The effects of surviving human sex trafficking and surviving predatory sexual violations coincide.
Trauma with an isolated event that may or may not lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may or may not lead to complex PTSD. CPTSD is the effect that repeated exposure to traumas that disturb the psyche can have. Trauma by itself may lead to a temporary state of disturbance, whereas untreated PTSD or CPTSD can last a lifetime.
After a trauma, it may be normal for a survivor to go through a temporary phase of high disturbance levels that come down gradually and disappear over time. Some of the effects of trauma may include invasive thoughts where the person is going through their everyday life, but finds that the events of what happened sneak into their thoughts against their will.
Ruminating thinking is the habit of these invasive thoughts staying for a prolonged period. The individual may become fixated on the Hypotheticals of what could have happened in a different way. Such as what may happen in the future, or what they could have done differently to avoid the event. Some fixate on the solutions to the issue, become hypervigilant about not letting it happen again, or run through solving the mysteries surrounding the event.
The human mind is built on survival when the trauma tells the body that it is in survival mode. There is very little difference in the results, whether survival was at hand or not. In other words, the body doesn’t know the difference between threats that directly threaten its ability to live or fear levels that are so high that it concludes that it may be close to death.
Being molested as a child, for example, can be debilitating, daunting, and entirely terrifying. Because a child is so small and the predator is presumably much larger, the level of perceived death can tell the body that its direct survival is at hand. Even more disturbing to the psyche can be threats made by a predator towards their victim that leaves the message don’t tell anyone or else. The “or else” can leave a blanket statement open to the mind to fill in the blanks with the worst-case scenario, which, to the body, can be even worse than a direct threat made good on its promise. The direct threat may be scary at the moment, but it concludes as the event concludes, the “or else” can tell the body that there are numerous attacks on the horizon and the effects can be even worse.
One of the effects of trauma is panic attacks. Panic attacks can be triggered by nearly anything related to the original event, which makes it harder to control. For example: If a victim was being raped, they may have had pressure on their chest and so when someone has difficulty breathing, it can act as a trigger to the event and ironically shorten the breath even more leading to a panicked breathing response that is only more triggering. Not all panic attacks are the same and not all physical or mental responses are the same for everyone. Some people suffer from shortness of breath, others have an unstable and panicked mind, while still others may go numb in various body parts. Trauma is tricky because the triggers are very hard to manage.
To make matters worse there is the issue of transference within trauma. Let’s say that a victim was attacked and while they were attacked they could hear the neighbor’s dog barking, the dog was barking at an ice cream truck that was going by. When we are in a traumatic event these scenery moments such as hearing the dog, a certain touch, or a triggering word are not processed correctly. The mind acts like an accordion to these scenery events and they do not get processed correctly.
As a result, the sensory overload is moved out of the way and the finite points of direct attack may be all that the body can process. Sometimes attacks are directly remembered other times even the event is blocked out as a means to survive. Trauma triggers then include transference so that a survivor could be feeling fine having moved on from the event but the second that they hear a dog bark or another ice cream truck by now they are completely triggered and effects. Usually, those triggers for the minor sensory details fail to be noticed as associated responses this leaves the victim feeling a lack of control of their responses and they feel more prone to reactions such as irritability, fear, anger, hypervigilance, defensiveness, sadness, or panic.
Flashbacks are usually a rare occurrence to traumatic events but they do happen. Flashbacks are not to be confused with merely remembering the events but can feel like they are back in the event itself. The victim may suddenly be panicked and react to events as if they were occurring in a time after the original event. Famously we think of military veterans hiding behind their couches for example believing that they are being opened fire upon when there is no current war going on. It is not so different after sexual attacks. Feelings of diminished self-worth or motivation towards life are a big downfall for many. Sometimes when a perpetrator treats their victims in a certain way the victim can then turn around and treat themselves that certain way as well. For example, they may experience an attempt to gain agency by becoming more hypersexualized in the way they act or seek attention.
Not all victims hide some put themselves back out there in an attempt to regain control over their sexual identity. Too often those who were knowingly pimped out involuntarily can then turn around and voluntarily engage in risky or exchange-based sexual behavior. Often these acts are then used to justify the trauma and claim that the victims were always into it when it is a conditioned trauma response that the predators capitalize upon.
In certain cultures where the sex industry is decriminalized or normalized say for example in Thailand, we see all sorts of justification by perpetrators about why it’s okay because their culture says it’s okay. My question to these perpetrators is that if it was free agency then money would not have to be involved. If, for example, a 20-year-old wanted to have sex with a 70-year-old they would do so without money. If money changes the outcome then it is a conditioned means of survival and not a sexually free culture.
The exchange does not have to be money, it can be any exchange that goes beyond just enjoying the sex act itself. For example, a predator may threaten the safety of their children if they do not acquiesce or, conversely offer them protection for having sex with them, again, if the gain goes beyond the sex act itself then it is inherently exploitative and there is no justification. There are exceptions to the rule, in cultures that legalize prostitution such as in one northern European country where 97% of prostitutes report feeling an increase in self-esteem because they have personal bodyguards, access to health care are regularly screened, are less societally condemned, and make a lot of money. I don’t know if the self-reported self-esteem has merit or not, as esteem is subjective I’d have to take their word for it but certainly had society not cradled their career they would not be feeling nearly as good about the event.
In most societies prostitution is illegal and because it’s illegal it means that the prostitute is not legally guarded which leaves them open to assault without any defense from the police or due process. Not wanting to lose their job or life most sex crimes against prostitutes go unreported as a result and overall the impact is therefore extremely negative. Some of the effects of suffering in the long term after prostitution include depression, feelings of worthlessness, anxiety, fear, suicide, and addiction these are the norm in most cultures.
All in all the effects of trauma from sexual assault or surviving the sex industry is a dark path with a long recovery time that usually is never fully healed by eradicating the ability of perpetrators to do harm we protect individuals from being traumatized for life.
