Layla

Me name is Layla and this is me story.

Hail the Princess

Me born in 1973, in small village called Cantagalo near Rio in Brazil. In those days, most of the people used to work in coffee plantations and sugarcane plantations. Yeah, me Pa worked his finger to the bone, and his hardwork allowed workin’ people coffee breaks in other parts of the world. I don’t know meself what Mom did, Pa neva’ wanted to talk ‘bout her work. Me house was bordering the big fields, and me love to walk around with Pa during sunsets. Mom and Pa don’t make much money then, so we grow up in small hut without light and water. But me still remember that shack fondly. The floor was red, we had one small window with yellow curtains. Pa often stand in front of the window to smoke. I loved Pa, I really did. Pa thought I was a princess, me don’t know why. I neva’ thought he was King, but he thought me princess. Called me Princess Layla. Irony was that this Princess didn’t have no pretty dresses, no throne to sit on. No bedroom of her own. No servants. This princess had a set of dolls that Pa bought her hopin’ to keep alive the illusion. He always spoke to the dolls and asked ‘em to follow the royal instructions that came from me side. And then he’d take the dolls and make a very funny doll voice at shout “Hail the Princess.”

Pa neva came back from work before sunset, and almost always with a bottle in his hand. I dunno what was inside that bottle, but he sure seemed to love it. But sometimes me thought he went crazy when he drank that thing. Must’ve been hell tasty – but mom didn’t allow me to try it. When dad went crazy, he fought with mom. Mom threw things at him, and me neva’ know why. She shouted bad words and say that she leaving home with me. But me don’t ever wanna go away from my pa. When pa wasn’t crazy, he showed me how to read English. Me neva’ liked English, but pa said if I learnt English, me don’t have to live like mom. He told me that princesses outta know that language, and soon when me gonna be a queen me come on television and speak in English. Pa had a way of explainin’ things to me – but me still remember the three things he asked me to remember – first, to be a good and honest girl, second – to work hard and third - to stay away from bad habits. When me ask Pa what bad habits mean he didn’t reply. He said – Princess, just remember these. And smiled. Pa taught me numbers also, and sometime when I learnt how to add ‘em, Pa left home for good. Me cried that night sittin’ alone outside the house.

Pa left when Mom was carrying me brother. I don’t know where Pa is today, but I miss Pa like hell. I miss being a princess. I miss the delusion that transformed my shack to a castle. I miss the unrealities. I miss his cigarette smoke. Adrian was born in three months time, but I neva’ moved on to learn subtraction.

The Man in the white hat

In the early 80s, we were a tiny little family, with Mom workin’ pretty hard for our eatin’. Adrian loved football, and me wanted to see Adrian play for me country sometime. He had that dream too, and me wanted to buy him good shoes coz he get hurt too often on the ground. Adrian played with the boys in the neighborhood, and me started working in a big house – cleanin’ the dishes and wipin’ the floor. Didn’t make much money outta that, but I was happy to help mom out.

There was some issue with the land we had where Pa used to work, and Mom had to surrender it to the community. Don’t know what happens there now, but me miss that part of my life, where me walk around uselessly on the fields. Mom said it aint a good idea for me to be walkin around anymore, because I was attainin puberty, and bad guys would wanna take me to be bed with ‘em. Was that one of the 3 things Pa warned me of? Me don’t know. Pa neva’ spoke about Mom’s work, but methinks me knows now. White people used to come to me house very late in the night, and Mom would ask us to sit outside on the steps till the white man left. Me and Adrian used to hear Mom scream inside, sometimes for very long. It was from her we first heard the word ‘fuck’, coz she used to scream that word pretty often. Me sat outside and hold Adrian really tight, and he cried on me shoulder. Maybe Mom didn’t know English, and that’s why she be screaming all night. Me hated sittin on those steps, waitin for that bastard to leave and we’d enter the house, see Mom crying naked with her hands coverin her face. These white people used to beat up mom every night. The house smelt of alcohol and cigarettes. Mom used to have scratch marks on her body, badly bruised. These men always left fixin their pants, and they’d always take off their shirt to beat Mom. But for some reason, they always left some money on the table. They paid mom to beat her nude. We used those Reals to eat food the next day.

But me know me didn’t wanna get beaten up so bad to get some money. Me decided to learn English again, but sadly there wasn’t no one to help me out.

Mom had an appetite for gettin beaten, and that scared me. Me remember this one night when there were four men – with bottles in hand and actin pretty crazy – stormed into me house screamin Maria (yeah, that was Mom’s name). Me told mom we weren’t leavin the house coz she would die if four men beat her black n blue. One of those men, and this guy was black, like me, took me and Adrian by our collars and pushed us out. I remember that night for 2 things, one – because Adrian started smoking that night (he was only 7) and two – because I looked through the keyhole to see if mom was alive.

Mom was a prostitute havin’ sex to pay for Adrian’s football boots and me food.

Me was 16 in 1989, and me slowly started feelin’ comfortable about English. Me decided what me wanna do in life…wanted to teach kids. In Rio and in Cantagalo, there were more bunnies who didn’t know no English nor Math. Those girls also cleaned their master’s homes and kept themselves alive. But not all of them were lucky enough to have a Pa to tell ‘em what to do. They lived in ivory towers, oblivious of the beautiful world around. Methinks I’d do a good job at primary school. In our part of the world, the girls either cleaned homes or posed nude in beaches. Me wanted our girls to look dignified, you know, like the white women. They dress up like the men do. In suits. They speak nice English, and drive good cars. We weren’t born any different, so me didn’t know why we had to tolerate this life for too long.

