The Monument To The Unknown Prostitute
3:00 a.m.
Α BMW stops in front of her.
— “Head?”
— “5 dollars”
— “Get in”
3:15 a.m.
A bunch of drunk college boys wants to share her. She says no. They dragged her in the alley and they did it anyway.
4 :20 a.m
She’s in a room of her favorite hotel in the area, acting on an orgasm. She already forgot about the previous incident. “That’s the world,” she thought.
Who’s she?
NO! she isn’t a public womb.
Her name is Marie. She’s a mother of two, a sister and a daughter to an unknown father.
Just like Marie, her boys are meant to have the same fate. They’ll grow without ever knowing a father.
And why’s that?
Because no father will ever bother knowing them.
It’s because, in our world, neither she nor her kids deserve love.
Because she only “fucks for money”.
Do you think that she grew up with the dream of fucking with strangers? Think again…
Let me ask you something. Do you know why seeing Marie standing on the edge of the pavement isn’t aesthetic to you?
Is it because you think of her as a weak and stupid human being? As a person who chose the easy path to make money? As a person with low self-esteem? Or do you think she’s fake and she’s insulting your moral standards?
Thinking of these, the only thing I see you do is projecting the hate that lies inside you onto her. Your thoughts are completely unfounded.
You know, sadly, the majority of girls enter prostitution before they have reached the age of consent.
The average age a teen enters the sex trade in the US is 12 to 14 years old. Many victims are runaway girls who were sexually abused as children.
“Another myth is that most women and girls choose to enter the sex industry. While this is true for a small number of sex workers, for the vast majority of women and girls it is a highly constrained choice. Ultimately, viewing prostitution as a genuine ‘choice’ for women, such as secretarial work or waitressing, diminishes the possibility of getting women out and improving their lives.”
— Katie Pedigo, Executive Director of New Friends New Life
I don’t need to present you loads of statistics about the sex trade and trafficking to make you see what’s wrong with your point of view.
But I want to say without a smidgeon of irony that most of these women who by whatever twist of fate, became professional satisfiers of pathetic male fantasies, are far more decent and fair than their despicable clientele.
I’ll offer you another perspective.
I feel disappointed seeing Marie standing there because she’s probably controlled by the mob and working against her will.
Because she’s afraid.
Or maybe because she cries every night.
Because in her eyes I see an oppressed woman in a shitty job who’s trying to raise her kids.
But I also admire her.
I admire her because she is standing there, on the 4th avenue, or the Champs-Élysées, rain or shine, without caring what others have to tell about her. She’ll continue to do her job no matter what.
I admire her because she’s a mother who’s giving real, unconditional love to her boys. She’s a fighter who’s struggling to make a living and raise her kids. She’s a woman who has rationalized the feelings of rape. Think about it.
If not all of them, the majority of sex workers don’t enjoy waiting by the street to have sex in a stranger’s car. They do it for the money.
Money works as a silencer, and anyone who is involved is well aware of it. Money is the compensation for unwanted sex, and when you have been compensated for unwanted sex you have no right to complain.
In the immediate aftermath of this transaction, that money will serve two functions. It will bring food to her family’s table and it will appease men’s guilt.
I watched ‘Pretty Woman’ the other day and I need to say that prostitution isn’t a fairy tale. The movie normalizes something that destroys lives. It glamorizes prostitution and creates an illusion that prostitution is a voluntary, desirable occupation. The film suggests that prostituted people are knowledgeable and have other options they might have chosen.
The reality is that prostitution and sex trafficking make up a harmful, pervasive, illegal, and violent criminal industry involving pimps and traffickers who’re tied to gangs, drugs, and street violence.
Look, there are approximately 42 million women on earth practicing the world’s oldest profession. And the majority of them are forced to. They’re living each day under the fear of pimps, violence, STDs, pregnancy, and many psychological problems.
There’s a war on the streets that goes unnoticed.
For the boys who go missing in action in senseless wars, they build entire parks as memorials.
Isn’t this also a battlefield? Isn’t the world of prostitution one big slaughterhouse?
— “What’s this monument?”
— “It’s to an unknown hooker”
— “An actual prostitute monument? What for?”
— “What for? For her beautiful eyes…”
