My name is Ally-Marie Diamond. I am a sex trade survivor. I was raped and sexually abused from the ages of 3 to 16 by my uncle, boys in school, church members and boyfriends, respectively. From a tender age, I quickly learned that the only thing men wanted from me was sex. Suffering at the hands of men and boys was my reality, my normality.
Yet, the trauma I endured in the sex trade largely outweighed the trauma from my extensive childhood abuse.
How I wound up in prostitution is not an unusual one in the world of prostitution. My baby girl was taken away from me when I was a young woman. I was in huge debt thanks to a violent ex-boyfriend. I was homeless, alone, and terrified. I had nothing. It was at that time that a friend approached me about a way out. A way to pay my debt, have somewhere to sleep and all the support I would need. My journey into the sex trade began in a small residential house, in a classy quiet suburb on the outskirts of town.
There was no red light in front of the house as I had always imagined. Just a quiet off-white weatherboard home with a picket fence, driveway, and a letter box. The brothel was run by a man of Asian descent who seemed to be quite caring and nice. That first night, I was the girl in high demand, new to the scene and vulnerable. Soon after, a man said he was taking me to the city to meet his friend.
He explained that I would be taken better care of, protected and that I could live and earn money on the premises. The massage parlour was located in the city amongst seedy adult video stores. Walking up the stairs behind the man who had bought me there, I was scared, ashamed, embarrassed. My gut was telling me to run, to turn around and run fast.
