23/12/2025
S*X INDUSTRY SURVIVOR STORY #6 - ASHLEIGH
************* TRIGGER WARNING ************
This content discusses traumatic experiences & criminal behaviour within the prostitution system & gangs; s*x trafficking, s*xual abuse, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts & emotional trauma.
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I entered the NZ s*x trade in 2001 aged 20 years old and left for good in 2005.
Becoming a stripper was never a dream of mine, however I loved dancing for as long as I can remember. At 4 years of age I was a baby ballerina, and at 7 switched to Jazz Ballet before quitting formal dance training at the age of 10. My absolute favourite movie then, was Dirty Dancing. I also watched movies like Flashdance, St******se, Showgirls and Forest Gump - all of which have st*****rs in them, so in retrospect, I can see how this influenced me early on to become more s*xual in my dance style.
Truthfully, becoming a stripper was borne out of necessity. I was using alcohol to self soothe after repeated s*xual assaults, which then resulted in creating a perpetual cycle of more opportunities for s*xual abuse. In 1998, at the age of 18, I attended Blair Tennant Teachers College in Palmerston North, and on 18th Dec that year, I was r***d.
In 1999, I attempted su***de in the Boarding Hostel there, which was humiliating, as everyone knew. I switched to Massey University College of Education for a bit, before officially dropping out altogether, halfway through my degree. I became an alcoholic, drinking away my pay, and while out at bars, I drew attention with my drunken, s*xy dancing. One night, someone watching me whispered in my ear, “You should be a stripper”. I needed money fast, so when I saw the advert for FireCats Palmerston North, I thought “why not?” Things were only going to get worse, before they would get better.
FireCats was run by “Larry” at the time, and he took pretty good care of his crew. “Corky”, who was the run around helper for Larry, was also a good man; he always made sure we were safe. I remember when they saved me from being “blocked”. Corky drove me and some of the girls who dated gang members, to the “M Motorcycle Gang” pad after work one night, to hang out at their club bar. I was young and naive, so when they invited me to a block party, I thought it was a party at a house in the compound. But when I told Corky, he explained that a block party is where lots of men take turns ra**ng you. Corky then told Larry, and Larry banned anyone from taking me back to the pad.
My experience of working at FireCats was that nothing traumatic happened within those walls. I danced 3 nights a week, got to pick my own music and costumes, taught myself pole tricks and got strong. The money wasn’t huge in a little town, so we had to do a cleaning job in the club at the end of the night too. I was managing to pay my bills.
Maybe I’d have stayed in Palmy, but my younger sister was beaten up while pregnant, and the guy who did it was arrested for threatening her life. I took my $900 savings, and got her and I a flat in Wellington. The Mermaid Bar had just opened a couple months previously, so I got myself a job there too. My interview with them was quick, and in a room cluttered with paperwork above the brothel and strip club. I hadn’t put on make up, and the owners, the “Chop” Brothers asked me, “You do wear make up?”
The brothers weren’t really good at people skills. One day “Murray” Chop walked past me in the club and said “You need to wear more make up, you’ve got pimples”. They loved to hold sudden staff meetings at the start of the evening and put down new contracts, and if we didn’t sign, we got fired.
I remember the night we went on a “One Night Stripper Strike”. I instigated it, triggered by Murray throwing a chair across the club in anger at our manager “Logan” and his girlfriend who was the bar manager on duty. She was trying to kick out a drunken couple, who were making out in the club as we arrived at 7pm, but Murray didn’t care about her liquor license, and was trying to keep the couple.
After witnessing that incident, on top of being mad that they had cut our pay, had not been paying our taxes, and issued a new contract saying we would receive tips only, we took Logan and walked out on the job. We got drunk at The Grand and started visiting the other strip clubs, with the club bosses trying to poach us. The next day, our strike made the papers. We negotiated with The Chops to come back and be paid again, but still they pushed the envelope; cameras in our dressing room and private dance booths, fines for not taking the stage on time, harassment for not doing enough private dancing, and we would get fined for staying in the dressing room to fix makeup after swimming in the tank.
I was banned from buying drinks at the bar, because I would pass out drunk in the dressing room. But then a bartender named Janie started, who ignored the ban, and helped me to get my booze. Janie and I became close; but it turned out she was fiance to the president of “The S Gang”, and was actually scouting me to s*x traffic me. She had been playing the long game to build trust, using me to hide out when he beat her, then manipulated me into going to the pad by telling me that they wouldn’t let her go unless she brought me too.
Before long, I was trafficked to the drug mule, and gang r***d by some of the members. Janie didn't like it when I told her that her fiance had tasered me and then forced my legs open to stare at my va**na. She told them where I lived and caused me to have to move after receiving threatening voicemails. At the end of the day, she threw me to the wolves, and let them play with me, how they wanted.
