I found this via Twitter and Stacey McCain, for there was a storm: he wrote the truth. Being a sex worker is bad for your mental health. The woman who wrote this — and she wrote a wonderful, empathic essay — is now dead.

She was talking about being a whore. And how she has empathy with her clients: she understood them, she even had compassion. Or that was her rhetoric.

This duality, is addictive. And in my own life, I often miss the complexity and depth of a story that’s become entwined with mine to a degree and that is mine of my choosing.

We both crave our own versions of the all-exclusive story in which we both are key players. In the interim, I’m going to keep riding this crazy world of strangers, intimacy, humanity, love and lust.

And thank the universe for it.

Well, that is a lie. The trade is violent, nasty, and frequently involves gangs or worse. A woman is most physically vulnerable in bed with a man, for men are larger, stronger, and there are too many drugs around which can make us aggressive. Moreover (regardless of those who are campaigning for this) decriminalization does not change the gritty reality of the work. I have seen too many women who have said what this woman wrote just before she died by her own hand.

More recently, she revealed her struggle to work while battling mental health problems in a Facebook post on October 12.

“To all my regulars who have kept me in the black to survive and keep a roof over my head when I’m going through extreme burnout, I can’t express my appreciation,” Pippa wrote.

“I used to hate the white knight syndrome bulls***, but after burning out constantly and 12,000+ guys’ bulls*** physically, you turn into a snappy, violent, aggressive person and somewhere along the line you lose yourself.

“It isn’t the industry per say, it’s just accumulated PTSD and constantly guarding your back or screening … I’ve had guns put to my head, yelled at too many people, removed people from clubhouses, been approached by lawyers from all sides of the fence, approached to run parlours, watched a lot of people slip and fall in a bath with the their throat slit.”

Pippa had been violently attacked by a former client, a paroled rapist, at an Adelaide apartment in 2012.

Her death came as a coalition of former sex workers launched a campaign for specialised mental health support catered to workers in the industry, and those who have left it, or want to do so.

The demand for specialised Mental Health… well, it may work. If you live in Amsterdam, or Auckland, or Las Vegas. The sex trade is legal there, and the city is big enough that the psychiatric services can run subspeciality teams. The problem is that these teams are underfunded (universally) and the stigma attached to PTSD and depression should not be discounted.

So before we turn to what to say, and what to do, I need to reinforce that Stacey McCain is correct in his comments.

The idea that her “profession” should be legalized belongs in the same dung-heap of bad ideas as the assertion that we should end the “stigma” of prostitution. There is a reason what prostitution is both criminalized and stigmatized, namely that becoming a whore is a very bad career choice, insofar as a whore has any choice at all in the matter.

The reality is that most whores come from abusive families and/or broken homes. They are also usually addicted to drugs and preyed upon by pimps who coerce them into prostitution as teenagers. Anyone who thinks there is any “glamour” to prostitution is ignorant, and has paid no attention to the ugly reality of a whore’s life. Prostitutes typically exhibit a pattern of dysfunctional, anti-social and self-destructive behavior that makes them unable to hold a regular job or form healthy relationships. A whore is generally stupid, lazy and dishonest. Becoming a “sex worker” isn’t so much a choice for women like Pippa O’Sullivan as it is the only kind of “work” they are willing or able to do.

What a sad and strange commentary on our culture that it is now controversial to say something as obvious as, “Don’t be a whore.”

This woman died too young. Her family grieves. What can we say? For we are all will find ourselves in the same place as Pippa: we have all broken the laws of the Almighty because we did not understand they were for our good and we were driven by lust, power, greed, vanity: or all of them.

We have all used the convenient means of measuring success — access to sexual partners or the number of toys in our garage — rather than considering how we helped those around us. It may be that Pippa did more good than many politician: for some politicians that is a certainty.

But what can we say? I find it hard to damn others, for I know my own sin. I look at her face, and feel anger, for she aged too fast and died too young. Sin City has never been glamorous, and it kills as surely as the Hollywood Moguls go through cocaine.

All I can say is that God does judge with righteousness, and that this life is not the only one. Let us pray for the soul of our sister, and let her death be a warning to any young woman who considers this trade as an option.

I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!”
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;
I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
I believed, even when I spoke: “I am greatly afflicted”;
I said in my alarm, “All mankind are liars.”
What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD,
I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
O LORD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

(Psalm 116 ESV)

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

(1 Corinthians 15:12-29 ESV)

The comfort we can give in Christ is that we are held by him. For he let whores weep over his feet. He forgave them — and told them not to continue in the trade. He will dry their tears, for he knows that they are quite aware of their sin.

It is those who would destigmatize and legalize the sex trade — which, from what I can see, is slavery and destruction — while making the involuntary celibate a criminal by paying for it because Ideology who are more damned. For they do not see that there is any guilt, or shame.

Or empathy. Or sympathy. Pippa was far better than that. May the Almighty have mercy on her soul.