Imagine for a moment you have a boring office job. It wasn't the job you dreamed about perhaps, but it pays the bills, and you're pretty content with it and your salary. Now let's imagine for a moment that there are some people in the world who condemn your boring office job. They think it's such a boring job, that they could not imagine themselves ever doing this job. In fact, they even go that far that they claim that nobody could ever do your boring office job willingly. They claim that people doing your job, must be forced, since nobody in their eyes would ever do such a boring job.

For a while you let people thinking that. What does it matter anyway what other people think about your job, as long as you're content with it and it pays the bills. But those people condemning your job keep on pushing about it, how no right minded person would ever do such a job, how terrible you must feel doing such a job, etc. In fact, they even manage to push it so far, that a research is being done about it.
And to your surprise, the research that comes out, comes to the conclusion that more than half the people doing your boring office job, are forced by their boss to do it. You don't recognize anything about this, so you start to ask colleagues. Did your boss push you to do this job? No? Hmmmm, that's weird. Did they ask you to any questions for a research? No? Hmmm, well that's strange, I wonder who they did ask? You ask another few of your colleagues, nobody is pushed by their boss to do it, and nobody has participated in the research. Out of curiosity you decide to read the report. The researchers however have only talked with people who do labor inspections, those people only get to deal with employees who have trouble at work, so obviously all they see are the bad cases. You start to look at which people they talked to who did your job, but all you can find are 2 people who where all victims of extreme cases. In short, the report shows a very one sided story, since they've only talked to the people with bad experiences. No wonder the conclusion is so far from reality.

But than the media comes in. They state that people doing your job are forced on a huge scale by their boss to do their jobs, because research has proven it. You start asking people from other companies doing your job about their opinion. Again nobody is getting forced. Than stories are starting to pop up in the media about people claiming how they where forced by their boss at gun point to do their job. Books are being written about it. Slowly the general opinion of people towards your job is starting to change. People start asking you about it, colleagues, friends, family, even customers are starting to ask questions.
Than after a while it is uncovered that the person in the media claiming they where forced at gun point to do their job, was a liar. They where never forced, in fact, they never even did this job, they just wanted attention from the media to sell their books about it. But the mood is set already. Even though it's been proven this story was a hoax, people still keep asking you questions about your job. People even start doubting you when you tell them you where never forced by your boss to do this job.

After a while it starts to get worse. Politics are getting involved. And they are starting to come up with rules for your job. The first thing they want to do is to make you more independent as an office worker, and so they say it would be better if they would be self employed, and than the offices could rent your services. Pretty soon colleagues are starting their own companies to meet the demands of politics, and most become self employed, some other colleagues decide it's too much trouble and start moonlighting for themselves. But as a result of the public opinion and the new rules of politics, banks won't give you a business bank account. In fact, most banks refuse people with boring office jobs, and there's only one bank that will accept you. Getting a loan from a bank is out of the question, your job has been contaminated with a bad reputation, and the banks don't trust you anymore. Getting a mortgage is a long lost dream, no bank trusts you anymore, simply because your boring office job. Even renting a simple apartment has become a problem, lot's of people don't except your job. Some landlords are even scared to rent you their apartment, stating 'you might take your work home'. On top of all these problems, because you are now a self employed business owner, you have to pay more taxes now.

After a while everybody is settled again, some of your colleagues have moved into moonlighting for themselves (that way they don't have to pay that much for taxes, and they don't have to follow the stupid rules the government have made), and others have become independent boring office workers. But it doesn't help much. Still people are saying in the media that people doing your boring office job are being forced by their boss. So politics come into action again, and claim that in order to keep control over your office job, and to prevent people from getting forced by their boss, they want to reduce the number of offices, and begin with job inspections to try and save people from being forced into this boring office job.
Now how the hell would reducing the number of offices help anyone from being forced by their boss? All this does is force the boring office workers to start moonlighting for themselves, with as a result that they could even be more easy forced by someone else, since it happens illegal. So, who are we helping here? The people doing these boring office jobs? The people who are supposedly being forced to work this boring job? Or the people that just want to destroy boring office jobs?

Soon enough here and there offices are closing down. People loose their jobs. And because they loose their jobs, they start moonlighting for themselves.
Than more people start coming in from other countries to do this boring office job. It pays better than any job they can do in their own country, and they're willing to work very hard for it. Soon enough more than half your colleagues are foreign people, who don't know your language or your justice system that well.
And again the people who are suspicious of your boring office job come into play. Now they're claiming the foreign people are being brought here by criminals, forced to do this boring office job. You start talking with those foreign people, and they have no idea what you're talking about. They just came here because they can make a lot of money over here with this boring office job. They've noticed a lot of people are asking questions about their job, but they have no idea what the media are saying about their job. Heck, how could they know, they don't even understand the language!

