I am a survivor of child sex trafficking- specifically a child porn ring. I am also a sex worker. I want to talk about why the current hysteria around child sex trafficking actually causes more harm than good... [a thread] CW: everything.

I want to start out by saying this problem is oftentimes so INCREDIBLY complicated for survivors, that it took me 15 years to even realize it happened! I knew I had been raped by a man that was 10 years older than me, but I thought he was my boyfriend.

I never walked a street corner, I never made any money, and I never did anything against my will. I was not a "child sex slave". What is even more insane is that everyone in my small town knew it was going on, and chose to ignore it. How does this happen!?

Through GROOMING, GASLIGHTING, and MANIPULATION. My abuser met me through AIM when I was 11, and just wanted to be my friend. He told me he was 18, he had been to my basketball games, and he was honestly really hot. He knew I had been molested previously by my step dad, and...

my mom was in a drunken coma most days. After talking for a year, I snuck out of my house to meet him. I had a crush on him. He raped me within the first 10 minutes I was there. I was 12, and had never had sex before. Honestly after the rape everything got fuzzy.

I was hurt and tried to break it off with him, but he wouldn't let me. *Even though he had raped me, he was also the only one that knew what happened and comforted me.*. I fell in love with him. I told him I would do anything for him. THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENS.

We began video taping every time we had sex, he called me "his little porn star". Even though I was in love with him, he never treated me well (probably because he was a sociopath and the true embodiment of evil, but I digress). He told me when I was 18 we would be together.

This went on for a year before he introduced me to another girl, she was 15. When I went to her house she told me everything, that she thought he was her boyfriend. I was furious. What happened next is the hardest part of this story for me to tell...

He told me he needed my help bringing in other girls, and that if I did I would be his *favorite*. Now that I knew there was competition I wanted to be his favorite. So at 13 I began recruiting other girls. I had so much rage that I didn't care if other girls got hurt like me.

At one point I knew of at least 15 other girls he was working and video taping, and I personally brought him 6 more. Now I am 14, and he asked me to find him girls under 10... it finally hit me. This dude is a pedophile. Turns out he was 23. I left him.

Suddenly the reality of what I had done and the harm I had caused hit me. I have tried to kill myself multiple times over the things he told me to do, and the hardest part to live with- was that I did them on my own free will. I was a CHILD, so you can't technically consent...

While all of this was happening I was falling apart. Grades plummeted, cutting myself, doing drugs, and when I finally told 1 person that I had "an older boyfriend" I was labeled the town whore. My parents knew, teachers knew, HIS FAMILY KNEW, and no one did anything.

I was so traumatized by him raping me, that the relationship, the video taping, the recruiting, didn't even matter because of this one huge event- and that's what he wanted. It was not until Cyntoia Brown talked about her experience with sex trafficking that it finally hit me.

It took me 5 years before I could say I was raped. It took me 10 years to admit that I had helped him. It took me 15 years to realize I was playing his game all along. He has never been to jail, and still follows me on every account I create to let me know he's watching me.

THIS IS WHAT SEX TRAFFICKING LOOKS LIKE. Sure, there are child sex slaves out there, but the reality is so much more complicated than that. I was so traumatized and complicit with his behavior I wouldn't even admit to being raped, so how can you prosecute someone like that?

So please, when you say #notmychild I hope you are PHYSICALLY checking in on every kid in your life, not posting some bullshit conspiracy theory. SEX TRAFFICKING HAPPENS AT HOME. It starts in your backyard. It is people you know.

It is an incredibly complicated problem that becomes a mess when you learn that most victims don't even realize it's happening because they think are "just doing it for love". It starts with broken homes, not your kid being abducted in a freakin parking lot.

I was able to regain my power through consensual sex work as an adult, and used it to heal most of my wounds with men. I created a whole coaching business around healing from trauma because I know how hard it is to wake up every day living with this shit. I want to heal us all.

When you play into hysteria around child sex trafficking, you hurt actual victims of child sex trafficking because they think that it only looks like "abducted child sex slavery". It doesn't. It harms consensual adult SWers with laws disguised to "help the children" They don't.

If you really care about stopping child sex trafficking, you should TALK TO YOUR KIDS, if something seems off it probably is. You should monitor their online usage ( I was recruited on the internet). This is something WE need to do, not the government. They don't care.

LOL okay #notmychild is about kids going back to school, whoops. I still stand by my original point even though I used the wrong hashtag .

Also! The foster system is one of the biggest places trafficking starts. If it is the community’s job to help these kids...and they don’t have a community, they are extremely high risk. If you care about helping the most vulnerable children, please support Foster System Reform.

To those asking me to name him or prosecute, please respect my choice not to. I have had to live with the guilt of this choice for the last 15 yrs. I did try to go to the cops once, and they said it wouldn’t be worth it and my status as a SWer would be weaponized against me .