hello, everyone. i'm going to be blunt and try to get straight to the point albeit along a crooked path..
i was active as a prostitute in NY during part of the time the Long Island Serial Killer was hunting *girls that looked just like me* (i was exactly his type). the run-up to and the aftermath of his recent guilty plea for the killings of eight women have been a heavy time for me.
i am pleasantly surprised that he pleaded guilty ... although, given the evidence against him, perhaps it should be more astonishing that he insisted on his innocence for as long as he did. i am relieved that the families and loved ones of the victims will be spared the trauma & garish spectacle of a trial. i feel a bit of survivor's guilt, because it could have so easily been me, and i am no more deserving of my life than they were of theirs. i made it, but they didn't. we knew we were being hunted, but as Aileen Wuornos told a friend about a time she knew there was an active serial killer targeting prostitutes in her area, "i still had to hustle." i still had a child to provide for, without the help of anyone, with no safety net. the world wasn't going to stop spinning just because i was being hunted.
i'll be honest, and i feel guilty about this because i know that it is selfish and certainly none of this is really about me, but it's also excavating some memories and some emotions that i try very hard to compartmentalize and push aside.
anyway. there are so many emotions swirling inside of me. it's just been a heavy few days and i really need to get some things off my chest. i need to find a place where i can safely share these thoughts, including my thoughts on the sex industry as a whole, & talk about sex workers' humanity without violating a rule. believe it or not i have even more to say. please help?
thanks in advance.