“YOU ARE THE WORK OF GOD, AND HIS WORK IS WHOLLY LOVABLE AND WHOLLY  LOVING.”                         A Course In Miracles (T,9)  

Twenty women sat fidgeting on folding chairs as I called their names.  There was one absent.  Her name was listed on the court manifest as Ruby.

The door opened with a loud bang.   A huge African American woman - over six foot - 350  pounds with a wild mop of bleached blond hair, stomped up to me in the front of the room.  She thrust the papers she was holding angrily into my face.  They read UNHOOKED AND FREE - A self esteem class for women.

Hey, you old white lady, who are you to fucking tell me I got no self esteem?

The room became silent.  She continued before I could answer…

Isn’t that what you call this mother-fucking class?

Yes, I answered.  But, I personally did not tell you that you had no self esteem.  That’s just what the court calls this class.  Why don’t you just sit down now so we can get started.

And what if I refuse to stay?

If you leave, I have to mark you absent and the judge will issue a warrant for your arrest. The court mandated you into this program.

Okay.  I’ll stay but you’re not getting another word out of me.  Don’t ask me to participate or say one fucking  thing.  You and your court got no right to tell me what to do with my own body.  I’m proud to be a whore.  I got all the self esteem I need.

Ruby noisily pulled a folding chair to the very back of the room and opened a magazine.
 
“UNHOOKED AND FREE” was a rehabilitation program for prostitutes. Like Ruby, they attended reluctantly, to say the least.  Some of them came to the evening meetings already dressed for work - wearing garish makeup - outfitted in hot pants, bright pink tights, low-cut T-shirts, dangling earrings, high heels.  I  heard remarks in the hall outside like, “What kind of shit is this?” and “Another do-good program.  What’s the use?” and “Well, it’s only 2 hours, three times.  It’s better than jail.”

Some of them were even more openly irate.  They had been mandated by the judge into this rehabilitation program and had not taken the order seriously.  When they didn’t appear a few months back, a warrant had been issued for their arrest and they had been sent to jail. They were not happy with being in the class which had been the reason for their latest incarceration.

Judge Ted Kowalski, now retired, presided over a courtroom which handled misdemeanor offenses.  One of the common cases which came before him, because of the area of the city to which he was assigned, was “soliciting” by these young women.
These were not sophisticated call girls who operated from plushy apartments and work on appointment.  These were the street girls who stop cars in certain areas of the city to offer their services.  Regular customers know where they congregate but they are not organized.  They don’t have pimps. Because everyone who happens to be in their “territory” is fair game, they tie up traffic and outrage the new residents who have gentrified the area.  Their standard sales pitch to a prospective customer is, “How wudja like to cool off with a blow job?”

And they come through court, many of them weekly, as if it were a revolving door. They are fined, assigned to overworked social service people and spend many days in jail.  They are young.  They are pretty. They are mothers who are heartbroken because they have lost custody of their children. Most have been taken away because of neglect.  And 99% of them are drug addicts.  Their babies have also been born addicted.

One day, very frustrated with the situation, Ted said to me, “Why don’t you take them and teach them A Course In Miracles? I’ll mandate them to come to you.”

He wasn’t kidding.  And in a wild impulsive moment, I agreed to do it. To facilitate a class.  It was the first program of its kind in the country.

We had one big problem. Legally, you cannot mandate anyone into a spiritual program.  I had conducted a study group in Cook County Jail on A Course In Miracles, but the men volunteered to come.  They weren’t obligated to attend.  This was different.

So we had to figure out how to present A Course In Miracles in a form where we would use the principles without mentioning any Higher Being.  The course is not a religion.  It is a spiritual thought system based on love and forgiveness.  We decided to use it to design a “self-esteem” program geared to their needs. Looking back on this early conversation is pretty funny because I had never even spoken to a prostitute. I had no idea what their life problems or needs were.  And, it certainly never occurred to me that, in some ways, we are all prostitutes.  We all do things we don’t want to do to get something.

What I did know, from studying the Course, was to not judge them.  I did have to abide by one rule though.  Ted said that since I was holding this class in a police station, and in conjunction with the court system, that I could not announce, “I don’t think you are doing anything wrong!”

But I did come in with the mentality that what they were doing involved their bodies, not their minds.  That every person is either asking for love or extending it.  These women, as indicated by their behavior, were asking.  I turned to my Higher Power to help me extend love. I didn’t know how to do it.  But He did. And the very girls who were mandated to the program helped Him.

This is the story of the program which evolved.
I started each class with the same statements.  I told them I am not a cop.  I don’t work for the court. Or the Probation Department.  Or Social Service.  Nobody pays me.  I come here because I want to be here. I also will not try to convince them to give up prostitution.  But I stressed they were playing a losing game. The police are out to get them off the streets. But, it is up to them.

