After reading this can't help but wonder how many Korean and other Asian women working in Grand Junction, Richmond, Grand Junction, etc working in massage parlours might be in similar dicey predicaments. I tip my hat to the guy who helped You Mi get out of this trap... Reading this caused me to think about a lot of things... let me know your thoughts after reading it....

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/10/MNGN9LFHRO1.DTL

DIARY OF A SEX SLAVE
LAST IN A FOUR-PART SPECIAL REPORT
FREE, BUT TRAPPED
In San Francisco, You Mi begins to put her life back together -- but the cost is high
Meredith May

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Navigating past the junkies and hustlers in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, You Mi Kim found the metal security door she was looking for, and pressed the buzzer.

Inside Sun Spa massage parlor, the manager saw You Mi on the surveillance camera and threw some sea salt over the threshold -- a Korean practice to ward off bad luck.

It was July 2003. It had been five months since You Mi was lured from her home in South Korea by international sex traffickers, who had tricked the debt-ridden college student with promises of a high-paying hostess job in America.

After forcing her into sex work to pay them nearly $20,000, the traffickers had finally let her go. But freedom was elusive.

Traffickers had taken all her earnings, yet she still faced a $40,000 shopping debt back home -- the reason she left for an American job that promised big pay. Now, no fewer than six creditors were circling her family in South Korea.

Any kind of job she could get as an illegal immigrant -- cleaning homes or washing dishes in a restaurant -- wouldn't pay her debts in time. She wanted to protect her family from the shame of bankruptcy. She wanted her life back.

You Mi felt she had no choice.

On her first day of freedom, she took an unlicensed Korean taxi from Los Angeles to another illicit massage parlor in San Francisco.

The door of the Sun Spa opened. The manager, a Korean woman in her 50s, led You Mi inside and quickly handed her off to the masseuse with the most seniority.

For the next four months, You Mi would become a person she never imagined. She and five other sex workers would share a dingy apartment on O'Farrell Street across from the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. She'd spend her waking hours at Sun Spa, having sex with more than a dozen men a day, six days a week, and scurrying into secret hideaways during police raids.

<snip> to read the rest please go here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/10/MNGN9LFHRO1.DTL

and let me know your thoughts..... gives me a whole new perspective....made me think about a lot of things........ causes me to feel a lot of compassion for people trapped in You Mi's situation, but then again, I was a homeless person at one time in my life, and I've lived in the streets myself, so I've always viewed life through the lens of my own experience.

The guy who helped You Mi bail out of this scene is a good guy. There are probably a lot of us on here who would do what he did under the right set of circumstances, and there are probably some SPs on here in situations as desperate and as mind numbingly sad as You Mi's.

I'd be curious to know any personal stories any SP on here might feel like sharing about situations like this being a naturally inquisitive person. I realize not every SP is in You Mi's sort of situation, that some are truly highly sexed people who actually do love the freedom of the trade, of the money, of meeting a variety of interesting people- but I'm willing to bet that for every person who fits THAT category, there are probably many more You Mi's.... any comments?