Sex Sells But, People Keep Stealing ( story time| rant)

chinadolli

Oct 29

I remember the first time it happened, it was at a gas station, and the county was as smokey as the name implied.
I remember getting out of my car and fixing my belt when a car pulled up beside me, a crusty-looking man stuck his disgusting balding head out his window and looked at me as if he were surveying an animal for slaughter, with a sick hunger that lurched my stomach, making me nauseous.
The words that spewed from his mouth still irked me today, it was the first time I realized what it meant to be objectified as a woman.
"How much?"
Two words with so much weight and such little care for the humanity that was me.
I didn't know what he meant until he motioned at me as if it were obvious.
It then dawned on me and I wore an obvious horrified expression on my face that made him laugh at me.
Wrinkles formed around his mouth and eyes, he could've been my dad's age.
It made me viscerally sick.
I ran off and inside the gas station as fast as I could, with a sensation of bugs crawling under my skin.

Perhaps this could seem like a small thing to happen, but it was only the beginning, yet it also opened up memories I tried to shove down and never speak of ever...
The secret I intend to take with me to the grave.

Any woman or girl between the ages of 18-25, with a BMI of 17 and 24, and a semi-pretty face, will all have similar stories, most likely worse... Like my own secrets.

The next few times weren't as easy to get out of.
The next time I was followed by two men for a mile and cornered into a target where I was too afraid to ask for help or to seem like I was making something out of nothing.
I was terrified, shaking, heart beating until it was all I could hear followed by a ringing that turned into a blurred vision.
An Uber picked me up, and a big black man in a big black van.
I got out unscathed, only to find out the next day they were sex traffickers.
It happened more than once after that, up until a certain age... Maybe it was a certain weight... They don't want you after a certain weight and age... Whatever the reason... I never told anyone the time it happened... Cause what does it matter if I got away?
But it wasn't about me... It was about the ones who didn't get away.

Sex trafficking is all around us, right in the plane sight, you've probably seen it before, multiple times, and had no idea.

Now here is the secret I wish I didn't have, there was trafficking right across my street and I saw it every day, without ever saying anything to anyone. I watched girls come and go in a white work van with no seats.
Then I watched men come in and out within an hour with wads of money in hand and stupid faces plastered... While getting into expensive vehicles.
I sometimes heard screaming but not in a way that illicit any kind of pleasure... No, it was of pure horror and fear.

I never said anything even if I knew what was going on, I was too afraid... Someone did though, and thankfully they were arrested one late evening.
I saw the girls being taken away with relief, shame, and horror. They all were women and girls of an ethnicity I couldn't place, there was a possibility they didn't even speak English... I witnessed all this in the comfort of my home, wondering if that could've been me years ago...

So, as I am writing this, maybe you will be trying to think of times when you may have witnessed such things, well, I can assure you, you probably have and didn't even realize it.

Unfortunately, even places you would imagine it to be a safe sanctuary can quickly become a breeding ground for predators.
Schools and places of worship are a perfect example of this.
This is partly why I have such strong opinions on organized religion.

My sister (I have permission to mention this) was molested by an elder in our congregation, he had a wife and son her age and was well respected there.
He took my siblings to concerts and different events, basically attempting to act as some type of mentor.
Yet, maybe a year into that dynamic, he began to sext my underage 16-year-old sister, and later at a concert with others around he molested her.
I was the first person she told, and I thought I could trust our parent's judgment, so I told our parents, who instead of going to the police went to "the elders" who told them not to press charges.

That man didn't even get a slap on the wrist and just went to another congregation, while my sister was forced to tell the elders over and over again the story and re-tale every painful detail, only to be told she shouldn't have worn such provocative clothing, and to then be slut shamed by others who found out, without getting any sort of actual factual evidence.

Unfortunately, this type of thing happens more often than you would like to imagine, countless anecdotes may never get told or reported, and countless people get away with this every day.

I am still filled with guilt for not being able to give my sister the justice she needed, she confided in me and trusted me to save her, and I could've taken this to the police first, I thought I was doing the right thing, but it wasn't the help she needed.
I often fantasize about finding him and ending him or his reputation, I want the world to know what he did, I want justice for my sister, it doesn't feel enough to say God will handle matters...

For me, it's not enough...

I have had a long internal battle between wanting to believe in God and not, between wanting to desperately believe what I was taught was the truth and not, to believe there will be justice for all the injustices, I want hope!
I have come to conclude that there must be a God, that there has to be reason for all this... That there is such a detailed organized way about life and the way some things occur as if it were meant to be... That there has to be meaning to all of this.

Even in my personal life, I have kissed death so many times that to deny something or someone was looking out for me would be ludicrous.

So I guess, I write this as a way to create more awareness around this topic, and to encourage others to be cognizant of the people in your life and their well-being.
Learn how to protect yourself and your loved ones, daughters, sisters, mothers, even sons, brothers, friends...
Check yourself as well, and always make sure there is clear consent, you don't know what's going on for the other person entirely until you ask. Hesitation is not an invitation.

I realize this is probably a topic that's discussed often, but if it's still happening then it's never going to be enough...
This has just been my view and stories...

(I wrote this on August 9th and never finished it, so I never published it, however, I have been going back to my notes and realized there are quite a few of these types of posts, so I'll be working on those for a bit.)

Thanks for the support, I appreciate it!

*** My editor is not working on this blog, so I can keep personal things private, so please forgive the typos and errors, I do this on my phone and on the run...Thanks.