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Working As An Escort Helped My PTSD

The Establishment
The Establishment
Published in
8 min readJan 30, 2018

By Laura LeMoon

Any choice made out of a place of desperation is accompanied by enormous sacrifices. Working for Backpage changed everything.

Content warning: sexual violence

IIstarted advertising on Backpage in 2015, when I had just been fired from my job after my employer found out I was an addict in recovery. Advertising on Backpage saved my life.

I started in the sex industry under duress. But I have worked in the industry for 10 years now by choice. Anti-trafficking activists will have you believe that the sex industry is black and white but in reality, personal and sexual agency exist on a very, very long spectrum. I am a trafficking survivor and a sex worker — both can and do exist in a single person at the very same time.

Backpage’s adult section was shut down in late 2016 after pressure from the federal government, which alleged the site was deleting code words for underage prostitution on individual ads that were useful in tracking the sex trafficking of minors. Ironically, as the Washington Post pointed out:

“Experts suggest that allowing sex to be advertised online makes it easier for police to identify these victims — who would otherwise be…

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The Establishment
The Establishment

Published in The Establishment

The archives of culture + politics site, The Establishment. Media funded and founded by women — Nikki Gloudeman, Kelley Calkins and Katie Tandy with Ijeoma Oluo, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jessica Sutherland. The conversation is much more interesting when everyone has a voice.

The Establishment
The Establishment

Written by The Establishment

The conversation is much more interesting when everyone has a voice. Media funded & run by women; new content daily.