Dina Leah is in the booth with Ruth, talking about her traumatic life as a teenage runaway, surviving sexual exploitation and rape. This is a very emotional interview, filled with sexual PTSD triggers. I can’t even read it myself without trembling and crying.
What inspired you to write about sexual exploitation?
I was inspired to write about sexual exploitation because of my experiences as a teenage runaway who was forced to rely on sexual favors in order to obtain the necessaries of life: food, shelter, safety from the violence of the streets and from other predators, even a place to take a shower, a ride to another town, a job.
Unfortunately, even the men who offered me shelter did not always accept “just” sexual favors in return for creature comforts, but sometimes demanded deviant acts or even violently raped me, even though I would have willingly given them sex.
Sex was so much the currency of my life that I didn’t even think about it. I just assumed that this was the price of my independence from an abusive home. Unfortunately, the price I ultimately paid was not just counted in physical trauma…
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