The face behind the window pane was solemn, yet the eyes were intent. She was the lure, her eyes focusing on the target. Who was she, and did it really matter? Was her target worth the physical and emotional risk? Did the monetary reward relieve the psychological affects? So many questions ran through my mind as I viewed the girl in the window, young and pregnant. I wondered what experiences (or non-experiences) in her life were the contributing factors that attracted her to this place where money was to be earned through sexual gratification, void love. The place was Amsterdam’s Red Light District, the year 2000, and the girl still remains a mystery, but the questions still linger.
Prostitution is a profession of the ages. As some professions come and go, prostitution has and will always remain a part of life. As I looked at the young, pregnant girl in the window, I thought about the person and not the profession. I thought about the fact that she was someone’s daughter, and she was soon to become a parent herself. I also thought about the point in one’s life when the decision making process can go horribly wrong. As children, many have dreams of their professions in adulthood. Some dream of being doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, architects, I can go on forever, but at what point in one’s life does prostitution become the dominant choice? I wish I had the opportunity to talk with the girl in the window. Knowledge of her past, her motivations, and her desires, may alleviate my ignorance and provide me with an understanding of who she was.
My daughter was fifteen years old when we were strolling through the Red Light District. Her questions were direct with a sympathetic tone. She felt such sadness when viewing the girl in the window, and was astonished to see that she was at least six months pregnant. Why is she here Mom? What will become of the baby? What makes a person decide to take this route in life? I wish I had the answers. I wondered if we had the privilege of questioning the girl directly, would she even know the reasons for her presence in the window. One may ask why I decided to expose my daughter to the seedy side of life. As a child of privilege: private academies, upscale neighborhoods, world travel, overprotective parents, and extremely attentive and loving maternal and paternal relatives, I felt that she needed a “wake-up call” from life. Life does not always afford privilege, and knowledge of all facets of life is an education that may protect many from falling into a trap. If we are only exposed to the good side of life, without any knowledge of the bad that exists, we may find ourselves caught up in situations that we had no intention of becoming involved in.
The girl in the window, I think, as I reflect, could very well have been a child of privilege, an academic, from a loving family. There are a number of things that may have happened in her life, things that paved the way to Amsterdam. From statistical information about the background history of prostitutes it is known that “90% of prostitutes suffered childhood sexual abuse, often incest, and 70% believed that being sexually abused as children influenced their decisions to become prostitutes” (About.com). It is also known that many runaways become involved in prostitution, and there have been cases of intellectually sound students prostituting themselves to obtain money to provide tuition payments.
Now that I am aware of some of the statistics pertaining to the background history of prostitutes, I wonder if the girl in the window was a victim of child abuse, and the affects of her abuse sent her spiraling into the depths of prostitution. Maybe she was a runaway who fell into the trap of an overpowering pimp. Possibly she was an intellectually sound student who used her body to afford tuition payments. Quite frankly, however, she may have clearly chosen prostitution for the sake of the profession itself. I will never know the reasons why the girl became a prostitute. I will also never know if her reasons to prostitute were due to self-determination, and had nothing to do with being victimized as a child. “Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism, not somebody else’s” (Ridley 525). To observe the girl in the window could very well be the observance of her free will, and her determination to prostitute because of her own choice and not because of past experiences or someone else’s forcible expectations.
What I have come to believe about the girl in the window is that her profession as a prostitute, like any other profession in life, is a matter of choice. Even though the girl, six months pregnant, behind the window in Amsterdam’s Red Light District, was upsetting and unnerving to me in every possible way, and touched an emotion in me that has been unable to subside for years, I cannot excuse the fact that she made the choice.
Right or wrong, abuse or not, she made a choice, and maybe it is her choice that has made her so unforgettable to me, and not so much her presence.
Works Cited
About.com.: Women’s Issues. “Prostitution Statistics.”
http://womenissues.about.com/od/violenceagainstwomen/a/prostitutestats.htm
Ridley, Matt. Free Will: The Conscious Reader. Shrodes, Shugrue, DiPaolo, Matuschek
Pearson Education Inc., 2006.
