song for theme #33A: Servitude

“Sixteen Johns” by Stephen P. Cook

to be sung to the tune of “Sixteen Tons” by Merle Travis / Tennessee Ernie Ford

I do sixteen johns, not work I seek

As sex slave¹ in a typical week

A loving God wouldn’t let this happen to me

He’s all yours, I just wanna be free!

Was born in China, went to university²

Restless, I sought a job in the land of the free

Trained in accounting, English I speak

They said I’d start at a thousand a week

From that I’d pay back the smugglers’ fee

For the fake passport, airfare, taking care of me

They’d front the money, it’d be a loan

Against this was pledged the family home

I do sixteen johns, not work I seek

As sex slave in a typical week

A loving God wouldn’t let this happen to me

He’s all yours, I just wanna be free!

Got to mid Manhattan, learned the big lie:

Prostitution, not accounting, I wanted to die!

My dreams of New York had all been sweet

Not this nightmare on thirty sixth street

I was gang raped, beaten, held with a gun

Starved and shut up where I couldn’t see sun

Filmed naked, they humiliated me

If I fight back, they’ll show my family

I do sixteen johns, not work I seek

As sex slave in a typical week

A loving God wouldn’t let this happen to me

He’s all yours, I just wanna be free!

One of twenty whores, I’m called Yummy Lee

For three years trapped in this slavery

The johns don’t know, they think I get paid

Most wouldn’t care: they just wanna get laid!

One day my friend was handcuffed by a john

Beaten, strangled, I found her nearly gone

Took her to a hospital, went to the law

Told ‘em ‘bout the pimps and bad guys I saw³

I do sixteen johns, not work I seek

As sex slave in a typical week

A loving God wouldn’t let this happen to me

He’s all yours, I just wanna be free!

SONG—NOTES / COMMENTS

1— Forced prostitution is a form of sexual slavery in which someone is forced into working as a prostitute.  Poor women in

      developing countries are often required by extreme poverty to sell their bodies.  Others are lured into the sex trade by false

      promises (say of a good job in a rich country) and are unable to escape.    

2—This song is loosely based on the story “A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave” about Yumi Li (a nickname) written by Nicholas D.

      Kristof and appearing in The New York Times on November 27, 2010.  

3—After confronting the pimps and threatening to go public, they moved, and never mailed the video to Yumi’s family. She got

      help from a NYC nonprofit devoted to helping victims of human trafficking.

 Comment: living the reality associated with this theme can promote your carrying emotional baggage. Otherwise this theme may have value as emotional armor. Knowledge that your plight is not your fault—it’s someone or something elses’—may help shield you from your own, and others’, harsh judgment.