Paid For – My Journey through Prostitution: Surviving a Life of Prostitution and Drug Addiction on Dublin’s Streets

By Rachel Moran

When you are 15 years old and destitute, too unskilled to work and too young to claim unemployment benefit, your body is all you have left to sell.

‘THE BEST WORK BY ANYONE ON PROSTUTION EVER.’ Catherine A. MacKinnon

Rachel Moran came from a troubled family background. Taken into state care at 14, she became homeless and got involved in prostitution aged 15, ending up isolated, drug-addicted, outside of society.

Rachel’s experience was one of violence, loneliness, and relentless exploitation and abuse. Her story reveals the emotional cost of selling your body night after night in order to survive – loss of innocence, loss of self-worth and loss of connection to mainstream society, which makes it all the more difficult to escape the world of prostitution.

Paid For reveals the raw reality behind prevailing myths about sex work: that working indoors is safer; that some forms of sex work are ‘classier’ than others; that selling sex can be empowering; that a ‘happy hooker’ exists. The biggest lie of all, Rachel says, is that women can choose to be in prostitution.

At the age of 22 she managed, with remarkable strength, to liberate herself from the cycle of drug abuse and prostitution. She went to university, gained a degree and forged a new life, but she always promised that one day she would complete this book. Paid For is her story, in her own words and in her own name.

‘Striking, saturated with sad and angry detail and raw, effective analogy.’ The New York Times

‘This is surely the best, most personal, profound, eye-opening book ever written about prostitution – irrefutable proof of why it should NEVER be legalized.’ Jane Fonda

‘Rachel Moran’s Paid For should be required reading in courses on human rights, in police training and law schools, and in sex education courses that separate welcome sex from body invasion.’ Gloria Steinem

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gill Books
• Release date: Apr 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9780717156009

Rachel Moran

Rachel Moran grew up in north Dublin city. From a troubled family background, she was 14 when she was taken into state care. She was prostituted for seven years in Dublin and other Irish cities, beginning when she was 15 years old. In 1998, at the age of 22, she managed to extricate herself from prostitution. At 24, she returned to education and completed a degree in journalism at Dublin City University, were she won the Hybrid Award for excellence in journalism. Rachel speaks internationally on prostitution and sex trafficking, including talks at the United Nations in New York and Boston’s Harvard University, and volunteers with young girls in residential care, teaching them about the harms and dangers of prostitution. Paid For, the story of her prostitution experience and a searing analysis of the prostitution industry, has been translated into Italian and German and has been praised worldwide for its bravery, honesty and insightfulness. Rachel lives in Dublin.

Reviews for Paid For – My Journey through Prostitution

[Tumisho · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fundamentally informative. It transformed my view of prostitution and as a result , my understanding of the profession at hand has increased in astronomical proportions

[HAVANA · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I rarely write reviews but was so moved by this story. Everyone should read this in order to understand what prostitution really is, in the day when the objectification of human beings has gotten out of hand. Beautifully written as well, which is rare for an autobiography.

[Signme Uplease · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Moving and powerful story that cannot help but compel the reader to act in defense of the women and children who are caught up in this industry through no fault of their own.