Returning Injury by Becky Due Page B

job because she wanted to deal with herother issues first. Later she would decide what to do about her career.

    Rebecca stood up and headed to her office. When she found the card, she looked at the ‘R’ on the front of the little envelope again. She tore the card in half and then in fourths and tossed it into her wastebasket.
    She went back into the living room and continued going through Angie’s work. Rebecca learned about how slick the pimps and traffickers were when targeting girls and young women. They were going into neighborhoods and malls in the Midwest and Every Town, USA, to groom girls and young women unknowingly into prostitution.
    Rebecca was thankful that she was young in a different time. Although during her high school years, she remembered being approached by a creepy man at the mall. “Could you try this shirt on for me? You are my wife’s size and I’d like to see how it looks.” One of the women who worked in the store overheard him and called the police. Rebecca was naive and didn’t know what was going on until her sister explained it to her. She also remembered a friend being offered fifty dollars for a blowjob outside of a restaurant. She wondered how everything got so out of control.
    Rebecca read about the rapes, addictions, suicides and murders of prostitutes. She learned about the devastating emotional damage and the degradation the women felt. She read about the education levels of men who use prostitutes, their marital status and the types of prostitution they use.
    She also learned that most men knew it was wrong to be with a prostitute, wouldn’t marry a prostitute, knew prostitutes were victims and knew prostitutes didn’t make a lot of money. And most men said it wasn’t okay for their daughters to be prostitutes or for their sons to use prostitutes. Most men knew that it wasn’t the prostitute’s choice to be a prostitute, but… most men wanted prostitution decriminalized.
    Rebecca wrote, “There is a definite disconnection in society about prostitution. Should men be convicted of violence against women, and women be given mandatory help? Clearly, these women are hurting and need help. Better education? Separate education for boys and girls about these issues? Whose fault is it when we are bombarded with sex every day? We have allowed the sex industry and violence against women to become acceptable, mainstream.”
    Rebecca tried to imagine herself using a male escort for sex. She pictured herself picking up the phone and ordering in a man to have sex with no strings attached. She fantasized there wouldn’t be strings attached, knowing there were always strings attached when it came to sex—justifying the morality of your own behavior, contracting a disease, breaking the law, hurting people, possibly being abused. Even if it were possible to have that type of exchange, Rebecca knew it was something she would never do. She would not feel good to use somebody that way, and she felt something was wrong with people who did whatever they wanted, just because they could. She felt it showed a lack of character.
    The wind continued to pummel the house, causing Lily to bark, so Rebecca decided it was a good time to pop in a DVD she found in Angie’s packet,
Prostitution: Beyond the Myths.
Rebecca had heardabout Bill Nelson, the director of this documentary, but she didn’t realize that he was Angie’s friend. He was from the Minneapolis area, and he worked to help women get out of prostitution. He always said that prostitution was not the oldest profession, but the oldest way to degrade and abuse women. He demonstrated that perfectly in his documentary.
    After watching the DVD, Rebecca stood up, stretched and headed to the laundry room to deal with the load of wash. She shoved the towels into the dryer and closed the laundry room door. She walked into the kitchen nook and looked out the large windows. It was dark outside and she couldn’t see anything, not the moon or a single