Mom had customers over every night, and I was big enough to walk around with Adrian outside in the market till those assholes left. In the marketplace, people used to play radio and some pretty fancy dancers be dancin’ to nice reggae. They call it Samba then. Me always take Adrian here, coz me see him smile when he here. We didn’t need to sit on those steps any more. We knew mom wasn’t gettin beaten up. She was just intercoursin’, and yeah, if me didn’t tell you already, me already hated her. There were bright lights in the marketplace, and right up to midnight there used to be hummin’ of human voices. Me loved it. Me checked out some shops there – some doll shops, and me remember bein a princess once. Adrian like goin to the toy car shop, but me never felt good bout it coz we neva had no money to buy him those. But just seein some people smile felt good, man, really did.

One night we came back to me home at around one in the morning, and found Mom sittin with a white guy who was smoking a cigar. He had a white hat on his head, and was in black denims. Me thinks they were waitin for us to come back, coz the man looked at me and gave me a smile. Mom had a fat bundle of notes in her hand, and a stream of tear rollin down her eyes.

“Layla, you’ll be workin with Mr Brown from tomorrow. He is takin you with him to America. You will have a good life – he’s gonna make you a movie star. You don’t need to live here no more. Be good to him. I’ll take care of AD. I’m puttin him in a soccer scout group, you don’t need to worry bout him.”

And with those words, me life came crashin down on me. I knew what kind of movies mom was puttin’ me up for. No, me didn’t wanna take this nonsense anymore. Me have a life, and me wanna live a good life, be a good teacher. Me don’t wanna get sold for visual pleasures. I know me family got no money, but me learnin English well. Pa would love to see me spend time with the kids in our village, helpin’ them become someone. Everybody looks happy in Brazil, but the dirty tapestry makes me shameful of who we are, where we come from. Me tellin’ you, me wasn’t born to live the degraded life of a ‘movie star’.

On November 17th ’89, mom sold me to Sean Brown, and I only looked at Adrian weepin and reachin his hand out to me, as I left the shack with the man in the white hat.

The Industry [Taken from a paper on ‘The Ethical Consumer’, in 2006]

Pornography is an enormous business, with estimated worldwide sales of over $57 billion.

Although costs are low, with most mainstream porn movies costing only $5-10,000 to produce, multinational corporations are involved in selling the end products, for instance through the pay-per-view channels available in many hotel chains or the distribution of pornographic DVDs and magazines.

Child pornography is the area which most concerns anti-porn campaigners and is most often considered in the context of abuses of the human rights of society’s most vulnerable members. Much child porn is produced by underground abuse networks and individuals and is separate from the kind of corporate responsibility concerns that EC deals with, although some internet service providers have been criticised for not acting strongly enough to close down child porn websites.

Sometimes, however, the lines are blurred, for instance in 2004 when Spearmint Rhino became the subject of controversy over the discovery that a 15-year-old stripper had been employed in its Birmingham lap dancing club, or when some tabloid newspapers are found to routinely run ads for sex telephone lines with slogans such as “take off my school uniform” and “virgin/teenager.”

Psychological experiments conducted in the 1980s suggested that repeated exposure to porn gave the male subjects more and more extreme tastes, caused them to be desensitised to the sufferings of rape and child abuse victims, and gave them inaccurate ideas of the commonness of extreme sexual practices.

The proliferation of ‘porn star’ t-shirts and a few big names like Jenna Jameson have created a myth of glamour around the porn industry. In reality, most porn movies are made cheaply, paying low wages once the costs of production are covered. In addition, the conditions under which some actresses work range from the dispiriting to the abusive.

In 1977, porn actress Georgia Stark told Newsweek that: “the first film I made was really a downer. Afterwards I started to think about suicide. But after a while I got so used to it I could do the Eleanor Rigby thing – you know, leave your mind in a jar by the door. Then I’d know I’m just an animal and they are taking pictures of an animal.”

As well as the abusive treatment of women in the porn industry, other health and safety issues exist. A series of high-profile porn star deaths from AIDS-related illness in the 1980s led to a general policy of frequent tests for actors, but the long incubation period of HIV means that this is not foolproof. Mainstream porn films rarely show condoms being used, and frequently include unprotected high-risk acts, endangering the actors and perpetuating the idea that safe sex is less arousing.

CaviarSpeak

Friends, the idea behind this post was not to pose as a moral policeman in a matter where I have, as much as any of you, been guilty of helping the industry grow exponentially. In fact, it must’ve been while watching one of those millions released every year when I was hit by the idea to know more about the social and environmental damage that it has on women. Actually, I don’t even know if there is a solution to this, where we can reduce the number of sex crimes being committed on some very regular girls like Layla. If nothing, let this go down as an attempt by the tainted caviar to increase awareness on a crime that is convenient for all of us to preserve, much like the diamond industry. In one industry, 90% of the victims are men and 90% of the consumers are women, while in the other it is exactly the other way around. But for men and women to survive in this world happily, I think it is fair to say that there’s lot of place for diamonds and lust.