I go on to say that  nothing that is said in the class will go on their record.  Nothing will be repeated, using their name, out of this room.  And they have the same obligation.. There is a requirement on them.  They must agree that they will not repeat anything that is said here out on the street.  Otherwise, nobody will feel safe. It will be a waste of time if no one is telling the truth.  This must be a place where we can say what we want, freely, without being judged or quoted.

This was something new to them - this sisterhood.  I became aware that these young women were not friendly to each other outside.  They were competitors - for the same cars - the same customer.  On the same corner. If anything, they were involved in discrediting each other.  They would scream at a prospective client, “Don’t go with her. She’s a whore! She has AIDS!  Go with me!”  This was definitely not polite society. Nobody played fair here.

Surprisingly, they agree to the terms. As the group progresses, unbelievably, they started to help each other. Someone always has had experience with finding housing, public aid, food stamps or a special person, in a position of authority, who is empathetic.  I think back to what my wise mother used to say.  She told us if you throw people onto their best behavior, they usually rise to the occasion.  She was right.  Even here.
 
What I didn’t know is that no one had ever listened to them before.  They had never been asked before who they were - what they wanted out of life - what their early dreams had been and what their problems were today. They had never been invited to express themselves. Not ever.

And they were anxious to be heard. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about the form for this class.  The girls designed the curriculum themselves.  All I had to do was listen.  They laid it out in their conversations.

This is what they taught me about themselves.

The prostitution was only the top layer.  The steam off the kettle.  It was a symptom of the problem.  They hated the work and they hated themselves for doing it. Any illusion that they are nymphomaniacs vanished after hearing them talk. They didn’t even enjoy sex with their boyfriends or husbands.  They said they were turned off from the waist down.  They bragged about how good they were at faking orgasms.  One young woman said that the famous diner scene from When Harry Met Sally was nothing compared to what she could conjure up. And this talent was important because it inspired faster response from the men they were servicing.  If the customer climaxed faster, they could handle more “dates.” Get them done quickly so you can get back on the street as fast as you can.

Under that was the good money they earned at this job.  A dangerous job.  Their lives were in jeopardy every minute they were with a “trick.”  They usually did not know who the man was or what would happen. They had been bound and gagged, beaten up, knifed, thrown out of moving cars, bones broken.  Prostitutes are found dead in dumpsters all the time.  These crimes are not always reported in the press.

But the job paid well for the hours spent. Oral sex sells for $20 to $30. They do about 10 men a night.  Regular sex is negotiated on a per job basis.  Between $50 and $200 according to how weird a request happens to be.

Here they had “rules” that they prided themselves on.  There were things they would not do. Each woman had a different standard - a feeble, private moral code. A group member offered that she would not allow a man to undress her.   She didn’t want him touching her that much.  Another added that in a threesome, she would not play the lesbian role with the other woman.  Not for any money.

It fascinated me that almost every woman ruled out kissing.   They would do almost everything but kiss.  That was too personal.

The next layer was the drugs.  They were addicted to at least one and sometimes several substances. Many of the women lived in a abusive and addictive relationship with a man whom they were also supplying with drugs. These alliances were explosive because the boyfriend would shift from extreme jealousy of the men who were the customers - to rage if they did not earn enough money to buy the drugs. They had combined habits of $300 to $500 a day.  As one woman said, “I got expenses.”

One day I asked the group which came first - the prostitution or the drugs?  A petite Hispanic woman answered, “The drugs come first.  And then the prostitution.  You need the money to buy the drugs. But you need the drugs to be a prostitute.  Do you know how horrible it is to have a strange man touch your body?  You got to be stoned.”
It made me realize that most women have a natural genetic tendency to be monogamous.  We are not predisposed to promiscuity.  It seems to be against our feminine nature. Including these women.

Terrible abuse and feelings that were shameful to remember were the next level.  The stories told were filled with violence from the earliest years. Physical and sexual abuse. Abandonment. Demonic rituals. Humiliation.  One thirty year old, a waif-like blond, said she had been a prostitute since she was four years old.  Her mother and father had been prostitutes. Eleven members of her family had been prostitutes.  She had been in porno movies from the time she had been a tiny child.  They gave her candy as a reward. She had known no other life.

Under here was aloneness.  A desperate loneliness.  The feeling that they are bad and that God had deserted them.  Desolation.  Hopelessness. Banishment.

A Course In Miracles indicates that we write our own script to learn our lessons. These women had been very ambitious in this lifetime.  They had come in to a classroom with the hardest, most advanced course. They were evidently determined to learn through the most extreme pain and degradation.

Here is part of their way back. This is what these beautiful Children of God, my prostitutes, indicated they needed. This is the curriculum based on the innocent sharing of their lives.  They really wrote it themselves.  We took their problems and combined them with the principles of A Course In Miracles.  Principles that include the knowledge that we are entitled to peace.  That we are worthy just the way we are. We are lovable and we are loved.

Please go to Part two for the program.

http://www.personal-growth-with-corinne-edwards.com/unhooked-and-free-the-program/