The Truth About My ‘Choice’: A Survivor’s Story”

I entered the sex trade when I was 18 years old. I was a first-year university student, far from home, trying to survive on student loans because my family did not have the means to pay for my education. One night, almost by accident, I walked into a club without realizing I had stepped into a strip club. I went in to make fun of it, honestly. A woman working as a server came up to me and told me I was beautiful. She said I would make good money. She said I could start by selling drinks. That was the moment everything shifted.

One small step led to another, and before I even realized what was happening, I was becoming desensitized to the environment. I saw the other girls working there, and they were just girls like me. University students. Women paying debt. Women trying to survive. Not the stereotypes society pushes. I told myself this was just temporary, just a smart way to avoid student loans.

I had already been sexually assaulted as a teenager, so my ideas about men had already been warped. I learned early that men looked at me as something to use. I believed my body was a tool. I believed men were good for only two things: sex and money. My family carried generational trauma, addictions, mental health issues, poverty. I grew up in it. I carried it with me. So when I ended up alone in Southern Ontario with no support, the club felt like the solution.

Within months of working independently and believing I was too smart to fall for a pimp, I met my trafficker. I was slowly pulled in, emotionally manipulated, isolated, coerced, and kept in place through violence. Trauma bonds are invisible at first. They feel like love, help, attention, safety. By the time you realize what they are, they are already wrapped around your life so tightly you cannot breathe.

People love to shout the phrase “my body, my choice.” I want the world to understand what choice actually means. A choice only exists if you have another option of equal or greater value. That truth was taught to me by my mentors, Bridget Perrier and Natasha Falle. In all my years, I have never met a little girl who dreams of servicing men for a living. Most women do not even want to perform these acts for partners they love. But somehow society wants to pretend that women happily “choose” to do it for strangers.

The public has no idea what sex buyers are really like. They are not respectful. They are not gentle. They are not lonely, good men looking for connection. They walk in with power and entitlement. They demand. They degrade. They push boundaries. They take what they want whether you agreed or not. Many of them full blown rape prostituted women and justify it because they believe their money buys ownership. They think you owe them whatever they want because in their mind you are just a prostitute, not a person.

I witnessed men take back their money after violent sex acts, leaving women with nothing but injuries and humiliation. I saw women call the police for help, only to be treated like they were the criminals while the buyers walked away untouched and unquestioned. One of those buyers — a trick — killed my friend. That is the reality. Even now, despite legal changes, society still protects the buyer as a respectable man while the prostituted woman is seen as the problem.

Here is the truth society refuses to face. In prostitution you are sexually assaulted multiple times a day by men you have never met. You are not empowered. You are not liberated. You are not choosing. You are surviving. And survival comes with unimaginable costs.

Men want to pee on you. Cum on you. Slap you. Spit on you. Choke you until you black out. Some want to beat you. Some want to shit on you. Some want you to drink their urine. Some want to hurt you while you cry. They do not treat you like a human being because to them you are not one. You are a body, and a body they believe they bought.

And exploitation comes from every direction. The drivers, the strip clubs, the massage parlors, the hotels, even the nail salons. Everyone sees you as something to take a cut from. No matter how you work, whether independently or under a pimp, you never truly keep the money. It slips through your hands because everyone feels entitled to a piece of you.

The day-to-day reality was lonely, isolating, and crushing. Nobody cares about you. You feel worthless. You learn that your only value is how you look and how convincingly you can pretend. You pretend you like it. You pretend you want it. You pretend you are empowered. It is all survival.

I exited because I became pregnant. My family contacted police about my trafficker, and my brother along with a compassionate Police officer helped me escape. I am grateful for that, but society itself failed me countless times. Many people witnessed me being beaten in public. Not one person stepped in. Not one person called the police. They saw a woman being attacked and decided it was none of their business. They just kept walking or kept eating their lunch.

Leaving was almost impossible. No job will hand you a thousand dollars a day in cash. You have nowhere to go. No education. No safe place. No financial foundation. You are trauma bonded. And you are terrified. You also have to let go of the illusion, the fake glamour, the lie you convinced yourself was a lifestyle.

What needs to change is simple. Charge the buyers. Actually enforce the law. Create a registry. Reduce demand. Educate youth, especially boys at risk of becoming traffickers. Because buyers are worse than pimps. Buyers are often powerful, wealthy, respected men with full access to resources. They choose to exploit women and girls because they know they can.

Traffickers are still responsible, still abusive, but many come from the same traumatic backgrounds as the girls they trap. They grew up in violence. They were groomed. They were taught exploitation. But buyers are grown men with full cognitive development and endless opportunities. They choose to use women’s bodies for pleasure instead of choosing respect.

Media loves selling us the Pretty Woman fantasy. They want you to think prostitution looks like Julia Roberts smiling while Richard Gere saves her. That is the lie that protects buyers.

My story is the truth that exposes them.