The Preacher Peeled His Facemask Off and Revealed He Was a Pimp

 [Image of bust of a slave boy is from here. He has a Trajanic haircut and was named Martial Roman, 98-117 CE/ECD. Marble. Photographer: Getty Villa.]

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS IS FICTION ABOUT BEING POSSESSED BY PIMPS

by Julian Real, 2009


The Preacher peeled his facemask off and revealed he was a Pimp. The next thing that happened was that the Pimp peeled his facemask off and revealed he was a Preacher.

And so it went, facemask off again and again, Preacher to Pimp, Pimp to Preacher. Sometimes the Pimp was the owner of a brothel, sometimes he had a "collection" of girls and young women, and a young man or two, people he'd seasoned to be "his" money makers by making them accept that all you can do is allow men to have sexxxual access to you, and for the Pimp this was good and right. He preached the goodness and rightness of this like a Catholic leading a congregation to a false heaven. Sometimes the Pimp was a corporate capitalist, overseeing multinational corporations that enslave men, women, and children--disproportionately the latter two groups, to work without wages, to work for a penny an hour, to do work that is needed by thew workers only because it pays more than not working for that Pimp. And because their own economic systems were overtaken by Economic Hitmen, spreading the Word of the Corporate Pimp. But, as always, the Pimp profits far more than they do, which is also to say they never profit.

What is taken from them is far more expensive than any amount of money they earn. In the poorer countries, indebted to the White Pimps, everyone is more vulnerable in some ways. And stronger in others. Their strength, in part, is in knowing this is not the only way. They remember the past before the Corporate Pimp came to the villages. I never knew such a time. I grew up in land possessed by the White Pimp. Sometimes these White Pimps tells the adult parents in poorer countries he can do good by them, and make sure their children have a better life, get a good education, get good jobs and send back money so they can join their children in the Promised Land. Or return to start small businesses there. But once the White Pimp has the children he turns them into his sexxx slaves, he trafficks them around the world, he turns women into sexxx slaves and trafficks them around the world. This is no way to be a world traveler.

When I was trafficked as one of the young males, all I saw was the same basic thing over and over. Never new art collections or historic sites. Never grand vistas or ecological wonders. All I saw was the Prostituter's will manifested in his body actions, and then the next, or many at the same time. All I saw was greed, and more greed. All I saw was men who couldn't ever really see me as a person. All I ever saw was that the world was filled with Prostituters content to give their money to my Pimp so they could have access to me to do to me whatever they wanted to do. Often they enjoyed rape. Or just humiliating me. Or just turning me into some actor in their sick play. Sometimes they wanted me to "hurt them". I didn't want to--I knew what it was to be hurt--but if I didn't they'd beat me until I did it. The Pimp would sometimes get angry at them for beating me. He'd tell them "That's MY job!"

Sometimes when the Pimp was busily seasoning the newer "acquisitions", the Pimp let me live with one of these Prostituters, who paid my Pimp handsomely for the ability to have me around. Sometimes the Prostituter-Purchaser fed me delicious food and pretended to love me. I thought maybe I loved him for a time. But he required me to still have sexxx with him. I knew I couldn't ever say no to him and I never dared to. And he'd arrange for me to do sexxx with all kinds of people. He'd meet people on an Internet group. Then they'd show up. If I refused to give them all what they wanted, of my body, the Prostitutor-Purchaser beat my body. He'd beat me into doing what they all wanted and I learned it is better to do what they want right away, than be beaten and do it later, bruised. When the bruises healed, I was sent back to my Pimp, but something strange happened for one instant. As I left the house where there was good food, I watched my Pimp open his car door and let out a younger male, who went into this same house as I left and got into my Pimp's car. As I passed him he looked down, but I took his face in my hand and looked into his eyes. There wasn't much there, but I tried to communicate to him to not fight, to never say no; that it will be better for you that way. I wanted to spare him some of the beatings. He looked very sad, and it was, in that instant, like looking into a cracked mirror. I saw my own sadness for the first time.

I learned a lot during that time. About Powerful men and how to survive among them. About the world of Powerful men and how they operate; how they know each other through the computer; how they make all this possible; how they pass women and children around regarding our humanity as dirt. I learned so many ways of being treating like dirt.

Once back with my Pimp I met a women who was not as young as many of the people he owned. She was brought to him by someone to be a part of a sexxx threesome. My pimp had told someone he needed an older woman. She was 27. Her name is L. My Pimp gave her and me to a Pornographer. He's the one that wanted to see a threesome and film it. He has a man there for us to have sexxx with. This Pornographer was the Director. He ordered us to do whatever he wanted. The man was cruel; I could tell he'd been making these films for a long time. He was 29.  L. gave me drugs to be able to do the film work and not look afraid or exhausted or anything at all. I wished I'd had those drugs earlier in my life. But more than that I wished to be out of this, without any drugs, without any Pimps. That's some of what I thought about when drugged, how maybe I could be free of all this, while the scenes were filmed. We worked for him for two days and got too bruised to be of any more use to him. Then he was done with us, so he called my Pimp to come and get me. I'm not sure what the plan was for L. This was when the miracle happened. She had a plan. She knew this Pornographer and L. had saved some money and gave it to him if he'd let us go before my Pimp got there. He agreed. He was high on something at the time and didn't seem to care too much, but he counted the cash. So we escaped.

We walked fast on the streets. L. knew the city like it was mapped into her mind. She took me down alleys and through dead buildings willed with crack addicts who were of no use to the Pimps because they were too unhealthy. She took me to one building where we were let in only when she said something into a buzzer speaker by a locked entrance door.

