MY STORY
Hello, my name is Sylvia. I stand for the liberation of women, men, children, transgender, and trafficking victims from porn and prostitution. The following is why I take this stand.
Thirteen years ago, for a period of twelve years, I was an exotic dancer, a sensual masseuse, and a prostitute. These experiences were so damaging that at the end of that time I thought about killing myself every day. Getting out was a struggle, but when I finally got out I asked myself, “How did I get there in the first place?” It began at home. I had an adverse childhood experience. I was a scared, neglected, abused child growing up in dysfunctional households. I was abused by the people who were supposed to protect me. Though I knew it was wrong the abuse sexualized me in ways that I did not understand until I was much older. From my earliest memory, I was rewarded for dressing, and acting sexy. This became my way to impress and manipulate people. The problem is it worked, and I received enormous positive reinforcement. And, it became my way of interacting with the world and the people in it.
Here is a bit of my story. I had a mother, a father, two stepmothers, and a stepfather. It was confusing, corrupting, and chaotic. So, my mother is Jewish, and my father is Catholic. Dad had us secretly baptized behind my mother's back. They decided to start me in Kindergarten at a Catholic school. I did not fit in and came home crying to my mother. In the middle of the school year, they put me in public school. They divorced by the time I was six. They both remarried. My mother and stepfather moved us down to San Jose. Then for years every other weekend, my dad would pick us up for the weekend. The problem was he was stoned the whole weekend. It was really scary.
I started getting high when I was eleven. I would steal from my father's stash. Then my father’s second wife left him. He had an affair with the next-door neighbor, she left her husband for my dad. Then I had two stepsisters thrown in the mix.
Concerning school, I tested gifted, but I was so stressed out all the time. I remember the neglect started after my mother left my father. They used to tell me to take care of my sister, she is 13 months younger than me, but it was a lot to take care of my sister at 6 years old. My mother had not worked in 14 years when my dad left. We had to go on Welfare. My grades were OK until High School. At 14, I started sleeping around with anyone that would give me any crumb of attention. When I started sleeping around that was the first time I experienced major depression. Even My mother and stepfather noticed and sent me to counseling.
I felt better. Then they cut it off because they said it was too much money. I started drinking and smoking at 15. I felt so much shame about my family. There was a lot of weirdness around money. We had nice houses, and then my sister and I were dressed in rags with holes in them. My father would hit on everyone in the room sexually, women, men, children, everyone was fair game to him. I would tell my girlfriends to not get too close to him physically because he might grab them or kiss them, and then I would laugh really loud like that was funny. He also would collage pornographic images on the refrigerator. His sex addiction ran rampant.
So, I ended up going to three different high schools and dropping out in 11th grade. The first high school I went to was mostly Spanish in San Jose, I thought my name was “White Bitch”, “What are you doing in the bathroom White Bitch?”. Then my sister made friends with this girl across town. Her parents let us use their address, and we went to a mostly white high school, I even got on the Academic Decathlon. But, I was exhausted all the time, we had to get up at 5 am, and take two buses, and I was working fast food on the weekends. One night my stepfather beat me up, so I packed up my stuff and went to live with my father and stepmother, and stepsisters.
But it was out of the frying pan and into the fire. At least at my mother's, the adults were sober with drugs and alcohol. At my father’s house, they put me in the living room. Everyone in that house was drinking or smoking pot. It was really stressful. They really were not equipped emotionally or financially to give me any type of support. It was so painful for me to realize that they really did not want me there.
That same year my sister had an Aneurysm and had to have brain surgery. It sent the family into a spasm. I dropped out of high school in the 11th grade and moved back to San Jose with my mother and stepfather. At that time, I went into another depression. I got my GED. I went to three junior colleges, sometimes my grades were good, sometimes I could not complete a class. I had to start paying rent at 18. I quickly moved in with a boyfriend.
I had a really nice boyfriend for 5 years. I followed him down to San Diego. He took really good care of me. I did not appreciate him and was so resentful at how functional he was. I wanted to be him. I left him, and it was back to financial struggle, and trying to put myself through college.
I got married to a guy in the Navy, and we moved 7 times in three years. I left him in Chicago. I moved back in with my mother and sister. My stepfather had passed. My sister had never left home. She was a cocktail waitress and an alcoholic. Again, I went into a major depression, this time with anxiety attacks. I started sleeping around again. I was working all these dead-end jobs. I sold cosmetics, I was a portrait photographer, I did sales, housecleaning, I worked in a video store, and worked as a waitress. Then I saw an advertisement that said, “Masseuse’s wanted we will train you!” I went down there. They talked to me for 5 minutes and said to come back tomorrow. It was the beginning of a very dark journey into Prostitution.
From my childhood, I learned that I was disposable. If I wanted to have any attention at all I better look great and pretend everything was ponies and rainbows. Don’t feel. For twelve years in Prostitution, I drifted in a fog meeting my financial needs. I was really checked out emotionally. I was numb interspersed with hysterical crying jags. I dated and financially supported a drug addict/musician for three years. I had two walk-in closets full of expensive clothes. I would take nice vacations. But, I was lying to everyone about how I was getting the money. It got to the point after every session I would go to the bathroom and chant, “I have to get out of this!” I would cruise Walgreens at 3 am wishing I had the guts to buy some pills and kill myself.