Baumgaji

‘People partying around a girl who has to wait for the next rape’ This powerful piece from German prostitution survivor, Huschke Mau, is from a couple of years ago but it is no less relevant today. “Yesterday I spoke at the ‘Breaking the Cycle – Exposing the links between pornography and prostitution’ conference. My talk focused on how legalising prostitution changes societies. It leads people to see women as objects and as a result society fails to respond appropriately to sexual violence against women and girls. This happens everywhere legislation and policy make women and girls a consumable commodity. After the conference, I went to Chinatown. It was beautiful. So many people out and about. So many lights and lamps and music from all over. People were dancing in the street and I was happy. It was light and colourful and fun. It was just what I needed after the conference on such a difficult topic. And then suddenly I saw her. In the midst of this colourful commotion, between all the party goers, the lights, music and dancing, and the open restaurants and bars. She stood in a doorway under a sign saying, “Massage”. She was terribly young. She stood there in a mini skirt; her nose red; her eyes red. From the cold or was she crying? I saw her and the world stopped. I stood still while everything around me was moving. I was shocked. Yes, I know all of the horrors of prostitution. From my own experience. From other people’s testimony. From the studies. I stand there, the stream of people flows past, and we look in each other’s eyes. All I see is pain and a kind of recognition – I see you, I see what’s happening. And the world stands still and my heart breaks. At some point I moved on. I cried, “But she’s still very small.” Maybe she was of age – but she didn’t look like it. People partying around a girl who has to wait for the next rape. Colourful lights. The tip of her red nose. How unhappy she looked. And then there is another reaction: you see this girl and immediately have a heart pulse: she freezes. She is scared. Go to the police? Or give her money? Who is that man in the front door? You feel pain and despair and helplessness and deep, deep sadness. What you don’t feel is the “I want to fuck her; that’s clearly what she needs” impulse – unless of course, pornography and prostitution have already damaged your brain and you’ve conditioned yourself so that violence, humiliation, and contempt for women make you so horny that you shouldn’t be allowed out among others; shouldn’t be allowed to socialise…” Link to the full piece in the next tweet.

I thought Gavin Newsom was Ellen DeGeneres trying to use a skill-saw. She is more manly than he is

I don’t think I will ever understand this particular scene…