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Frequently Asked Questions
for Norma Hotaling
Q: You've increasingly emphasized the
decriminalization of minors involved in or victimized by Commercial
Sexual Exploitation (CSE), and have advocated that people
need to stop using the term "child prostitute".
What's behind this?
A: It's a false premise, and a harmful one, that children
can be prostitutes. We have to make it clear that if you have
sex with children, whether it's under the guise of prostitution
or not, it's child abuse, sexual abuse of children. By using
the term 'child prostitute,' we're basically creating a whole
group of children whom it's considered acceptable to sexually
abuse. If we call it what it is—statutory rape and the
sexual abuse of children —then we can prosecute the real
criminals: those who traffic, pimp, and purchase sex with
minors.
Q: You've said that The SAGE Project,
Inc. is as much about healing and resilience as it is about
the victimization of adults and children through commercial
sexual exploitation. Can you say more about this?
A: It's crucial to provide safe, compassionate, and realistic
outreach and services to those who wish to exit the sex trade
safely and healthfully. It's also crucial to raise awareness
about what commercial sexual exploitation really is, and what
it's about. To some degree, talking about that requires talking
about how girls, women, boys and men are victimized through
commercial sexual exploitation and the violence that often
comes with it. However, so many survivor stories are also
about healing, recovery, empowerment, giving back, resilience
and strength, that it's important to talk about that, too.
Q: What do you think about the argument
that working with people in the sex industries is a lost cause—
or the idea that women and girls in prostitution are too hard
to help?
A: The women and girls that we work with are the discards
of society…the throw-always. I include myself in that
description. We’ve come as close to death as anybody
could come and still survive. Most people think “they
will never recover, they will never heal, and all they’re
going to do is cause a lot of trouble and cost a lot of money.”
But we’ve proved them wrong. We’ve not only asserted
that women and girls are worthy of help; we have shown that
with the right nurturing and the right environment, we can
do more than heal. We can be so incredible and give back to
our community and help make it safe for other women and girls.
Q: What was it like to start SAGE?
A: We basically started with nothing. I was using my savings
to start SAGE. I had no staff. No one was helping me. Nobody
even thought it was an issue. If you were to ask people about
prostitution, they would say, “Oh, it’s a victimless
crime.” My life wasn’t reflected in that. So what
I had to set about doing was to begin to change the society’s
whole perception of prostitution and sexual exploitation.
Q: What makes SAGE different from other
recovery programs in San Francisco?
A: Most of the time in drug treatment, women go for services,
but no one talks to them about prostitution, nobody addresses
childhood sexual abuse, nobody addresses domestic violence
and sexual assault. There’s not much attempt to deal
with post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. They treat
the women as offenders and as drug users— as the problem.
The people who come here for services are provided with a
trauma and drug recovery program. We deal with trauma through
acupuncture, breath, movement, and art work, massage, talk
therapy. Most importantly, we use a peer education model.
Survivors come in here and they see other people that look
like them and have been exactly where they are. The peer education
program helps people start to trust again, sometimes for the
first time in their life.
Q: What philosophies guide the program?
A: One of the basic philosophies of our program is unconditional
love. That might sound very unprofessional. You certainly
don’t read it in the clinical textbooks and training
manuals. But I tell my staff, “If you want to confront,
if you want to shame, if you want to be mean to the women
and girls, then this is not the place for you. If you want
to provide unconditional love and support and an environment
where people can heal very deeply, this is the job for you.”
SAGE is also built on anger. There’s a lot to be angry
about—girls being exploited and abused, becoming more
vulnerable to entering into prostitution and drug use—the
recruitment of young girls off of the streets. So anger feels
very appropriate to me. It’s very important that I—and
all the staff here—channel that anger in a way that’s
positive. That’s how SAGE was built, and I’m very
proud of that. I’ve been able to use this deep, deep
rage that I’ve discovered in myself in order to make
the world a safer place for women and girls.
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