Inside there was furniture, food, and clothes. And a shower. And there were bedrooms that weren't for sexxx. There were about a dozen people living there. It looked like we'd all been through similar stuff. Some of them were still using drugs. But I stopped right away because I felt like maybe I could get closer to my dream of being free.

This place also had books. L. told me about a writer, Andrea Dworkin, who didn't think we were dirty and said that Pimps lie about what women are for. I couldn't believe someone was allowed to say what she wrote and not be harmed. L. said Andrea had already been harmed.

L. told me she'd been making connections to other women who had read many books by many women who told the truth about men who hurt women and who were hurt in other ways too, by famine, by men's wars against each other, by racism, because they were lesbians. Some of the people who lived at this home had escaped their Pimps, or made deals with a Procurer to get away. No one ever let any of us go without being paid, though. Except for two or three who were not from our world.

They were part of a world I imagined was part of the free world. But their stories were also very sad. They'd been treated like dirt at their first homes by the Father, or in their second homes by the Husband. The Husbands were not so different from the Pimps. Except the women could eat there and sleep there and pretend they were not at all like us. They judged us at first, until they knew the truth that we all shared--that none of us were free and living as an unfree person means you do a lot of things you don't want to do, to survive.

The safe home had people in it who looked haunted. Some of them couldn't get off the drugs and got very sick. Some got sick from diseases they got from the Procurers. L. and I spent our days working to meet others who escaped and we led them to our safe house. It was often sad there, but it was safer than life with the Pimps and the Prostituters. It was free of the external horrors of what Pimps and Procurers do.  But we knew the horrors, and so in that sense we were all haunted.

Once off drugs, my mind cleared and I felt lots of feelings that I'd never allowed myself to feel before. I felt grief and rage. Something resembling Life entered my eyes.

During this time some of us read to each other, because many of us didn't know how to read at all, or only a little bit. I learned more about how to read there. L. knew three languages: Spanish, French, and English, and she had been sent to many colonised lands where those languages were spoken. So she knew a lot more than most of us and told us what she knew of the world. Her skin was dark brown. Mine was light brown. The people in the safe house were all colors. L. taught many things to those of us who didn't read well, including how to read in at least two languages. She said only knowing one language is a way to not be free. I didn't understand this at first.

She had done the most reading of all of us in the safe house and she was strong in ways I envied. Her strength came from knowing her own pain, understanding it, feeling it, and not pretending that she didn't have it. Most of us tried to escape our pain a lot of the time. She taught me there was no freedom in doing that. I watched some in the safe house hurt their own bodies, stay on drugs, or berate themselves in their own minds; they kept repeating what the Pimps and Procurers told them they were. But L. didn't do this. Instead she read Andrea Dworkin books to us. We learned that Pimps lie. At first it didn't feel true. Both Andrea and L. said we weren't dirt. No one was dirt. Not even dirt was dirt. I had to think about this for a long time.

Slowly I began to understand her. By learning to read and helping each other learn to feel our pain, and our rage, we grew stronger. And we could speak out loud about our stories. One of the women not from my world told us about her husband who was a Catholic Priest. He proclaimed the Power of God to be Righteous and Holy and that Man must Rule women or else they would become heathens, pagans, beasts. He was very respected in his town. He was admired, she said. He proclaimed himself to be a Truth-Teller. She was Black but her husband was white. His congregation was filled with white husbands who beat their wives and raped their wives and also their own children, and sometimes other family's children. Once, she told us where the Priest's church was so L. and I went to hear him. L. was stared at because she was darker brown than me. I passed as white. But the place was really, really white. I didn't know such places existed. They acted strangely even though we'd stolen some clothes from a Goodwill and dressed like they did. We heard this White Priest speak about the Will of God, and I realised his god was also a Pimp. I asked my friend about this, and she said Yes. The White Man's god is usually a Pimp and to beware of anything white men teach.

No woman is the only battered woman or the only raped woman or the only incested girl. No woman is the only one owned by a Pimp or rented by a Procurer. And if the Preacher is white, beware. For he speaks only of Pimp-the-Father as the one and only god. I don't think white men know G-d at all. I only know about Her because she whispers to me often. She always did but I had to stop listening once the Pimp took me and began to brainwash me. Her voice and his couldn't co-exist in me. So only when his voice was gone, and the memory of it got quieter in my head, Her voice could be heard again. She spoke of Freedom and Love. And she spoke of the importance of feeling rage and learning to say No to men.

There are people wandering the Earth who have been told by other Pimps and Preachers that it is ok to treat women like what they think of as dirt. And they do hideous things to people who they get control of, often teens who are desperate and hungry. Or those children who were told they'd have a better life. If only their parents knew. If only they knew. But maybe it is better that they not know. Their choices are limited once the White Man takes over your economic system, your culture, and tells you your history isn't right or accurate.

The other day I was walking the street looking for any boys who seemed lost. My friend was out looking for girls and women. When possible we tried to get to them before the Pimps did. And what I saw was another miracle: that boy who replaced me in the Procurer's house was doing the same thing I was! He had Life in his eyes, pain and rage. He was part of another safe house. We embraced and we cried. I hadn't cried in a long time. It felt good.

He told me his story. He'd been raised by a white Preacher who incested him and also seasoned him too. But he did something I didn't know you could do. One day, while his Father-Preacher-Pimp slept, he took a knife and stabbed him in his cold, corrupt heart. And then he ran away. And now he was as free as he had ever been in his life.