Also the police is getting involved. They start checking you at work. They ask you how many times you've used the printer. How long you sit behind the keyboard to type. If you like typing on a keyboard. Does your boss ever ask you to do anything for your job you don't like to do? Is your boss forcing you sometimes to do things you don't want to do?
Soon enough the police is a regular customer at your job for asking questions about your job, and checking your business papers, and your passport, asking you questions. When you want to go on vacation customs start picking you out for questioning. They ask you if you know the address where you work. If you like doing your work. If your boss is forcing you to work. Pretty soon, everywhere you go, police and customs are asking you questions. It's almost like you're a criminal.

Than finally after years of stigmatization, someone else comes out with a report that shows that there are hardly any people doing your boring office job, that are getting forced. You look at the report, and see that the report has interviewed a large number of people doing your boring office jobs, and indeed very few people are getting forced by their boss. In fact, those who are getting forced, usually quit their jobs pretty quick. That pretty much makes sense.
You think the storm is finally over, and things can go back to normal. But those people condemning your job have a new tactic. Now they claim that the report is not valid, because people with boring office jobs are scarred to tell the truth, because their boss is forcing them to say these things.
Can you believe it! Finally someone comes out with the truth about your job, and now these idiots still don't want to believe it! The only reason they don't want to believe it, is because they themselves have a problem with your boring office job. But we're not asking them to do your boring office job. All we're asking is that they leave us alone, so we can do our boring office job. You chose for it, they don't have to like it, just leave you alone!

Pretty soon rescue organisations start popping up everywhere. They start making campaigns, telling people how many people doing boring office jobs are being forced. They even claim saving people from these boring office jobs. They start telling people not to trust any boss, because any of them could be a boss who forces you into a boring office job. Complete bullshit of course, but the majority of the people in your country believe these stories. You've never even seen or heard about these rescue organisations before. They've never even been to your office before, yet they claim they've saved hundreds of people from your office. The funny thing is, your office doesn't even have more than a hundred office workers.
Artists are beginning to talk in the media about your job. Painters, sculptors, musicians, all kinds of people who never had to work for a boss, and choose for their own independence, are now all of the sudden starting to condemn your job. They start talking about how terrible it is to work at an office, how terrible the conditions to work are. They start talking about all the boring office workers they talked with, and how terrible their life was. They even start saying working at an office is inhuman, like it's a violation of human rights to be stuck at an office all day, without any daylight, no fresh air.
And the funniest things about these rescue organisations, and artists, who are claiming things about your job is that they both make money with what they're telling. Rescue organisations depend on getting funding from the government, and therefore have an interest in keeping up the appearance that many people are being forced to do your boring office job. Artists are making CD albums, books, sculptures and paintings about your boring office job, showing how terrible your work is, and making money on the sales of those.

Again researches come out about your job, this time again stating most of the people doing boring office jobs are being forced. You look at the report, and realize they hardly talked to any people doing boring office jobs, but in stead only talked to politicians, police and rescue organisations. Again your boring office job is being described as terrible, inhuman, a violation of human rights. They talk about how terrible the conditions to work are, how thousands of boring office workers from other countries are being forced to work here by bosses who constantly beat them and force them to work harder and harder.
They even state that at the company you work for, more than half of the boring office workers are being brutally forced to work long hours, print out papers until they're blinded by the paper, type on the keyboard until they loose their fingerprints.
You start talking again with the people from your office. Nobody's seen or heard any of these things. Some people suspect other office workers might be forced, but nobody is for sure. Talking to the boring office workers who are suspected of being forced, because they use the printer a lot according to other colleagues, or because they type very loud on their keyboard, turns out to be nothing to be alarmed about. They simply want to do their job quick, make a lot of money, and go home. They print a lot because they can finish their job quicker that way, and go home. They type on their keyboard so loud because the quicker they type, the quicker they the more money they can make.

