s very easy to identify the real culprits.
I was one of the few people who denounced these attacks. They only strengthened my views and pushed me to come out of my trenches.
The law does not kill, it is the johns who kill!
Abolitionism has never killed anyone, and I would add that this law is not transphobic.
The claim that “Abolitionists kill whores” is absurd. Making constant complaints about ‘whorephobia’, and attacking survivors and former allies who are abolitionists, is what whorephobia is all about.
A dangerous activity in itself
Women involved in prostitution have the highest homicide victimisation rate of any set of women ever studied. It has been estimated that women involved in street prostitution are 60 to 100 times more likely to be murdered than women who are not involved in prostitution.
Women involved in prostitution must be believed and supported when they report rape, assault, or harassment, instead of being dismissed with the comment “she’s a whore” by those who cannot imagine that prostituted women can be victims of rape. Whatever they do, wherever they suffer, they are told and made to believe that, in the end, it is their fault. This is highly discriminatory. This is what is known as ‘rape culture’, a set of behaviours, attitudes and preconceived ideas that trivialise, normalise or even encourage sexual violence in society.
The psychological trauma is very serious
Everyone involved in prostitution practices dissociation. This is why victims very often prefer to suffer in silence rather than speak out, reveal themselves and suffer social sanction. We must listen to them, the independent ones, take their voices into consideration and not deny their existence.
Zero or no risk is impossible. No association or organisation, whether for or against, can prevent murders and assaults. Only 1% of rapists are convicted in France. How many millions of lives have been shattered?
“Research tells us that prostituted women can experience the same and sometimes higher levels of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) than veterans returning home from conflict.”
– Mia da Faoite, survivor
I remember johns telling me: you have a cold, icy look, you have experienced/suffered many very hard things. I didn’t respond. One was a veteran of the war in Indochina who had been imprisoned in dungeons and recognised that kind of look.
A necessary revolution
States must finally provide the means to fight effectively against the sex industry and its criminal networks, and against pimping. They also need to allocate resources to combat poverty, precariousness, rejection, exclusion and discrimination. Perhaps then we will have in place a system to curb human trafficking, marginalisation, and all forms of exploitation.
The world that exists, and in which we live, is the one human beings have created. It is up to us to change it so that it becomes a real world, a unity where exclusion, exploitation and inequality no longer exist, and the infernal race for profit, unlimited growth and the destruction of the habitable world has ended.
Let’s be abolitionists! Of this system, of this exploitative world, of patriarchy, of heteronormativity, of capitalism, of religious fundamentalism, of animal husbandry and persecution, of all forms of intolerance, exploitation and slavery. Let’s free ourselves and create a world of equality and solidarity.
Let’s not forget that in matriarchal, matrilineal societies, there was no prostitution, no commodification of sex, no sexism.
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade are prohibited in all their forms”
– Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Florence Jacquet, survivor and feminist
This article was first published in French by Mouvement du Nid in three parts, on 10 May, 16 May and 7 June 2022. We are grateful for permission to publish this English translation, which was published on this website on 20 August 2024.