Surviving on online sex trade

The shanty colonies south of the country’s capital are happier these days. At least one shanty, that is. Income from the online sex trade is bringing relief to “Magda” (not her real name), whose calendar is crammed with “orders” from clients of her clandestine business. She is her daughters’ coach and mentor who, even in the wee hours of the morning, demands “superb performance.”

“Malaki po bayad ’pag okay ang performance (the pay is good for a good performance),” she says of the foreign males who keep popping up on her computer screen. Her daughters are now aged 13 to 16, and were 10 and 13 when she started grooming them. They are Magda’s main role players.

Asked to describe a good performance, she sums it up as a provocative exhibit of feelings, active and gratifying. There are bad times, she admits, but the family has staved off hunger during the best of times.

Although aware that her trade is a form of human trafficking, and despite two rescue operations and a stay in a halfway house for psychosocial interventions, Magda has grown callous. The income is more important than what people have to say, she shrugs. When the males of the house were laid off, she was clueless on how to feed the household. The pandemic and its lack of options made her try online sex. She taught two daughters how to act, flex their body to simulate gratification, and generally endear themselves to online clients. Two other children are not part of the trade and are enrolled in a private school. Hopefully, they would see college. The income she gets from her online trade has afforded them a second-hand desktop computer and a cellphone each. It also takes care of their daily needs.

As for feelings of guilt and recrimination, she recalls the harrowing tale of a 40-something mother who groomed her two daughters, barely out of infancy, to satisfy a very loyal male client. When the girls were grown up, he jetted to the Philippines to meet them. Locked in a hotel room for a week with the girls and the client, the mother could do nothing when he started physically and verbally abusing them. Mother and daughters were rescued and underwent psychosocial interventions. But the tale generates mixed feelings. Because the girls were virgins, the fees were higher and provided the mother enough capital to put up a small sari-sari store.

Magda also considers her trade a life-saver, a blessing even. While government has programs for the poor and cash assistance during the pandemic, she says the staggered help is not enough. She has pushed aside any feeling of regret, guilt, or ambivalence for something she says the family can firmly rely on. The rumblings of their stomach cannot be ignored, she adds.

MARIA CONGEE S. GOMEZ
Sta. Ana, Manila