This is the text of  Rebecca Mott's speech on the What's wrong with prostitution?" panel at Feminism in London 09.

This is dedicated to Anthony Mott, my father, who died in January 2009.

I was shocked and amazed to be asked to speak by Feminists in London. This is because it is rare that exited prostituted women to be given a voice in the public arena.

I speak as a prostituted woman - not as a sex worker, not as a happy hooker. I will speak of some of my experiences. For my reality was not rare, but rather it was a common tactic of the sex trade to control prostituted women and girls.

To understand the reality of that time, I need to take you back inside who I was then.

I want you to imagine that you were me. Do not think of it happening to someone far away. Do not view the reality with detachment or with pity. Imagine being so dead inside that you cannot care what happens to your body.

Know that, and begin to know what is wrong with prostitution.

Imagine being 14-years-old. Not a happy 14-year-old, no she was dead long before she enter the sex trade. Imagine her standing in a queue waiting to enter a club. Not a normal teenage club, no a club where after midnight under-aged girls get in free. Not a normal club, no it is where men ten, twenty and thirty years older than the girls, they sit separate and just stare at the girls. Not a normal club, as the girls sit by the bar, not being allowed to talk or move.

Imagine you are there. Tell me you would not block out reality. You would refuse that you are being prostituted. No, you are young, you do not see beyond the free drinks. You learn to pretend that it is sophisticated.

Only let's see who those men really were. Let's see what this club was catering for.

To see that, I must take you back to my first night in prostitution. Know that this was just the beginning of many years of prostitution.

Know that although I may of exited when I was 27, the torment of being prostituted has never left me. Exiting is a lifetime journey, not a destination. I exited because I was slowly learnt to care about wanting to live, and once that seed is planted into your head, prostitution becomes unbearable.

Know that the violence becomes so common that it all folds into one mass. There are no soft ways to know that time.

That is what is wrong with prostitution.

To know that time, you must know what it is to live in a body that does not belong to you. Even before being prostituted, you had been mentally and sexually abused in your own home. You had learnt that your body belonged to others - others who treated your body as their personal sex-toy. Know that having feelings was a luxury that you could not imagine. All that was before you were prostituted. Then you have become the type of girl that the sex trade wants. For then, you will be easy to brainwash and manipulate.

To know prostitution, you must enter some very dark places. On that first night, I was gang-raped. That was the test to see if I was suitable material for prostitution. When I say I was gang-raped, it was many gang-rapes over several hours.

Imagine queues of men raping you everywhere, inside every hole in your body. Imagine that it seems endless. Imagine that you go in and out of consciousness.

Then imagine that you don't, cannot care. Haven't you learnt long ago, that your body is there to be damaged. That you have no right to say no. That your purpose is to service men in any and every way they can think of.

That is what is what is wrong with prostitution.

Prostitution is where any man can perform their porn fantasies on real women and girls. In my life, my body was forced into whatever was fashionable with porn. I knew "Deep Throat", without seeing one clip. I knew as I was chocked, I knew as I was made sick, I knew as I lost consciousness. I knew as johns forced their penises to the back of my throat.

Anal sex is a constant in porn. Johns love it because it is unnessacary, and often causes the woman or girl a great deal of pain.

Imagine being forced against the wall, legs together, hand on your throat - then you are anally raped. That is the kind of thing that many johns think they have the right to do.

That is what is wrong with prostitution.

Johns know that they can do any violence to prostituted women and girls - knowing that the majority of our society will refuse to care.

After all, it cannot be rape if the man has paid for it. I so would love that this view was just came from the users and producers of the sex trade. No, it is a common view of the Left and too many feminists. This excuse makes any and all violence done to prostituted women and girls invisible, or of very little importance.

It is so much easier to speak of happy hookers or sex workers. Speak of women who appear in charge of their own working environment. Do not see or speak of the reality, where the vast majority of prostituted women and girls are traped by the sex trade.

By refusing to see the constant violence that is prostitution, feminists and the Left are betraying a whole mass of women and girls.

As an exited prostituted woman, I have often felt incredably let down by feminists choosing to ignore the mental, the sexual and the physical torturing that is prostitution. Instead, too many feminists will believe the illusion spoken by sex workers of making the work environment safer. There no speech of having basic human rights. All talk of abolition as an long-term plan is blocked out.

This is an abandonment of prostituted women and girls.

If feminism is serious about tackling male violence, it must listen and hear the voices of exited prostituted women. Do not speak over their voices. Do not say that they are misguided about their own realities. No, learn to listen with a open mind.

After all, these are women have been raped on an industrial scale. They have known of sexual torture, they know the lies that men tell to make their violence invisible. They know what it is to live with violence so long that they had to lose all feelings.

Prostituted women and girls are on the coal-face of male violence.

That is what is wrong with prostitution.

Rebecca Mott, October 2009