Hiiragi Sawa, “Common Scenarios, Common Men”

This piece is an English translation of a Japanese article posted on the blog of a Japanese survivor of prostitution, Hiiragi Sawa. It is published here with the author’s permission.

One time,

A man who’d booked me wanted to do some shopping on the way back to the room, so we ducked into a convenience store.

I trailed behind him with the basket he’d made me carry.

The store was cool, and I thought about buying myself a drink.

But, when we reached a spot out of sight of the checkout, he suddenly moved behind me and thrust his hand up my skirt, trying to slip his fingers inside my underwear.

I tried to move away in shock, but he grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Calm down, calm down,” he whispered, laughing.

It was so horrible I nearly cried out, but the thought of someone seeing me like that made my blood run cold.

I jammed the basket between us and wrenched my arm free.

I looked at him in disbelief, but he was still laughing.

“Got excited, didn’t you!”

There was a shelf of alcohol next to us.

I imagined smashing a whiskey bottle over his head.

One time,

I was in the elevator of a short-stay hotel with a man who’d booked me.

As soon as the doors closed, he grabbed my breasts and shoved his hand up my skirt.

“You’re already there,” he whispered, almost deliriously.

I tried to gently push his hand away without showing how shocked, yet fed-up, I was with this kind of thing.

What exactly did he mean, “already there”?

I felt his excited, foul breath on my face, and involuntarily turned away.

I struggled to keep my balance as his weight pressed up against me, my heels wobbling.

Many men behaved like this in elevators.

Because they were aroused, they seemed to want me to be too.

They wanted me to go along with their fantasies that couples did it in elevators because they couldn’t wait to get into rooms.

It was all a mimicry of scenes from manga, TV dramas, and porn.

For me, of course, there was nothing “already there” at all, and their movie lines and breathless theatrics that came out of nowhere were always a joke.

Their blind narcissism was puzzling.

Their shameless confidence in thinking they could hijack another person to turn their fantasies into reality always struck me as absurd and creepy, as well as dangerous.

In any case, it just reenacted porn.

Men want to skip all the necessary communication and getting consent that comes with real relationships, and just use money to skip straight to the “already there” lines and sex scenes.

They paid for the right to impose themselves on another person for porn play.

And so I was forced to become the muse of ridiculous and repulsive wannabe actors.

If nothing else, I wanted to escape having their dirty fingers inside me before they’d been washed with disinfectant soap.

I gently pushed his hand away again.

One time,

I found myself at a loss, standing in the doorway of a hotel room where I’d been sent.

Blocking my way was the man who’d made the booking―his tradesman’s shirt open, with an exposed bare belly and lower half.

He was demanding oral sex right there, with the door open, urging me to hurry up before anyone walked by.

I carefully chose my words of refusal.

“After you shower.”

“Just let me set the timer.”

“Once we’re alone in the room.”

“I don’t want anyone to see us.”

“We don’t want to cause trouble for the hotel.”

As I was refusing, I tried to step into the narrow entranceway and close the door.

Even though getting closer to him was the last thing I wanted to do.

In reality, I wanted to slam the door with a big bang and leave.

I was permitted the freedom to do that.

I had the freedom to refuse to do things I didn’t like.

I had the freedom to run away if I felt in danger.

But exercising these freedoms brought consequences I had to bear alone. I was just in a cage with a sign that said freedom.

It would put customer reviews and payments in jeopardy, and, beyond anything, there was no guarantee of safe escape if I was in danger anyway.

I needed the money, and running away just because of forced unsanitary oral sex in a doorway wasn’t realistic.

I was refusing sexual contact while moving closer to him for it.

This situation was nonsensical, utterly inexplicable.

Even more absurd than the behaviour of a man who waits in a doorway for a prostitute to give him a quick head job.

I felt nauseous.

At my plight: someone forced to fake a smile even though they felt so horrible they wanted to flee.

His repulsively bulging belly, body hair’s state, and pervasive odour.

The noisy porn on the big hotel room TV.

Having to accept almost unconditionally the entirety of this dirty, dangerous situation, like I was having my face pushed into a toilet.

Still, it wasn’t realistic that I would try to run away.

“Let’s shower first, then we can take our time and enjoy a bit of slow foreplay.”

I used my usual soothing line, already feeling like I was going to vomit.

Just another day as a practitioner of wonderful “sex work”.

Just another common man in the normal course of wonderful “sex work.”

Just another common scenario of “sex work” as a safety net for women in financial straits.

And these are just a few of the things sex traffickers want to remain invisible.