At what age do you think your daughter is ready to read this?

This post is different from all others and  it is "a hard read." It is extended here to inform for the purpose of protecting women. The story below is accompanied with some facts that are difficult for most of us to comprehend: slavery is present--both sexual and labor slavery--in the USA. The following life experience shared below reveals a ploy used by devious, perpetrating men who are sexually abusing women. Then, after the abuse, which totally weakens a woman causing her to feel alone, vulnerable, overcome and undone--this is when the prospect of prostitution as a lucrative livelihood may well be proposed. 

The woman who entrusted this story to me knows she has little time to live. She came to me, a chaplain, asking if she could trust me to publish her story, adding, "I don’t want to die without knowing that by telling it, I am lighting a candle for other women."  

I could see how painful this matter is for her. She added, "Although it shakes my soul to tell it, doing can perhaps hold power to help keep others safe."

While promising to publish her story, I assured this woman anonymity will also be granted. The title proposes a question for parents:

At what age do you think your daughter is ready to read this?

If you think "never," think again. The subject, here, involves a larger problem in our country than we, the US citizens, have wanted to acknowledge. After reading the latest issue of Time magazine which carries an article involving Jeffrey Epstein, I knew my story must be told.

Back in the 1960’s I had no idea there was a monstrous scheme alive and well in the small city where I grew up. My ignorance was pay dirt for the team of men who "befriended" my friend and me at a bar. They were handsome and appeared to be successful businessmen. After dancing with us, we were invited to a party. We were both divorced, members of the same Sunday School class at church, and in our early 20’s dancing was our "fun thing."

Neither of us had experienced more than a couple of occasions where alcohol was served. We could not know how drinking can alter judgment. We both agreed to go to the party; however, the men took us in separate cars. I learned later that my friend was taken to the party. I never told her why she did not see me there. This was a team unfolding a devilish scheme.

There was no party for me but rather I was taken to a vacant apartment in the most exclusive part of downtown, overlooking the city’s expansive park and surrounding mountains. As we arrived, I thought this would be the place where the party was being held. But when this "new friend" unlocked the door of an apartment, and ushered me in, no one else was present. Once we entered, he immediately began trying to touch me! I was shocked to the core and highly frightened realizing the deception I had walked into and now THIS! I asked to be taken back to my car.

He got very close to my ear and said loudly, "You will have sex—with a beating, or without a beating."

I quickly recognized I was in real danger; no one knew where I was. No one knew where they could find me. The man was obviously stronger and much larger than I was. It was clear I could not fight him off and with my health history being beaten would carry a strong possibility of my not surviving it. The only way I could get out with the least amount of harm—was to make a very huge sacrifice. Complying would bring my best hope to be taken to my car without "the beating."

When I was taken to my car I was also asked, "Would you like a job that pays well?" I played along asking about the job and was told, "It’s spending evenings with businessmen entertaining them. Really good pay." I was still in a huge amount of shock, fear and angst, hoping to get out of his car as fast as possible and home to my children. I, with my children, lived in the home of my parents after my divorce. That evening my children were being cared for by their grandparents while I had an evening out with my girlfriend. So I played along saying, "OK." He said, "You will get a call soon."

A call did come very soon. Thankfully, the number I gave was the only number I had, my parents’ phone number. For it was my father who answered the call that came late one evening. He must have smelled a rat. I heard him shouting in rage from my bedroom telling the caller he had better NEVER call his daughter again!

It took years before I was ready to talk to a counselor. One session was all I could handle.  It helped me let go of the shame I had had for so long after giving in to what was demanded of me. My counselor said, "What you did saved your life! You are alive today because you made a quick and wise choice under exceeding pressure."

I recalled seeing this man at a class reunion and that he was an attorney, married to a classmate. I later felt sad and guilty over not feeling able to report to the police what had happened. But my life was already broken apart through a divorce that lasted nine months as my former husband had started a legal battle intending to prevent me from divorcing him. It seemed obvious the courts were mostly favoring the requests of men back in the 1960’s. I decided to move on in a survival mode so my children could have as normal a life as possible.

I had a mental breakdown soon after arriving back home. The damage done included being sexually assaulted in such a way as after the fact, I felt like I had agreed to it.

Even after so many years have passed, considerable guilt accompanies the memories if I let them arise. I have known my inability to speak up undoubtedly allowed this same scheme to continue hurting the lives of others. Along with that, having my life threatened if I did not obey a perpetrator’s mandate made my world seem exceedingly unsafe.

The experience of losing my ability to decide how my body would be touched makes the memory of being assaulted hard to release.

Life has been affected in several ways after being raped. Some days I feel fear about taking a walk within my own good neighborhood. A feeling indicating "something bad might happen" is familiar. This is an apprehension that has to be shaken off at times.

The reason victims do not want to tell their stories after being raped is because something has been taken away from us. I have innately felt if people know what happened to me, they will think less of me. Of course, that is not true. Still, a victim of sexual abuse wants to live beyond it. We do not want to think about it as we do not want our thoughts or the thoughts of others to include that dark, painful place in our past. We live our lives best in the goodness of the present. Life itself is a present.

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Author's note: The International Labor Organization estimates that roughly 50 million people are now living in conditions of modern slavery, in forms of forced labor and sex trafficking.