Why a prostitute finds Jesus

Earlier last year, an old friend asked me a question.

She noticed my praise of Jordan Peterson and asked me why there seemed to be no middle ground with me. She noted how I had taken a hard position trying to justify the destigmatization and full decriminalization of escorting for many years. Then, she said, it seemed like I’d suddenly taken a hard position, holding an opposing view that included radical truth and Jordan Peterson (which would ultimately lead to Jesus Christ). She confronted me to say there didn’t seem to be a middle ground with me - implying my behaviour was erratic, unstable, and perhaps unhealthy. I can’t speak to her motivations for confronting me beyond seeming annoyed.

I let the comment slide, but it stuck in my mind. My old friend wasn’t wrong. There was a stark contrast between the value and ideological structure I had previously held and the one I had moved into. At the time, I couldn’t explain ‘why’ to her…

Why was I so motivated to defend my involvement in voluntarily choosing prostitution?

Why was I so adamant about being high truth and focused on Jesus now?

Why didn’t it seem like there was a middle ground with me?

Today, I can.

Today, I would tell her the gravity of my choices left me outside the mediocrity of an average level of existential dread and moved me into unbearable spiritual suffering at warp speed. I’d tell her it’s likely she may be living in the green - she hadn’t colossally f**ked up in life and destroyed her soul in such a grave way as to require spiritual healing to the same magnitude. She didn’t seem to hold the same dire impetus for truth-seeking to endure being alive for another day like me. (I think most people have a story that would break your heart, but for whatever reason, some people are curious and seek answers, and others do not).

This diagram is an illustration of an idea. It’s not an absolute.

In short, without deeply soul-destroying experiences, it’s easy to overlook the spiritual war of good versus evil in which we exist. When a person is severely traumatized or in danger or near death, etc, it’s easier to find Jesus. It’s not the only way, though I think it’s common. Rock Bottom is a great place to find Him. Often, He only seems to get the time of day when things go catastrophically wrong in someone’s life.

I never paid attention to religion before. When people spoke about God, my ears tuned out as though they were speaking a language I didn’t understand. I was raised by strictly atheist parents who prized science and academia. I was not allowed to learn about religion, and specifically not about Jesus Christ and Christianity, because of all the evil people have committed in His name. The ironic part being that Jesus Christ himself had a bad experience with deeply religious people – they murdered him. There is a world of difference between God and what people do in the name of God. It’s only because I hurt in ways I couldn’t understand, explain, or heal that I listened to spiritual explanations for the pain I couldn’t see but felt crippled by on a daily basis.

Prostitution (and arrangements and OnlyFans) were so dark and evil that I needed to work overtime to convince myself (and others) that it was not a harmful mistake but an empowered choice.

I needed to prove it every day. To justify it for the sake of my sanity. I could only continue to sell sex and counterfeit intimacy voluntarily with a smile so long as I could successfully argue it wasn’t depraved, evil, and destroying my soul – just to earn money.

In an article I published on April 11, 2022 I wrote the story of how I discovered Jordan Peterson. Read it here. Jordan Peterson was the catalyzing moral figure that led to my commitment to telling the truth. For a woman who had built a life of lies (because the truth seemed unsafe), that decision began a radical reorientation of my life.

The quest for truth inevitably leads to Jesus Christ.

Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” – John 18:37

I think God opened my eyes, or perhaps I considered His potential existence with an open heart and critical thought for the first time because I committed to telling the truth (and accepting the avalanche of consequences). I can never repay Him for the blessing He has given me in removing the scales from my eyes. I don’t deserve it. People search for a lifetime for the privilege of finding and knowing the truth. Deeply knowing. I don’t know why He saved me or why I get to know He is real. I can only praise, obey, and glorify Him by telling others.

Back to my story.

Only once I discovered the truth - that Jesus Christ is real and alive - could I accept the darkness. Identifying the source of light made it safe to allow my real thoughts about how evil and dark prostitution was.

I needed a framework of good and evil in the world and the human soul to make sense of what I’d experienced.

Without Jesus Christ, the temptation to distort the truth into something more palatable and less dark becomes extremely attractive. That changes with Jesus - no more lies are needed to cope.

Life itself doesn’t have meaning without Him, and that’s what led to my original consideration of prostitution as an acceptable solution to financial desperation. Not knowing He existed is why I fell so deeply into the void.

I don’t know how women who don’t believe in God manage to exit the sex industry. I think it’s possible. Though, I personally struggle to understand how that would have lasted for me. There would’ve been no point in trying to live a different life. No reason not to resign myself to my miserable life, trying to make the best of it as I waited for death and telling myself pretty little lies about not hating it, etc.

