A Male Sex Industry Survivor
By Billy Lind
In order for me to give maximum insight into the world of the sex industry I must go back into the beginning. At age Twelve I was locked up in my first of many juvenile institutions. In that time institutions were the perfect breading grounds for pedophiles.
The sexual abuse started there, that’s also where the dehumanizing began, and where Billy Lind began to seek escape by wearing many different masks. The masks buried the pain and shame in between institutions I began to use what I was abused with my “body” a teenage prostitute that walked the streets and sold himself as a means to survive.
Attaching myself to the abusers and believing they loved me, deep inside I knew this was a lie. I can remember how lost and empty I felt, but as time went by and Billy Lind was so far buried and hidden away deep inside, the mask was the makeup of all I thought I was. I put on a different mask for every different situation. When you wear a mask you don’t have to face yourself or what your doing.
Then as I grew I realized that I could use the mask to have power over those who were paying me for sex. As an adult I started stripping. Back then, there were no male strippers. We were the first group in Ohio. “Man! I thought I had a ride” Hundreds of woman glorifying me and paying me huge sums of money.
At 18 years old I was making more money than my parents. This was all a set up for the enemies big lie. After a couple years of stripping I entered into the world of escort services and porn. This was the beginning of a decent into a state of what I call numbness. I just could not feel anything anymore. The mask allowed me to escape who I really was because I no longer cared who you were or what you wanted sexually from me, as long as you were paying me, I would be anything you wanted me to be. I had a mask for every occasion. If you wanted me to be Snow White and 7 Dwarfs I would find a way to be that. This is were fantasy and reality clashed. You don’t know one from the other.
So what do you do? Drugs! On porn sets back in those days, there were always bowls for cocaine on hand. The more cocaine I did the more powerful I thought I was. But everything has a flip side to it doesn’t it? After years of Cocaine and Alcohol abuse, living in the sex industry, I started to loose that power. I wanted to say filming a porn video is in no way the same as what the people on the other end of the video are viewing. The ten to fifteen minute act can sometimes take hours to produce. The people on the other side of the camera don’t see the twenty to thirty people all around you. They don’t see all the cuts from the director. They don’t see the bodily accidents that take place. And they don’t see, depending on who’s shooting or the budget, the dirty set conditions. Nothing is what it appears to be and once the product that you become is no longer profitable, they throw you away like a dirty paper towel.
I don’t care what part of the sex industry your in, there’s absolutely no glamor in it! “To much time in the spotlight will blind you.” As a male survivor I can share theses things today because through the blood of Jesus and my Salvation. I no longer have any shame in my past. This is not so much a human issue as it is a soul issue. I don’t care if your selling yourself inner city alley or on a fifty thousand dollar porn set…there is no difference.
Its all prostitution and payed rape. Men are just as victimized as woman in this industry, because it is a soul issue. Unfortunately, many men don’t come forward because of a shameful pride and ego. I thank God that I can be a vessel of hope to both men and woman living in the bondage of the sex industry.
Thank you for your time, God bless you! This is not the end of my sharing the events of my past…only the beginning. The voice in the vessel God has given me through his mercy, love, and grace, is always to be continued.
Billy Lind
