the First time I saw it, I was a teenager.
I lived with my then gf on a side street to Istedgade. At that time it was not a hipster neighborhood, as it is today. It was a fairly rough neighborhood, and there stood the prostitutes up and down along the streets at the time of the Vesterbro district.
I myself was a young poor EFG students. Obviously I had not afford expensive robes, but went in the recycling.
Tøjstilen at the time was punk. Black in black. My ‘uniform’ consisted of a long, thin, black coat, black, tight fitting dress, black stockings and black boots.
One day, I stood on a street corner on Istedgade and waited for my gf, we were on the way out on the christmas shopping.
I was accosted by a swarthy older gentleman. It was icy cold, and I shivered in my thin coat.
the Man looked compassionately at me and said: ‘Where is it sin for you, that you have to stand here and pull on the street’!
His comment came completely behind me. Nothing could be more wrong. I was his and innocent. I was so befippet. Muttered no, that he mistaken, and hurried away.
Ran into the arms of my girlfriend and had to have his comfort. The experience was very unpleasant and sat in me for many years after.
I never found out whether the man was real and had really hurt of me, or whether it was an attempt to buy me.
another time, where I experienced being accosted as a hooker, was on Strøget in Copenhagen.
I had just returned from Los Angeles where I had lived and worked a few years in the porn industry.
the Year was 2001.
Casper Christensen had just hired me to play the receptionist Lisa in the sitcom series ‘Far from Las Vegas’, which was a tv hit from the start.
I was out shopping, I felt happy and went into my own thoughts, when I suddenly heard someone shout after me.
‘Your dead hooker!’, was shouted.
I felt not taken, but looked back and saw two young guys of a different ethnic origin. They were completely up and running in their eagerness to pig me.
I was absolutely flabbergasted and embarrassed over their behavior, that I made nothing. It could never occur to me to answer them back. It was simply as cross-border behaviour from their side.
Better to ignore them.
the Concept of ‘slutshaming’ was not invented yet, but that was what it was.
I was ‘slutshamet’ on the open street. In my own country, in my own town in my own neighbourhood.
Of a foreign culture that does not grasp what equality means.
For I am as clear from that Danish men never could find to call me or other great women of the hooker.
Obviously, if a woman has the desire to work as a prostitute, so she can it, but it should not be used against her.
There is our liberal society is, thankfully, very well-developed and modern. Am I not right, Danish men?
And wish you all a very merry christmas, with the hope of a honk in the julebamsen.
