Geisha Training
Paid for with tax dollars
When I was about 6 years old, my handler took me to be trained as a Geisha. He was treated like a God there, so he expected me to learn to do the same. The women and girls considered it a great honor to serve him and obeyed his every command. I hated it! With a passion! To me, in that house (not in all) but there it was just a place where girls and women were trafficked to wealthy old wrinkly men. The enforcers were the older women, and they were fierce. In this house they behaved like madams, all that mattered was that you learned how to please and obey.
I hated him, in every way. He kept trying to figure out ways to make me love him. To him, love means submission, obsession, deviance, the embrace of anything. “If you love someone you will do anything to make them happy” he used to say. He forced me around his family, his mother, his sister, his wife, even his kids. He even attempted to have me move in with them as their “foster child” but his wife hated the idea. So did his mother and sister, they all saw me as competition. At the Geisha house, he believed that I would learn total obedience so that no matter where I was he never had to worry if I “loved” and obeyed him. He was a spy, he had to maintain total control at all times. Having me at his side meant that he needed to be able to trust me. The only way he could do that is if he knew everything about me, in order to do that, he felt he had to torture me. Shut me down, break me down, rebuild me in his image. It’s not a new concept, the military does it in boot camp, the most advanced martial arts schools did it in the most remote places. Spouses do it to their wives daily. To him it was normal and because I was Black and poor, to him that was my natural place. But I am the abomination? lol. He wanted me to be in total surrender, at all times, a sub, a slave. A toy to be used at his command. Nothing EVERY stopped him from getting what he wanted, he always found a way.
In 1981 it wasn’t that uncommon to see such things in a lot of places in the world. He made sure he took me to many of them so that I would learn to accept it as my place. It was however uncommon to see a poor American Black girl with a wealthy, affluent White man. “We can do anything here, that’s why I love it. The women know how to treat a man” he always said. Even at that age I fully understood how misogynistic he was, nothing he ever did made sense. I was trapped in it, even now at 46 I am still trapped by the consequences. Yet many still argue there is no proof that such things are harmful to children, or that it even happens! UN Human Rights
I watched him develop the “men’s rights movement” step by step. All of the racist, misogynistic, fascist, dogmatic, illegal rhetoric spouted by his cronies became mainstream quickly. The world is living the result of that to this day. “You will see, this is normal in most parts of the world. It’s not me it’s you. It’s what society teaches. You have to unlearn such thinking, you’re addicted to it”. That’s what he used to say, that it was my fault for being “traumatized” because I was addicted to “sadness”. smh
Geisha training was meant to undue the awareness that I was born with that told me no one had the right to touch me in any way without my permission, and never as a kid. It was meant to convince me that my destiny was to please him and any other person he commanded, for the purposes he commanded, because to him that is the natural order of life. It was meant to train me to believe that my own identity is non existent and my feelings don’t matter, all that matters is what he commands. I was 6 years old, it left a hell of an imprint on me.
I watched him build that house up from a little dingy 3 room shack to a large luxurious house on a secluded countryside hill. The landscape was beautiful! Flying in was ominous and amazing. The natural beauty of the world has always left me in awe, that was no different. When he wanted to punish me the worst, he kept me trapped inside unable to breathe fresh air, unable to feel the warm sunlight on my skin. Unable to feel the morning dew on my toes when I ran barefoot in the grass. Unable to watch the mist rise into the upper atmosphere and float away. Everywhere he was, I went. For the longest time if you saw him you saw me, he loved it that way. He loved it there, it was my responsibility to make it a pleasant experience or an unpleasant one. I was his “little thing” and he never wanted that to change.
