" As a former sex worker, I've faced lots of verbal attacks from the media or people around me. I'll share with you what have indeed gone through in their minds as prostitutes.
1.
Most people have lots of misunderstandings about why I first chose to enter this line as they simply call me a "bitch" when they knew my role. They thought that I chose it because I've got no other way to earn my living. In fact, I've got many other ways of earning a decent living e.g. working in a supermarket at that time. However, after tasting the convenience of earning up to RMB 1,000 per night, I've decided not to try other jobs. The fast money I earned also promised me a luxurious lifestyle which no other job could provide.
When I first became a prostitute, I was young and pretty, and thus highly-paid. However, my pay was still below average at that time as better good-looking girls can be paid up to RBM 5000 per night. Appearance wise, you may think that prostitutes generally look slutty. In fact, the most highly-paid ones look as pure and elegant as college art students whose lifestyles are extremely luxurious. Therefore, prostitutes don't want or need people's sympathy as they are generally beautiful with luxurious lifestyles
2.
On the other hand, this job brought them dire pain and hardship
Firstly, they faced lots of verbal attacks out of misunderstandings or jealousy among their peers. As some girls posted about their luxurious lifestyles on the social media, many of their WeChat friends threw verbal insults out of their jealousy.
Secondly, many girls have suffered from pregnancy or sex disease. Once my fellow colleague Ting Ting didn't wear the condom just for a few hundred of additional charges as suggested by the client. Unfortunately, she was infected with a kind of sex disease, which is incurable and had to suffer tremendous pain and itchiness around her private part. When I went to visit her in the hospital, the scars on her body shocked me and caused me to vomit out of uneasiness. After going home, running into the shower room, I immersed my face in the running water to cool myself down. At that moment, I began to mumble hopelessly, "Lord, please help me ..."
Apart from Ting Ting's incidence, another girl who stayed with me was pregnant without knowing who the child's father is. She then decided to abort the child. In the hospital, she experienced unbearable pain throughout the operation. However, her case is still not the worst. I've also heard another lady who aborted a 6-month-old infant as the child's father, her client, had decided to abandon them both out of a sudden. That operation on this newly formed infant is too gruesome and unimaginable to be described here.
To be honest, my heart sunk after hearing their sufferings. It occurred to me that this job will eventually destroy my future especially the hope for a happy marriage. I find it almost impossible to get married given my current situation, unless I decide to flee to a foreign place with no one knowing my past. But even if I flee, will I still be ready to open my heart to another man? In fact, most girls in my line eventually transit to the role of a "Ma-ma-san" （a woman in charge of a bar or night club）as they become older. A small proportion of us go back to our hometowns to settle down in marriage instead. However, the latter group tends to relapse back to the prior lifestyle as prostitutes due to the lucrative cash gain.
3.
Eventually, I decided to give up on this job. Not my will, but circumstances that make it difficult for me to stay on. One night, a 40-year-old client came to ask me for just an hour's service. I willingly accepted the deal as the pay was good. He then brought me to his house. I readily started to take off my clothes but he stopped me. He told me that he only wanted to talk.
Funny, isn't it? He started to pour out his life stories to me like how he became a photographer for a travel magazine. After an hour has passed, I decided to make my way out. Suddenly, he grabbed me and said to me the most impactful sentence I have heard in my entire life," Take down your burden because there's someone who's willing to bear that for you. Jesus will not abandon you. " With that, he then left me in a room alone, profoundly impacted by that message.
His words have struck the most vulnerable area of my heart. When I was young, I attended service church with my mom and found my faith there. His reminder of my faith hit me deeply. After that night, I started to turn uncomfortable at work, extremely resistant towards my clients' physical touch. Gradually, my client base began to dissolve as my heart to entertain them has gone cold. Soon, my ma-ma-san dismissed me as I could no longer bring her enough business.
4.
After leaving the bar, I rented a place to settle down elsewhere. When I felt bored, I went to visit the local church. However, I felt very disconnected and even repulsive when the choir sang " Jesus love you. So do we." I found them a group of hypocrites. Surely, they'd deny what they sang after knowing that I'm a prostitute. "Indeed, I don't belong here," I thought.
After stepping out of the church, I felt extremely lost and lonely without any hope in life. This state of crisis in my personal life stuck with me for so long that I tried to go back to serve clients as a prostitute. However, my symptoms of fear and uneasiness had gone worse whenever I tried to get close to a client. I sweat and tremble uncontrollably in front of them. Though my fellow sex workers thought I was "cursed" for such symptoms, I knew it well in my heart that it was time for me to repent and go back home.
In the past few years, I've never found myself so close to the heart-felt struggles of many sex workers. Their loneliness, desperation, pride and drive as well as seemly cold-hearted but extremely fragile spirit have never been so clearly laid before me. I truly understand how they dislike any form of sympathy and ignore others' insults while hiding themselves in extremely luxurious and yet unimaginably lonely lifestyles. I've been through them all.
When I looked back to my life, I'm thankful for God's grace and power in delivering me from my prior lifestyles through allowing me to see my fellow sex workers' tragedies and hear the God-sent client's heart-struck message on that night. Without the Lord's deliverance, I'd never be able to move my way out of this industry.
Last but not the least, I hope to remind all of you that:
In any effort to reach out to sex workers, don't preach to them with any self-justifying or condescending tone in order to make them repent. Instead, you may try helping them with more practical needs first. Or simply pray for them persistently. Sometimes, words may not be the most effective tool especially in this context.
Translated by Maggie Li
