In 2009-10 three Bradford sex workers were murdered by a serial killer calling himself the “Crossbow Cannibal”. heir names were Susan Rushworth (age 43), Shelley Armitage (age 31) and Suzanne Blamires (age 36).As vulnerable young women on the street they were easy pickings for any sick psycho.
These women are commemorated at Crossbones Graveyard as “women… for all they were and could have been.” Crossbones Crow Priestess Jacqueline made them a lovely memorial plaque which we hung on the shrine. My friend Debbie, who knew and supported most of these girls, saw it and was comforted. She recently asked me to pray for them – and especially for Shelley Armitage. Shelley is held in the compassionate heart of The Goose, who loves and protects all her outcast children.
And for any men who think The Goose is just some sexy embodiment of the Divine Feminine who won’t mind if they take a few “liberties”, be very afraid!
‘O, Over There, you’d swear
they were the image of propriety
but row ‘em Over ‘ere, dear,
and it’s all rape and pillage
and bondage and buggerage
with molly boys – “What jolly boys!” –
and Goose girls underage,
taking Liberties, and licence, dear.
We all have to deal with ‘em.
We pump them and paddle them
and into bed we squeal with ‘em.’
‘And when I hear those Hypocrites
decrying and denying me,
who make of me the vessel
of all known Vice and Depravity –
the way they talk, I swear you’d think
I was the Whore of Babylon,
as they make of me an altar
they see fit to rape my children on.’
‘And did they think my ghosts
would not start kicking
against the poxy pricks
what a-done all the pricking?
How could they ever think
they could sanitise me,
dress up my Clink
to decriminalise me?
Turn me into their Heritage Theme Park?
“Over ‘ere, dear, want to take
a walk down me dark
alleyways and doorways down me
blood fanny streamin’?”
Then it’s – ooops!
Jack Sheppard *
with his silver blade gleaming,
and it’s one more body ditched
in Thames water
dreaming.’
* Some readers may mistake ‘Jack Sheppard’ for ‘The Ripper’, assuming that it’s one of the Goose’s girls that gets cut. Uh-uh… Outlaw Jack is of The Goose’s party, lurking in the shadows to protect those street-girls from the scum that stalk them.
Personal statement: I never raped a woman. I once (long ago) found myself in bed with a woman who, after consensual foreplay, became upset when I impulsively and clumsily attempted penetration. I at once stopped and apologised, but it spoiled any chance of an enduring relationship. She was also my new landlady, and the rest of my time in her flat became a penance!
In focusing (in this particular post) on men who prey on sex workers, I’m not in any way discounting the experiences of women who are raped by people they know, by boyfriends or husbands.
For a woman’s view – see below. What Jo says.
“Louder for those in the back. Louder, taught in schools, louder, discussed at family dinner tables.
Louder, preached from pulpits and in mosques, in synagogues, at Buddhist temples, around pagan fires, at festivals, at rainbow gatherings. Louder, at top volume on every radio station, every playlist, every set list.
Brighter, in neon flashing lights, everywhere, at road signs, at entrances to cities, with jazz hands and show dancers; brighter, in primary colours, in the sharpest black font, in the biggest font size, with unmistakable cartoon-level illustrations, on flyers handed out everywhere, and posted through every door.
Bigger, unmistakably bigger, on billboards worldwide, on posters inside every pub, every club, every senior school and college and university lavatory door.
Bigger, written in the sky bigger still, in smoke by aeroplanes through every one of our skies; bigger, planted in letters made of sapling trees so it repeats for generations.
Bigger, written in the cement forever in all of our cities, bigger, written in the sand and the stones of every one of our beaches and coastlines, our lost islands. This is the sign.
And that sign spells: H.E.L.P.”
And that sign spells: H.E.L.P.”