In that house, which he owned, he could do anything. He could be anybody, he could do anything. I watched the women and girls run to him and embrace him, bow to him, beg and compete for his attention. It wasn’t just there where he was treated like a God, it was almost everywhere. Anywhere in the world you could pick a place and he was known there. It all made me ill in every way. I couldn’t stomach any of it, I had to learn because recoiling form him made him the most viscous. I couldn’t understand how that could be happen to anyone, I still can’t. Are Black people so insignificant that such torture can go on so long in plain sight every day and no one cares? Human Rights Watch
When you grow up in a society that has allowed such ill treatment toward women, like in America, then it becomes so common that no one even understands why you complain. There, it was in the open, in his house anyway. Here in America, such abuses and the abusers were being pushed into the underground and challenged with legislation that protected victims, they still resented it to this day. He kept ahead of the United Nations with every step. It’s easy to do when you are one of the nations highest ranking diplomats, and a trusted leader. Everywhere he went he was greeted with awe, respect, sometimes even worship. I couldn’t understand any of it, he made my skin crawl and he knew it. So, figuring out how to break me of my inborn defenses became a mission for him. “I’m going to get what I want, I always do. I will break you and if you fail to be what I want you to be I will leave you in pieces in a pool of blood. You will never be put back together again.” That’s how he raised me.
I learned very quickly to keep myself tucked deep inside, to pick my battles, to measure energy, and preserve strength. I understood early on that it would take me forever to get away. I’m still fighting for freedom yet it’s 40 years later and he’s dead. UN Women
I learned how to greet him, how to bow. How to dress, how to do my hair, how to do my make-up, how to walk. How not to speak, ever, but when I do to do so submissively. I would go days without being allowed to utter a word. If I needed anything like food, water, or to use the restroom, I had to figure it out how without speaking. I wasn’t allowed to move about freely. In fact, I wasn’t allowed to leave his living spaces. He eventually built my own, which was a great honor in the house, but to me it meant permeance. Though it gave me some breathing space, I truly just wanted to get away.
I learned how to prepare and pour his tea, to protect him if he was under attack, to acquiesce to humiliation because he mattered and that was always how it would be. If I was good enough, I could eat an drink. If I didn’t meet with his approval, I suffered, that was always the way. The torture I am experiencing now is nothing new, I have lived this way my entire life, I still hate it.
I learned how to fold my robes, how to tie my belt, how to wear my hair to indicate my place in society. How to care for him. How to wear combs, how to use them when the time came. I learned how to undress him, how to clean him, how to always remain beneath him in every way. Staying in a bowed position in his presence, at all times, head down, eyes down, crawling on my knees, never looking him or anyone else in the eyes without his permission. I had to have permission for everything! Absolutely everything! The only positive thing about the experience was the pretty walls made of rice paper, and the beautiful bamboo. The clothes were gorgeous as well. Everything else was hell.
Before he died, he forced my submission in the same way again. When I was 7 years old he told me he would see me in that place as he took his last breath. It turned out to be true, because I was never able to fully escape.
He could do whatever he wanted, in a house full of people, and no one would ever intervene. He usually kept us in a section that was isolated from others but, obviously the walls are paper thin. Everyone could hear when he got angry with me for disobeying. Which I did, I never stopped fighting, I just had to pick my battles efficiently. Most people would be surprised to know that he loved my courage and the fight that I had in me. He expected it, demanded it, and if I failed to show it then the consequences were even worst. “If you have no strong reaction that means you have only apathy, which is the opposite of love, and I will never tolerate this.” It was one of his greatest fears, one that he faced in his last moments.
He was such a toxic person that he expected me to fight, if I didn’t his boredom would grow into homicidal tendencies. Sometimes he called other young girls or women, to prove to me that it will certainly be me if I don’t learn to please him. In his house, that was common. Anyone could do anything. They were known for breaking the harshest of souls, but they didn’t break me.
It was also a house where the world’s most dangerous people could meet and make deals that couldn’t’ be done in any other space. But in situations like that, things get out of hand quickly. So, I wasn’t just his sub, I was also his security.
Those experiences most certainly altered me, permanently. It made me more silent than ever, that remains fixed within me to this day. People think I enjoy exposing the most darkest aspect of my life publicly, I do not, it was always forbidden. This is a living nightmare for me. Punishment for such things meant torture in ways most cannot comprehend. So doing this, publicly, is my worst nightmare but it cannot be escaped. If I don’t tell the truth, no one ever will. Because I speak, the truth will always be.
