I have spent too many years in the most conservative of cities in the U.S. – Orlando – and must admit that it has suppressed me and my thoughts and ideals in ways that I have yet to understand. It is in vast conflict with my views prior to arrival, and in fact turns my life into a conflict. I finally moved away from Orlando and I'll never live there again. I made the decision that is a bad memory that must be buried and suppressed, much like my life has been for the 20 years that I spent connected to the place. Growing up in Europe when I did would be the polar opposite of growing up in Orlando.
My closest friend as I reached age 16 was a prostitute, though she was six years older than I was. Helena was a wonderful person that had a heart of gold and treated me like a princess. The year was 1976 and the location was Kaiserslautern, Germany. Prostitution was not only legal, but was also an acceptable trade; perhaps like being a beautician that made more money. I never understood it to be immoral. I never knew that anyone needed a specific reason to be a prostitute or that it was something that people viewed negatively. During this era in Germany the younger generation was in a state of turmoil and revolt, and it was my experience; not the prostitution part as Helena kept me from that, but the lifestyle. It was a revolt from society, from the horrific history of World War 2 and the Nazis, from the parents and grandparents that were so meek that they did nothing, and from the government with its leftovers from the Hitler regime. It was an all-around revolt. It was the era of the Red Army Faction (RAF), protests and riots, and I must admit that it had an anti-American sentiment that went with it.
Helena taught me German with television and comic books, so I spoke not a high German, but a slang. Imagine how hard it is to grow-up with an unmentionable and unspoken national history and you will be better able to understand the turmoil that the young Germans lived with. Perhaps open sex and acceptance of prostitution as normal came with that naturally. There have been red light areas in Europe for many centuries, but often they were not considered acceptable to much of the population so this was a different time. We do not choose the surroundings and the era that we grow-up in, and for me this is just factual and nothing more. Many people that I encounter in the U.S. would just not understand and sometimes I feel as if they blame this conflict in thoughts and ideals on me, as if I had any control over it.
For me it is a home that I have cried inside to return to since I left. Life has gotten in the way ever since. Once I had my son in 1987 it was not possible to leave the country with him as his father would never have accepted the move. It was my plan to make the move once he turned 18 years, but when he was 15 the MBI came along and cost me every dollar that I had ever saved, including our home. My life has been shaken in ways that I never imagined since that day. As I currently work on a third book I survive with the hope that if the first two do not sell, then perhaps number three will be the charm. The subject is not escort services or prostitution, but it is about life and experiences in a most turbulent era in Western Germany, and of course the people that I encountered that made those experiences what they were, for better or worse.
As you sit in judgment of my statements and thoughts, imagine how it would be to only want to be home, but it is a home that you cannot reach. There is much involved in maintaining a residence in the European Union today and it is not so simple as hopping on a jet. Under the laws of France I am entitled to French citizenship though, and am indeed working on it. I was not only born and raised, in my early years, in Paris, but also visited the City of Light often as an adult. I spent my honeymoon there, partied in underground clubs, dined at the Moulin Rouge, and ate in off-the-beaten path cafés.
I never thought twice about prostitution in the years that I grew-up. I was 25 years of age before I realized that many people had issues with it. This is not only due to where I was, but also the tumultuous years in the particular place. I would like to go back to that, and not necessarily the place, but to the ideal that it is not healthy to be so pre-occupied with the sex lives of others. I do not care about prostitution one way or the other and consider the decisions of others to be best categorized as none of my business.
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