Nashville, Tennessee sees over 1, arrests a year for prostitution and solicitation. And for some women, the arrest is the best thing that could happen. Nashville features a unique system of community programs to help prostitutes get off the streets, including Magdalene House. It often involves help to beat drug addiction and to cope with their childhood history of violence and abuse. It works, sometimes, and Magdalene has become a national model. If you work in the sex trade or used to, call and tell us your story, Email us, talk npr.
You can also join the conversation on our website. Go to npr. Later, some birthers see President Obama's long-form birth certificate as fresh evidence of fraud. Why can't we accept facts that prove us wrong? But first, we're going to talk about up from prostitution. We're going to get to Jacki Lyden in just a moment, but there's a caller we want to start the program with, and that's Sam ph , Sam with us from Belleville in Illinois. SAM: I met my husband.
I was lucky. I met a man that didn't want anything to do with it, though he was a john. They always say don't fall in love with your johns, but I did. So I was lucky. I walked away from it. SAM: I was. I was. I worked for madams. I had nothing to do with pimps. Pimps are very bad news in the business for girls that want to stay clean and have their own money.
SAM: No, no, a lot of the girls don't. I - you know, we would have pimps drop off girls and try intimidation, you know, asking where your family is. And one thing I was going to say is that a lot of the girls, when they are with pimps, they feel like they have family, you know, they have somebody watching over them. But what they're doing in reality is just taking their money and using them.
SAM: They don't know about it. I - it's nothing I want to disclose. A few close members of my family and friends know about it, but it's nothing we discuss. It's nothing I'm proud of. And as you look back on the life, do you keep in touch with anybody you knew back in the day? SAM: No, no, these were - you know, whenever you go in, a lot of times you don't even meet the madams. They just have a house set up. And you go, and you work, and you make your money, and then you go on, go to the next place.
