Desperate times...
I was speaking to a friend recently and they were talking about a person they used to live with abroad many years ago, who happened to be a prostitute.
It wasn't the first time we'd talked about this person nor the first time I'd spoken about the subject in general with this or other friends, and the person in question is not the only person I've known of that's been involved with the sex trade. So in a way it was a fairly run-of-the-mill conversation, but as it transpired there was something my friend said that struck a chord.
It went down a little like this. My friend was talking about how it takes a certain kind of mind-state to be a prostitute, suggesting that only a certain kind of person can do it, the kind with a certain mental callousness or detachment. I think at one stage my friend actually used the phrase "cold-blooded".
It made me think of a close friend of mine who herself was a prostitute. She was introduced to it at a young age by much older men and even before selling herself she was a victim of sexual, physical, and mental abuse from a very young age. Thinking of her, and following on from what my friend said with regards to mental state, I made the point that a lot of the people who end up selling their body are subject to terrible suffering as they grow up, are victimised and usually raised in dysfunctional relationships and have their normal mental development disrupted as well as often becoming sexualised at a young age, leading to not just unhealthy attitudes towards sex but also a distorted view of other people and the world in general.
My friend then told me that the girl we were discussing had once said "You don't know what it's like, to have a child, with no home, no money, your child is at risk of dying. Your child is at risk of starving. You are in a country where the social care and welfare system is terrible, there's no help for you, there's no support. It's just you. You and your child. And you have to provide."
That was the part that hit home with me. My friend had kind of made a self-contradicting jump from only a certain type of person can sell themselves for money, to any 'normal' person could resort to selling themselves if circumstances created such a situation of desperation that they had to, without specifically saying as much. Whether that was my friend's point or not, that's pretty much what I took away from it. The second my friend related the quote to me I had a picture in my mind. It was an image of the choice. The choice between letting your baby starve or having sex with someone for money.
Put in those terms, it's simply a no-brainer. It doesn't even merit contemplation, the instant you put yourself in that position of having to choose something rather than let your own child starve, you see how simple it is to actually make the choice. It's beyond simple. It's automatic, it's primeval, it's instinctive. It immediately changes the whole perspective. You're no longer looking at the choice you're making and focusing on the requisites or the implications and effects of the choice, you're just looking at the other option and knowing you can't possibly let that happen. Simple.
I've always been well aware that not everyone relates to the world in the same way, we don't all share the same morals or inhibitions or sense of right and wrong, and some people's psyche lets them sell their body for money whilst remaining on the whole a healthy, functional adult. They didn't have painful childhoods, they don't have daddy-issues, they were never abused, and outside of their unorthodox job choice they are pretty normal people. And of course I know there are those who are somewhat disturbed mentally and it's their skewed view of life that permits them to get by in the sex trade. Worst of all are the least fortunate; the ones trapped in the game, extorted and exploited, trafficked away from home to become little more than slaves, barely living at all.
I've never spent that much time thinking about prostitutes and empathising for them, but desperation often crosses my mind. That's what really prompted me to write this. Not prostitution, not sex, but desperation. It's all too easy to look on while someone makes poor choices, perpetuates self-harm, commits crime, fails to look after themselves, engages in acts that are wrong or immoral, and judge them, frown upon them, even condemn them. But often what's really important when observing is to maintain the impartial unbiased point of view required to remind one's self that those we look at are products of their environments and the result of circumstance, just like us.
Everything's relative, and shifting your perspective can make a big difference. Some people look at suicide victims, and think they were weak and selfish, ignoring how much pain they must have been in to actually feel taking their life was their only option. You can look at asylum seekers and focus only on where they've ended up instead of on what's driven them to abandon the place they know and love, to uproot their family, to risk their lives. Drug addicts seemingly go to odd lengths to fund their habit and often do some decidedly un-glamorous things during the course of their addiction, but spare a thought for the person they were before a substance took over their life and reduced them to a manipulative, dishonest, self-centred user trapped in a harsh cycle. Sufferers of Depression, Anxiety, and other psychological disorders aren't just lazy, they can be people who are prevented from living a full life because of invisible barriers that put a stranglehold on them, dampening the motivation they once had, cutting off their enjoyment of life, crippling them whilst their closest friends are none the wiser because on the surface they look fine.
Sometimes it's not peoples actions we need to look at, but rather what has caused them to act.
