I was one of them.

And I know what the fuck I am talking about.

You see sex.

I see poverty.

I know poverty. If you want this to end, if you can even begin to imagine the cyclical nature of it, if you think young boys selling their holes is a problem, then tackle the poverty that creates it.

You see boys who are incorrigible.

I see boys who are desperate. None of them look like addicts.

You cannot detect HIV from what you see.

Ask yourself this: If you were getting fucked repeatedly every day, would you think about taking drugs to ease or numb some of that pain.

Addiction has its cycles, too.

The boys are sexualizing THEMSELVES.

Because that is how they survive.

This is not about sucking his cock or cuming in his ass. This is about survival.

Does anyone see these sex workers (they call themselves whores) as aligned with even the hint of high school.

They’re disposable.

Their tricks are MARRIED MEN. So put your stereotypes away.

These kids know how to work it on the Internet. They know marketing, branding, and secure credit cards. They run their own business.

They are subject to extraordinary violence. This is not trafficking. This is prostitution. Get a clue. One is not the other. No one is forcing these boys into anything.

Except themselves.

So take your moralisms and shove them.

“One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” – James Baldwin

Where do we begin.

We begin with something that these boys do not know because it is not their experience.

We begin with listening. To them.

We begin with listening. To them.