Alice the former prostitute

I met a real, live former prostitute today.

I'm taking a class called Gender, Body and Sexuality in Scandinavia and this morning's session was canceled because Alice could only schedule speaking to us tonight, because she has a new job. I belive it's working for an isurance company.

I really learned a lot. Alice did not go into the business because of drugs, like you might assume most other girls do. She divorced her husband and was really worried about how to support her two children and it seemed like an easy thing to do. At this point, the thought was just crossing her mind. It wasn't until she started dating, and later married, this guy Flemming, who admitted that he had thought about going into the porn business. She was 39 when they started writing ads and he'd drive her to the clients. It got really bad - sometimes, they wouldn't go to family parties because they could be out making money. Or they'd leave early if a client called during an event.

She talked to a girlfriend of hers, who is a therapist, about it. Alice still thought she was happy at the time, but the therapist asked her if she wanted her daughter to be a prostitute and if not, why not, because you always want your kids to go into the family business if it's working out really well and you're so happy. It was then that she realized she wasn't happy and that'd she'd been blocking out her feelings to the point where she was working from the neck down.

I really admired how she told her kids as soon as she could work up the strength. Her daughter had found one of her advertisements and knew what was going on and was just glad her mother finally came clean. Her son had no idea and just thanked her for telling him, but said he never wanted to hear anything about it ever again and that she would always be their mother and that was that.

Now, she has a new boyfriend, who knows about her history. But he's accepted it and Alice is really happy. She also works to help other women get out of the business. She called an organization and they didn't have a group for women who started prostituting but not because of drugs or alcohol, so she started one. These women can still get too far into it, as she did - Alice had to have her uterus removed and after they sewed her up, the doctors told her she couldn't have sex for six weeks. So, instead, she just did S&M for a few weeks or other acts that wouldn't aggravate it as much as "normal" sex. I couldn't believe that, to have a giant scar across your stomach but still not be able to stay away?

Her story was really intense. It sounds weird to say I'm glad I met a prostitute, but it made me realize a lot about the women who go into the business. And I don't think any of my professors at Maryland would bring in a prostitute. However, I'm taking Human Sexuality in the fall, which I've heard is very intense (and also one of the Maryland must-take classes) so maybe I'm wrong. I'll find out when I get the syllabus in August, I suppose.