It is the fact that I exist in a reality in which God has made me for a specific purpose, for a specific mission with specific gifts and talents out of love that gave me hope and made me exit the industry with faith in a future that made me want to be alive.

I exist solely because of how deeply loved I am by the God who made me (same as you, reader) and He finds prostitution to be an abomination of His beautiful design of human sexuality and the human soul - it was like a weight off my shoulders because it sounded so true. I could finally breathe. The bad thing is bad! Yes. Finally. Truth.

Without this framework of good and evil in the world - it’s source and it’s antidote - coming to the conclusion that I was doing a bad thing would have been an intolerable amount of mental distress and suffering. Not to mention, it would require building an entirely new life from scratch when I could never blot out those 8 years spent in the sex industry. Why would I do that? What would be the reason? How would I recover? How would I survive?

But, as soon as I learned God is real and Jesus exists – combatting the darkness became possible. Not only was it possible, but Christ wins. In fact, He’s already won. His victory need only be claimed by each individual. In Christ, we are made new creations. We are not defined by our mistakes or our past. Once sins have been forgiven, they are forgotten. Christianity is uniquely equipped with hope.

Jesus made it possible for me to admit how much I hated my life, how deeply I felt traumatized and violated, how stuck and full of nihilistic despair I felt. Without him, I would have gone insane if I had allowed the gravity of those truths into my conscious mind without a saving grace. Or I would have become an even bigger addict (alcohol to cope in my case), or I would have kept trying to take my life until I succeeded, etc. How on earth was I expected to want to keep living after voluntarily doing that to myself hundreds of times? (Letting random men pay me for sex, alternate identities, lies, and more. It was too ugly to want to keep living, so there was a lot on the line for me as a prostitute.

I needed to be able to justify my actions - past and present. I chose to focus on how I was a good person overcoming a bad situation through resilience and grit. How choosing prostitution was a noble sacrifice. I exerted a lot of effort turning my reality into a positive thing - making the best of it because there were worse things in life. Other people had it worse. I made the best of a bad situation, and how dare anyone judge me or stigmatize other resilient women who could endure this lifestyle and secure financial freedom independently?

Shame on anyone who stigmatizes oppressed, vulnerable workers!

It was a completely twisted value system of what is righteous and what is not.

It was a completely twisted way of looking at good and evil, where to place value, and why. Defending the sale of sex and counterfeit intimacy is a twist away from the good into excusing the evil.

It is being morally and spiritually blind – in a nutshell.

It was deciding for myself what was good or evil, and that evaluation was based on me trying to make money so I could survive, not on whether my behaviour was harmful to myself or others or society objectively. It was not based on the objective right thing to do.

The anger I felt was justified – though it was misplaced when directed at ‘society’ for stigmatizing prostitution. The anger didn’t belong against ‘capitalism’ or ‘the system’ – those are factors that influence different people to different extents. The anger rightfully needed to be directed at the source of lies that I was believing.

Where had all my confusion come from?

Where had all the lies come from?

Well, the Father of Lies.

Acknowledging that there is no excuse for the mistakes we make in life is a hard pill many refuse to swallow. I think the evils many of us commit are understandable, considering the society we grew up in. It’s understandable, not excusable. We have an obligation to act in a moral manner; every decision matters and is counted. Each of us has a purpose for being alive and a heavenly father who loves us so much He died for us.

Jesus Christ is a man who died for the truth out of love.

Can’t think of a better person’s life to model yourself on, even if you don’t believe he rose from the dead three days later. Many who don’t believe Christ is Lord still acknowledge Him as one of the best philosophers known to man.

Once a person is awake to the truth, there are certain tell-tale signs that act as a tip-off to where one might find truth.

It is likely to find truth where there is a significant amount of hatred.

People hate the truth.

Ultimately, because it is a call to repentance.

Repentance requires a radical reorientation. A turning away from making yourself a God who gets to decide good from evil. Instead, it’s a choice to adhere to objective morality and submit to God’s natural law. These changes require significant, ongoing work for the rest of one’s life. An unappealing, oppressive thought to those who don’t see the value in Jesus, the truth, or both. But nothing more meaningful or rewarding has ever existed or will ever exist. In Christ, we are made free. The freedom we have been taught is desirable by the world (making a high income as a prostitute as a primary example) is a deadly lie. That’s a post for another day.

So, in short, if you want a different life – if you want to be set free, start seeking and telling the truth.

Choose to be selfless instead of selfish in all things to the best of your ability. Seek forgiveness when you mess up. The rest will take care of itself in time. Our lives are made up of the aggregate of small choices we make every day. It’s in those small, daily choices that change is made.

Never underestimate the power of the simple act of telling the truth.

Friends, praying costs nothing, and the benefits are priceless.

Pray to God for the grace to see the truth if you’re having trouble telling right from wrong.