Abused Children and Prostitution

Toby didn’t dream of becoming a sex worker. He dreamt of surviving.

When I started writing Toby, I wasn’t prepared for the emotional bloodbath that would come with it. The book is based on someone I know, a living, breathing, beautiful disaster of a man who has survived more than most people could handle even in fiction. This blog post on Abused Children and Prostitution isn’t here to lecture you. It’s here to smack you in the face with the reason this story needed to be told.

A Life Born on a Dark Path

Toby was abused. Let’s just say that right off the bat. He wasn’t just pushed down a dark path. He was born on it. Physical abuse. Sexual abuse. Emotional manipulation. The kind of trauma that’s too big to squeeze into polite dinner conversation but just small enough to go unnoticed by every adult who should have done something.

By the time he was in his early twenties, Toby had already cycled through more trauma than most people could survive with a pulse. And yeah, he was a prostitute, he used drugs and no, that wasn’t shocking once you knew where he came from. It was textbook. And a little predictable. It was tragic as hell.

Why It Happens

When a child grows up believing that love is conditional, that it comes with pain, with shame, with silence, they internalise that deep. Toby didn’t think he had value unless someone paid for it. Think about that. Imagine believing your only currency in the world is sex. He genuinely thought giving himself away for free meant giving too much. Because when you’re raised on abuse, intimacy feels like a scam.

That’s the part most people don’t get. We judge. Oh, we love to judge. We look at someone like Toby and ask, Why would he sell himself? Why would he use again? As if we’re all emotionally well-adjusted therapists with childhoods made of sunshine and affirmations.

We don’t see what came before, but we see a scar and call it a personality. We see survival tactics and label them self-destruction. But you know what? A lot of the time, it’s both. Toby did destructive things. But they kept him alive.

The Reality for Abused Children

Not all abused children end up in prostitution. But it happens far more than anyone wants to talk about, especially when we’re talking about boys. There are fewer resources. Fewer shelters. Less empathy. More stigma. If a girl is abused and acts out, she’s traumatised. If a boy is abused and acts out, he’s dangerous. Or broken. Or just written off.

Toby was written off by a lot of people. Until he wasn’t.

Meeting the Real Toby

I didn’t see Toby as a victim. Not right away. I saw a charming, erratic, sex-fuelled hurricane of a man who kept pushing everyone away while simultaneously begging to be seen. And I saw behaviours that didn’t match the surface. The anger. The hypersexuality. The weird detachment. And I started asking questions. I started digging. When he let me in, I met the real Toby.

And he wrecked me.

Writing his story was like holding a mirror up to every single person who’s ever said, “Well, he chose that life.” No. He didn’t. He chose survival. And sometimes, survival looks a lot like selling yourself for the price of not dying. If you want to know why someone would live that way, look at who taught them their worth in the first place.

One Story. Too Many Like It.

Toby broke my heart. It also rewired how I see trauma, addiction, sex work, and what it means to come back from the dead without anyone knowing you were ever gone.

There are many abused children in this world. Not all of them end up selling their bodies. But a hell of a lot of them do. And until we stop judging their outcome without unpacking their origin story, we’re complicit in keeping them invisible.

Don’t judge Toby. Read his story. Then come back and tell me you could have done better.

I dare you.

Delve into other stories, like Good Luck Getting Rid of Me. You’ll find more of my darker work in my Memoir & Real Life category.