I remember there were some Hungarian girls who worked at the Mermaid Bar; they barely spoke English. I suspected they lived upstairs in the boarding hostel above the strip club and brothel; horrible rooms with one bed, no windows, maybe a skylight. One night I noticed they weren’t cashing out their special printed plastic notes after shift, that the customers bought to tip us girls in. I queried it, and was informed that the Chop Brothers were holding their passports, and controlling their money; hence they weren’t allowed to cash out each night, and instead had to hand over all the money they made.
The holding of passports didn’t just happen to non-English speaking women; it also happened to my friend when she came over from Australia. In the end, she pretended she needed it for getting a drivers licence, and once they returned it to her, she skipped town. I truly hope the Hungarians got their passports back too, and out of that hell hole quickly.
In my Aussie friend’s opinion, she was not s*x trafficked; she believes it was normal for her passport to be held. We need to change this attitude; I knew it was wrong at the time when I was told about it, but I felt powerless so did nothing, and I regret that. If we don't start holding these cretins accountable this will just keep happening. Imagine you start a job overseas and have your passport taken. Maybe it arose from you needing help to pay for air fares, but it still doesn't mean indentured servitude is ok. It is trafficking to hold someone's passport and force them to work for you.
The Chop Brothers exploited multitudes of local girls and vulnerable international women, and in the end left the s*x trade and went into business with a former Prime Minister, making big money through developing property.
My mother was never happy about my exotic dancing, and I understand that now; her unhappiness about it wasn’t as harmless as I might have thought back then. One time she said to me (maybe coming from her Psych and Sociology papers learning), that “women in the s*x industry can only do that job because of their dysfunction after s*xual abuses and/or r**es”. So one night at Mermaid Bar I took a poll, and asked “Who is a survivor of s*xual abuse?” All but one of the girls put up their hand. It would be decades later that the one who didn’t put her hand up, came out with her childhood s*xual abuse. Therefore, it was one hundred percent of us.
Know this; if you enter the s*x industry, you don't get to choose the clientele. I did a lap dance for a famous high-profile businessman once and he was creepy silent and refused to tip - one of the weirdest, most awkward private dances ever. Then there was a top NZ band who liked to hire me for a private dance, and were really sweet and polite, not pushing my boundaries or trying anything. Some clients are ok, but most are not, and then there's the dangerous predatory ones.
I'm an admin for an in memoriam page for my friends; twins who worked with me. They never worked at the same club, as too many sickos want to see twins doing things together.
“Courtney” was my stage buddy, and I remember one night the cameras in the private dance room came in handy, as she had passed out in the private room, and was about to be r***d. We didn't have the cameras when I was assaulted by a man in the private dance room, and he grabbed me from behind and pulled me into his mouth. I turned and slapped him, and while I was crying in the dressing room, he was getting a refund. Then there was the serial licker; a disabled man with a major crush on me who had to be watched every time he came in, and his private dance was done with the door open. Another night I was on stage for the finale and a man grabbed me and pulled my arm up behind my back. It wasn't a bouncer that saved me, it was a customer.
I loved dancing and would happily have danced all night, but the job required us to get close to men for tipping dollars, and to hustle for Private Dance money. Imagine having to smile and be sweet to creepy old men who just want to grab you and pull you into their laps. “Strippers are teasers not pleasers”, we’d say amongst ourselves. Drugs and alcohol became a daily necessity for me to get through the night, so I was a right royal mess; a prime candidate for partying with bad people, and being drugged and r***d after work. By the time I got sober in the year 2010, I had a core belief that I was r**e bait.
I left The Mermaid Bar to try out Liks with two of my besties from Mermies in 2002. The accommodation offered by Liks was superior compared to the rooms above Mermaids, and they did choreography and had the coolest costumes. The boss was “Brett”, and he despised his new drug addicted alcoholic st*****rs (me and my two friends), but he needed us because he’d sent most of his Angels to The Whitehouse in Auckland. He left his head bouncer “Barry” and his wife “Maggie” in charge of us; later he would give them ownership of Liks.
While I was working at Liks, I met the s***m donor of my firstborn. He doesn’t get “father” status, as he’s never been that to my now 22 year old son. He met him once, when I discovered he was on home detention for $20,000 worth of driving fines. I understand why he’s not well; he called himself a child pr******te, but really he was the key witness to bring down a p**o ring that he and his little sister had been victims of. When the Miramar p**ophile ring was busted, he was 10 years old, and left home then to join “The B Gang” chapter in Wellington. When I dated him, I was a total cliche as “the stripper” with “the gang member”. According to him, smoking m**h was ok, but injecting ecstasy and doing rinse was rank.
