W-Women Globally

Odile Poulsen- survivor of incest and prostitution. Writer, psychotherapist, lecturer, pedagogue. Mother. Media personality. A woman consequently choosing red as a colour of her clothes – challenging its cliché as a symbol of lust and changing its meaning into the colour of life and love.

She had never believed that she would be able to find a place for herself in the ‘normal’ society. But she did – and she has managed to turn own destiny into the example of strength and survival.

The story begins…
Her story began in her childhood..
‘My dad… He was the mightiest man in town – in the entire world actually.
He was two meters tall, had the biggest hands – soft inside and with hard seasoned fingertips from all his hard work. My little hand could hide easily inside his big hand; it was safe, warm and good there.
My dad.
My dad had the funniest laughter in the entire neighbourhood.
I loved my dad, because he was the most beautiful and strongest man in the entire world – an amazing man.
And I would do everything – for my dad.
My dad… the most dangerous man in the entire world. (..)
When he came home – and we were alone – he demanded my body and my love’.

Abuse
She learned at the very early age to service men’s sexual desires. From her own experience she knows how a little child tries to cope with the incest: being physically present and always disappearing mentally into another world, quiet and watchful over the grownups.
‘Children who are abused sexually do not only loose their childhood – they loose a life. Those are the children who grow up limitless; without the ability to distinct what is right and what is wrong. Those are humans without self esteem and without the ability to take care of themselves. Small humans that for some reason instinctively keep the secret protecting the offenders against their misdeeds and taking the responsibility alone, used to the fact that being a child is connected with loneliness, abuse and fear.
These injuries and consequences of being sexually abused do not disappear over time. They may only be relieved and become more controllable withhelp of an intensive therapeutic process.

The story continues…
Odile went into prostitution at the age of 29. She went into the path she had always expected to take; fast and easily. During those 2 years she saw how the women became brutalised, lonely and isolated. She heard them talking about the sexual assaults they had suffered before they came into the business. Very few did not have a history like that. As a pedagogue she knew that prostitution destroys humans, however… she knew it with her intellect, but not with her heart. She continued because she did not know any other life for herself.
‘I myself had heard, seen and felt that women and children not had any rights to say no or reject. My dad’s teachings as a child got repeated in a painful way by my ex-husband. And the society – the system and the culture – confirmed that he was right. I think that even though we know things work this way, we do not react based on this knowledge. We are far from good enough to take children seriously when we see, hear or sense that something is completely wrong. And now I speak both as a pedagogue and as a private person. We have to do better and we have to keep the children safe, because we have to do anything possible to take away sexual abuse of humans no matter their age or gender. ‘

[singlepic id="102" w="320" h="240" mode="" float="left" ]The Social Debt
Today she is living a happy life as wife and mother. But it is a true miracle and the effect of her own ‘stubborn insisting on a good life’. In order to get into this point she had to go through the process of rebuilding her completely as a human being. Her ultimate goal – which she has already begun to fulfil – is to be able to help women out of prostitution with therapy and counselling.
On the basis of her own experience she has written the books: ‘Sirene Song – a Story About Surviving the Madness’ (Sirenesang: en fortælling om at overleve vanvid’), and ‘Hustler – My Time in Prostitution (’Hustler, min tid i prostitution’ )as well as a theatre play “Tvang – en kærlighedshistorie”. She is a goodwill-ambassador for Dannerhuset – the oldest and the largest crisis centre for offers of domestic violence in Denmark.
She has also become a brand name in the Danish media, shouting about taking prostitution seriously. A voice that began to call the so-called “social heritage” for “the social debt” in order to underline how heavy is the burden to carry the sexual abuse throughout the whole life.

‘Only with strength and consciousness – and the will to consciousness – this debt can be cancelled.
I think it is typical for our time; we always think we could choose differently – or should do so.
Take for example the myth about the liberated women, who deliberately and serenely chooses to spread her legs. “She chose it herself” and “She could just choose not to”
But I could not just choose not to – then I would not have done it in the first place! Like the anorectic that just cannot stop to starve herself. Or like the depressive that just cannot mobilize herself and go out in life.
This is where the issue of choice becomes so important. Because yes: I chose to enter prostitution, I had never been trafficked, kidnapped, threatened or been depended of drugs or alcohol. The main part of the population believes that I chose it myself; without knowing that my choice was determined by never having learnt how to protect myself. Never having any feeling that my limits were worth respecting because I was human. And I know it sounds dramatic but it took many years for me to feel like a human.
So, when we look at responsibility I am not trying to blame anybody. But I want to raise awareness about what sexualised violence does to humans. And I want to make it stop with regard for those humans who pay an extremely high price for what others just perceive as a few minutes of sexual pleasure’.

The Future
W-WomenGlobally: Where will you be in 5 years from now?
Odile Poulsen: In 5 years…hmmm….I would like to publish 2 of my new books I am currently working on and I also have plans to publish my books outside Denmark. I would like to have a possibility to give many more lecturers about women’s rights – the topic that strangely enough is still needed to be focused on. And also – of course – continue successfully my psychotherapeutic professional activity that is so challenging and giving.

Fragments of interview on the basis of Odile Poulsen’s cronic published in Politiken, at their 100th year anniversary, May 2005.

Meet Odile Poulsen at her website