You start to see a pattern here. Every time a research comes out that claims many people are being forced with a boring office job, they talk with very few to almost no people who do boring office jobs, and every time they do a research among boring offices workers themselves, it shows a very different image. Every time certain rescue organisations, or the police is involved, it gives a heavily distorted image of the reality. Apparently the police is extremely poorly informed about your boring office job. In fact, when you look up what they police are seeing as signs of forced boring office workers, the signs are laughably bad and stereotypical. Rescue organisations keep telling how many people they save from your job, though you keep seeing the same people at your job every day. Where are all these 'so called' victims coming from, if not from your job? Are they real? Or are they actors? When you start to look into the stories of these so called victims, you start to see holes in their stories. Things that could never happen, or even that boring office workers themselves agreed on their work, and afterwards regret their choice. It almost starts to look like an easy way to make money, just claim that you're forced, and people will believe your story, and the government will come with a compensation. And even if the government doesn't compensate you, you can always write a book about it, and make money that way.
Sometimes you even read reports in the media about forced office workers, who in court even testified that nobody forced them, but still the court decides otherwise.  More and more it starts to look like people are forcing boring office workers to testify that they where forced, even if they weren't.

After a while you decide it's been enough. People have a right to know what's going on. You decide it's time to talk to someone. You go to a newspaper. You talk to a reporter, he does an interview with you. But when the newspaper is published, it reads how terrible you think your job is, in stead of how much people are lying and twisting the truth about it. You come to realize the journalists are being controlled by politicians, politicians who have always claimed many people doing boring office jobs are being forced on a large scale. The same politicians that have closed down many offices already, in order to fight the 'boring office work'. They turn out to be more interested in the property of these office buildings, selling the property after they've closed down the offices, in order to replace it with companies that they do approve, than that they're really interested in saving people who could be forced by their boss. They own the newspapers, journalists want to talk, but are scarred to talk, since they could loose their job over it. In fact, you come to find out that most of the media is being owned by politicians with a lot of power. It's no use to talk to the media.

You decide the best way to tell people the truth, is by opening your own blog, where no journalist, politician, or rescue organisation can tell you what to say. As soon as you've opened your blog, people who condemn your boring office work start popping up to tell you that you're a fake, you're a liar. You're probably a boss of a boring office worker, telling lies to protect his company. It's funny, they blame you of doing things they're doing themselves, how ironic. After a while one of your skeptical readers meets you at your job. He's shocked, you're real, and you're not a boss. Jeez, what a surprise! You tell him the truth, explain everything to him, but in the end he's still skeptical about it. He's heard so many stories, even people who where really forced at their boring office job by a boss, how do you know it's really not happening that much?
How much more does a person need to do to prove the facts? How much more does there need to happen before boring office work is finally being accepted as a normal job? How many more times does the police and customs have to interview you, before they believe you that you're really not forced? And how come everyone believes the stories of people who have an interest in telling these, even though some of them have even proven to be complete lies already? And how much longer do boring office workers have to wait until they can open a normal bank account, get a loan from a bank, get a mortgage, or even just rent a normal fucking house?

If you think this is weird. If you think it's weird how people with boring office jobs are being treated, looked at, stigmatized, even condemned. Than you're absolutely right! Now you know exactly how it's like to be a prostitute. All of the examples mentioned in this story here above are based in one way or another on real experiences, of either myself, other girls, or people fighting for our freedom. They are the true stories about what it's really like to be a prostitute. And I'm not saying forced prostitution or human trafficking doesn't exists, or doesn't happen here. I'm nearly saying it's hugely exaggerated, and the only way to fight it, is to free prostitution of this stigma. If there would be no more stigma on prostitution, people who are being forced also wouldn't be so scared to talk. And than also the majority of the prostitutes who do this job, can finally be accepted as normal people, in stead of constantly being seen as victims, and being treated as outcasts.

Now you know how it feels to be a prostitute. It's not the job so much that makes prostitutes feel bad, it's the way people talk about them, treat them, deny them and condemn them that makes us feel bad. It's the reason why we don't tell our family and friends what we do for a living. Not because we're ashamed of our work, but because other people condemn it so much, and it has such a bad reputation.
People who claim prostitutes do their jobs against their will, because they're either forced by a pimp, or forced by their financial situation are just people trying to scare you. How many people in this world are forced by their financial situation to do their job? Well, everyone actually. Since it doesn't matter which job you do, every job you do you only do because you need money. Some people might love their job, but many people in this world, simply do this job because it pays the bills. So who isn't forced by their own financial situation to do their job? I think this clip from the movie Jack Reacher explains it perfectly:


In fact, if I think about it, I have more freedom in my job, than many other people have in their job. I can work whenever I want to. I can quit this job whenever I want to. I don't have a contract that binds me to finish my job. I can go home whenever I want to. I don't have to show up in time for work. I don't have to work overtime. I have no boss telling me what I can or cannot do. I can go on holiday whenever I want to. And on top of that I make more money than any regular job in the world. How many people can say the same about their job?

Dutch version