It was early 2003 when I fell pregnant, and I wanted to get sober and clean, and get my life back together. In 2004, I went back to part time dancing, but stayed less than 6 months; I just couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't happy spending nights away from my baby, and needed to either be drunk or on drugs.
I never expected to have a baby to a gang member, and had zero aspirations to visit gang pads, but it seems like the s*x industry just attracts them all. I was a favourite of “The H Gang” when I was at FireCats, I ended up smoking m**h in “The G Gang” pad with my baby daddy even though he was in “The B Gang”, and another time I ended up in a 2-girl private dance with two “U Gang” members.
I was so innocent when I went in, and not so innocent by the time I came out. I'd become a full blown drug addict within the first year I started dancing, and had a drinking problem. I didn’t want to be near the smelly, sleazy men who only wanted to touch us and push our boundaries, so making money wasn't actually my strong point. If I was lucky, I would get a couple hundred a night, but most nights I got told off for not hustling enough private dances. The girls that made money needed to hustle; work the crowd and find the men willing to pay for private dances. I suspected some girls were selling extras in there, but I just couldn't.
My advice to women thinking of entering into this industry is “don't”. You will not be the same when you come out. There are better ways to make money that don't diminish your self worth and put you in harm's way. You don't go into this job because you want to spend your evenings performing naked to a drunken gross crowd of men. If you've been abused and you struggle, this is not going to help you get better and live your best life.
I spent half of my life wanting to die, and even attempting su***de, because I couldn't imagine that I could have what I have today. In recent years, I've been diagnosed by ACC with PTSD, anxiety and depression. I've had agoraphobia so bad I couldn't leave my home for a year; hubby could get me in the car, but not out of it at the shops. I’ve had panic attacks so bad that ambulances have been called, and have been on maximum doses of SSRI's plus Beta Blockers.
Initially the s*x trade seemed fun; being s*xy, drinking and dancing to my favourite songs, but it turned dark quickly and became a chore where I had to watch my back and keep the demons at bay. I spent a lot of time disassociating, disconnecting from myself, and numbing my instincts so as to allow h***y men near, which in turn risked more trauma.
The thing about the s*x industry is it connects predatory people to vulnerable people. It attracts bad people, who have zero scruples and will chew up and spit out a sweet person. If you enter into this territory, be prepared to not trust anyone. It is littered with psychopathic degenerates looking for a target. This territory is not for the faint of heart.
The only positive I can think of from that time are my friends, that I still keep in contact with to this day. I found myself fitting in better with the women I stripped alongside, than anywhere else I had been. Some of my friends from that time disappeared, and I have no idea what happened to them. Some died, and three of them killed themselves. We were all survivors of s*xual abuse and s*xual assaults, and we found each other in our hardest season. Maybe it’s survivor solidarity, understanding each other better from surviving similar experiences. We still struggle, but we don't sell ourselves anymore, and that is such a relief.
If you're in the s*x industry and struggling to get out, please know that even though it doesn't feel like it, life can be better. Remember that we don't have a crystal ball, so you don't know what amazing things can be in your future. When you leave, it won't be easy, but you will start to live again, and you will survive to thrive. Also, s*x can be beautiful with someone gentle and who you intimately love. Your s*xuality is sacred and belongs in a loving intimate relationship.
Reach out to someone, or to the Salvation Army bridge program - I found that program was a safe place that I needed. I also found Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and mindfulness to be the tools I needed to get my mind healthier, and begin the journey that is healing.
I'm still healing, but I'm not drowning. I'm proud to say I'm 15 years clean and sober. I found a good man, we own a home and have five beautiful children.
I appreciate you putting a spotlight on the dangers of this industry to our hearts, minds and souls. In the thick of it, I never dreamt that life could be what it is today. I'm so glad I survived, and I never want my daughters or any other women to go through what we did.
ASHLEIGH
📸 Blurred out pic of Ashleigh, 2001
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Please respect the mana of Ashleigh by offering positive words and energy only to acknowledge her sharing her incredible story so courageously and generously.
If you have also survived and exited the NZ s*x trade and would like to share a story, email 'STORY' to [email protected] to have some info sent through.
If you or someone you know needs to report abuse to the authorities, call 111.
If you or someone you know needs support, contact:
* SAFE 2 TALK - 0800 044 334
* ALCOHOL DRUG HELPLINE - 0800 787 797
* LIFELINE - 0800 543 354 or text HELP (4357).
* SU***DE CRISIS HELPLINE - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO).
* DEPRESSION HELPLINE - 0800 111 757 or text 4202
Ninakaye
