Rosen Hicher is a French survivor of prostitution. Here is a translation of an Op-Ed she published in the French daily LIBÉRATION http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2014/07/17/pour-en-finir-avec-les-clients_1065741, in July 2014, as a group of French senators are trying to derail a bill based on the Nordic Model that would penalize « sex purchasers » (paying rapists).
At a time when the Senate protects customers, I, a former prostitute, shall tell you why I want France to make every effort to do away with these men who have ruined my life for over twenty years. I found the strength to do the calculation. Listen carefully. I had more than 30 000 clients in my career as a prostitute, at an average rate of four per day.
More than 30,000 sex acts that I did not want, that I refused with my whole body. 30,000 times the feeling of being denied, reduced to nothingness, to being a female robot. 30,000 times, I experienced the parade of these indifferent men, confident of their entitlement; in a corner of hostesses bar, in unsanitary salons, in the smell of champagne spilled on the seats and of heady sex.
You who speak of customers as poor lonely or shy men, if you knew! The truth is the one who threatens you if you refuse sex without a condom; the violent one who leaves you with injuries for two weeks; the madman who shoots a rifle in the middle of a bar; the sicko who dresses as a woman and puts you through all kinds of humiliation; the one that spikes your drink or scrawls obscenities on your door to take revenge; the one who ends up stringing himself up after spending all he had paying for women’s bodies.
And all others. All those who do not even bother to change or wash becayse they despise us so. All these sex addicts without any regard for their partner or for any woman. All these madmen, these masochists, these exhibitionists, these sadists, these zoophiles. All these predators: once one of them, who had seen me with my daughter aged 12-13, a bus driver (of children!), offered me 5,000 euros to have her; to rape her.
All these men that come tell us their wildest fantasies and require us to tell them that this is normal and there are no limits. You imagine that the regulars, as they are called, are good guys. No, they are men suffering serious deviations and dangerous for us and for all women. When will we finally understand that a lot of them have a greater need of psychologists than of prostitutes?
I was not born a prostitute, it is these men who made me a prostitute. They are the ones who forced me into 30,000+ sex acts, and so many rapes.
It is urgent for us to commit to ensure our children’s right to protection, so that no girl, no young man has to live through what I suffered for so many years. And this is not possible if customers are allowed to maintain their entitlement. I refuse that customers remain the forgotten parties in this prostitution legislation, for those whom I speak of here are not exceptions: they are every client. And I put to you this question: « Why such a consensus to protect them? »
ressourcesprostitution.wordpress.com 