WHEN Rachel Moran was 15-years-old she stepped into a car with a balding man in his forties. Her then boyfriend told him, “Take it easy: it’s her first time.”
It was 1987. Rachel was homeless after her schizophrenic mother had thrown her out. Her father, who had bipolar disorder, had committed suicide 18 months earlier.
As time progressed, she moved to a brothel and later took appointments in hotels, apartments and men’s homes. She worked in Limerick “on and off”for more then 12 months.
She ‘specialised’ in domination in order to avoid sexual penetration whenever possible. During her seven years as a prostitute, she was pimped out to thousands of men, many “wearing wedding rings and with baby seats in the backs of their cars.”
She has recognised former clients whose photos appeared in the paper after being convicted of rape.
Having spent a third of her life as a prostitute and with a young son to look after, Rachel managed to get away from the game in 1998, at the age of 22.
“A defining moment was trying to get off a bathroom floor in a high-end Dublin hotel after a cocaine overdose. I could see blood was running down my nose and the punter, a transvestite, sitting in the bed putting on tights and red lipstick. I just said I can’t die like this”.
In 2000, Rachel returned to education and completed a degree in Journalism at Dublin City University. She forfeited her anonymity to describe a life almost destroyed by sexual violence in her memoir ‘Paid For: My Journey through Prostitution‘ which had its regional launch at the Hunt Museum last Friday.
She hopes her book challenges many of the myths and the ‘Pretty Woman’ portrayal of prostitution.
“The truth is that prostitution is always an affront to human dignity. It is psychosexual bullying. Women in prostitution are not seen as equal humans. It is populated by people who have no other choice, girls so inured to sexual abuse that prostitution is the next logical step,” she said.
In conjunction with the Limerick-based migrant rights group Doras Luimní, Rachel is a prominent advocate of the Nordic model for tackling prostitution by targeting demand through legislation.
Last week an Oireachtas Committee on Justice Legislation made recommendations to make it an offence to pay for sex, yet not to penalise the prostitute.
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