Confessions Of A Sex Worker- The Sex Trade Intro

It is pure naivete for anyone to think sex trade is easy pickings. Sex work isn’t a substitute for hard work, I think it is the hardest form all jobs. Before you can survive the streets selling your body, as a sex worker, some parts of you must die. You cannot have a conscience gnawing at you, and so you numb your mental state. At least that’s what I did, else I would have gone crazy. I always say to be a successful prostitute, you must either have some form of witchcraft, or you do drugs. 

Well, I couldn’t find anyone to lend me some witchcraft so I chose drugs.

I was orphaned at a very young age, I may have been about nine years old when my mother died. I never knew my father, so I was sent to live with my maternal grandmother at Techiman. Life in that home was quite hard. My mother had been the black sheep of the family, and thus I inherited the special kind of disrespect that was usually reserved for her from her mother and siblings. I was called all kinds of despicable names, the most popular being ‘Bastard’. 

My grandmother never hid her disdain for me. And the older I got the meaner she became. When I was about thirteen years old, my youngest uncle sexually assaulted me, and then he warned me not to tell. I defied him and told my grandmother. I actually told my grandmother in my uncle’s presence. But my grandmother chose to protect her good-for-nothing twenty something year old son over a child, a bastard like me. 

She said, “You are too ugly for my son to want anything to do with you. He could easily find a sex worker or better still find any decent girl, not you.”

And then she made me go serve him his dinner. That evening was my uncle’s green light to keep assaulting me. I guess he reckoned if he was going to get away with it, why stop? And that incident taught me to keep quiet, deny my feelings and emotions, and just survive.

I finished high school around age seventeen. And I so very badly wanted to continue my education, but it became very apparent to me that no one was ever going to financially support me. I loved the arts; writing and drawing. But I knew I would have to find a job, sustainable enough to help me get out from under my grandmother’s roof. I dreamed of relocating far from my grandmother, to start my own life and hope for a better future. And I always thought I could save money and put myself through school.

I found a job in a nice hotel in Techiman, as a front desk personnel. And I loved my job. It was on that job that I began to hear how the same position I held in that Techiman hotel paid about twice or thrice in Accra. The ambitious girl in me was piqued, I wanted to relocate so bad, but I also knew I needed to have enough money to pay for accommodation and other necessities. So I began to plot and plan, and I discussed my plan to someday move with my manager.

During the campaign for the 2000 election that saw the NPP come to power, some politicians came to lodge at the hotel I worked with. I was at post, I had been prepped that some important politicians were coming. And so my uniform was pressed extra that day, I had on makeup, my hair, even though it was cut short, was brushed and oiled to glistening.

When our guests arrived, I did all my duties and helped settle them nicely. They were busy, in and out campaigning, the hotel was equally busy and so I had to work extra shifts. On the third day of their stay, my manager approached me, “What do you think about spending the night with that aspiring MP?” she asked.

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Because he’ll give you five hundred dollars,” she said, opening her palm and showing me five crisp hundred dollar notes.

“Why don’t you go and do it?” I asked her.

“Because he specifically asked for you, you can take the money and go or I can return it,” she said.

It should have rang a bell, that woman was married. So it should have rang a bell when her answer wasn’t, “Because I’m married.” 

My mind went into overdrive. Five hundred dollars was a lot of money in the year 2000. I wanted that money. And I figured if my uncle was taking it by force and for free, what harm would it do to do it willingly and at a fee? Welcome to sex work!

So I took the money. And I went to see the aspiring MP. He was not young like my uncle. And all the campaigning and traveling had him exhausted. The man didn’t have any stamina, he was a lot of talk and cuddles and silly requests. It was over before I could even begin to properly register what the hell I had agreed to do; a commodity in the business of sex trade; a sex worker. And then he was snoring away.

“That was easy,” I thought to myself.

And with that, I had my first experience as a sex worker. Exchanging my femininity for money.

With the little I had saved and the money I made that night, I packed bag and baggage, and left Techiman, Accra bound. My manager put me in contact with her friend, Lady K, who helped me find accommodation in a hostel. And she promised to help me find a job in Accra.

Lady K turned out to be a shrewd Madame. A sex trade connoisseur. She did find me a job, but she also pimped me out to the highest bidder.

My first client was a Malian onion merchant. In my naivete, I went into that transaction expecting a repeat of the old, tired politician. I quickly realized the business I was in was not for the faint hearted, because that man did not come to play. He came packing and he came to get his money’s worth.

He produced two rolls of thinly rolled marijuana and encouraged me to smoke away. When I told him I did not smoke, he said, “You may want to chew it then, because we’re not about to play.”

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