by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Last April I received a somewhat stunning email from the Brooklyn Museum. In December, Gloria Steinem—the Gloria Steinem; the original Ms., G.L.O.R.I.A.—would be moderating a panel at Elizabeth Sackler’s Center for Feminist Art. The topic was global sex trafficking. Dr. Sackler had read my novel based on the life of prostitute-turned-post-Impressionist Pan Yuliang. She wanted to include me, in some capacity, in the discussion.
My first reaction was euphoria. For for me, as for millions of women worldwide, Steinem is a hero of uber-rockstar proportions. The idea of speaking with—or even speaking near—her was like being asked to back up the Beatles. Or perhaps a more sober Janice Joplin.
My second reaction was panic: for while it’s true that The Painter from Shanghai spends time in an early 20th-century Chinese brothel, it’s actually a relatively small portion of the storyline–a fact with which I’ve tried (though almost invariably in vain) to combat endless Memoirs of a Geisha comparisons. I’d read up on the sex trade, of course, in books like Gail Hershatter’s Dangerous Pleasures (about Shanghai prostitutes of the last century) and Alexa Albert’s Brothel (about the women of Nevada’s famed Mustang Ranch). I’d followed with rapt horror Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times columns on the global sex trade and its victims—some younger than my own 5-year-old daughter. I even did a story on this subject myself once, on girls in Chiang Rai, Thailand who were desperately fighting prostitution’s pull.
But I’m the first to admit I’m no sex-trade expert. I’m a novelist. And for all the thrill of the invitation, I didn’t really feel qualified for Gloria’s gig. Happily, Dr. Sackler had already come to this conclusion; in her next email she clarified that I would be speaking and reading, not with the panelists, but in a separate event the following day. But, she added, if I attended Saturday’s panel there was a good chance that I could meet my icon in person. “Yesyesyes!” I wrote back; and tattooed it into my calendar: “Sex Trafficking and the New Abolitionists. December 13th.
Eight months later there I was, lined up enthusiastically with scores of other Steinem fans, outside the Brooklyn Museum’s auditorium. The doors opened to a small stampede for good seats. I’m sure that, like me, all of these attendees were very interested in learning about sex trafficking. But I’m equally sure that many (if not most) were primarily there to see Gloria. About five minutes into Steinem’s articulate and self-effacing introduction, however, something interesting happened: I found myself paying less attention the woman than to her words. Quite simply, some of the things she and her fellow panelists Tania Ben-aime, of Equality Now and Rachel Lloyd of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services were relating were, to me, utterly astounding:
–FACT: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime describes the trafficking of sex as the world’s fastest-growing criminal enterprise, and it now rivals the drug and the arms trades.
-FACT: There are today more slaves worldwide than there were in the 1800s.
-FACT: The average age of entry into the sex trade in the U.S. is between 11 and 12 years old.
–FACT: You can actually buy such a child’s sexual “services” online, and collect them in a house in New Jersey.
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