He often strangled me there, for disobedience. Even the house mothers told him repeatedly he was too rough with me. One quit, one threatened to quit, he killed one for threatening to report him. He was ruthless in every way. So sometimes, he kept his torture quiet so that he didn’t lose more staff but also so that the other girls weren’t afraid or encouraged to rebel. He needed them to join us and wouldn’t be fun for him if we were all scared of him. Just scared enough not to rebel, but I was born to do that so he couldn’t break me.
He liked the way my tiny neck felt in his hand. It made him feel powerful, he liked to absorb my emotions. He loved seeing the fear in my eyes, the look of pain on my face. I learned to mask, but he always knew how to bring it out in me. He would create situations that he knew would cause me to react in a way that he did not approve of. That would then give him the “right” to “discipline” me. Sometimes discipline meant sparring, actually often. Almost every day, for the first part of my experience there, we battled. Literal hand to hand combat. It was what he expected. We fought naked, always. No clothes ever allowed, he enjoyed the added vulnerability.
“Age is nothing but a number” he would say. He treated me like a grown man. He loved being a predator, to him I would always be his captured prey. Those “lessons” were to teach me what would happen if I ever got out of hand. I always got out of hand, even that he expected. If I didn’t then that meant I didn’t value myself enough to fight for my own life, and therefore worthy of annihilation by his hands. But also that I didn’t value him and this was the worst sin for me to commit against him. I learned to use it that and other things, sometimes he didn’t even realize that I was manipulating. But when he did, the punishment of course was more severe. I always had to measure my actions, in every way.
Striking him was ALWAYS forbidden, so when I did I was punished even more brutally. EVERY TIME I was knocked out, left bruised and battered, sometimes bones broken. I was out for several days once, neither he nor the house mother knew if I would make. He actually would get terrified at the thought of losing me. I never, ever saw that kind of fear in his eyes any other time. He buried bodies all the time, that wasn’t his concern. Sometimes it was his higher ups who would want to hold him accountable for killing their technology, because that’s how they saw me. But even then, he could figure out how to get clean from responsibility. It was his fear of losing his object that terrified him, the pain of separation from that which he craved was something he never wanted to experience. So it was my job to ensure he never had to. when I came back to consciousness he was angry for being away so long, “you don’t love me enough to come back for me?” It’s like he knew what I was seeing when I was unconscious. He was a master of the double bind, he held me in one, with vice grips, my entire life. Even after his death, the mechanisms are still in place. Progressive Caucus
I had to figure out how to calm him, that was the only way to stop the brutal assaults. The only way to calm him was to please him, and it couldn’t be in an ordinary way. He could get that from anyone, everyone, everything he ever wanted was always surrounding him. At home, in his birth family, in the Geisha house, on every base, where ever he went. Still it was NEVER enough! I couldn’t do anything anyone else did for him, he didn’t want that. He wanted what no one else had.
I spent my childhood navigating his insanity, in the face of the most extreme circumstances. I had to use my mind, to get out of every situation he put me in. I learned well how to analyze people, places, and things. It was already my gift but it became my superpower because it kept me alive and after awhile, it actually kept me somewhat safe. I soon learned to anticipate his moods, to understand every subtle aspect him, and to provide him with what he didn’t even think to understand that he needed. THAT is what made me invaluable to him. Being able to anticipate needs and fulfill them before he ever realized it was something he wanted. I had to learn to understand HIS subconscious, even before I understood my own. “I want to be in your subconscious, that way I will always be in control” he used to say. He spent astronomical amounts of time, money, and expertise in figuring out how to make my mind his. It worked almost completely.
He searched his entire life for that kind of entanglement. In his mind it was the ultimate fantasy. When he found it he intended to keep it forever, in this life and whatever comes next. When he changed, adapted, altered anything, I had to do the same. It wasn’t until I drew a line in the sand that he felt terrified of losing control. He assumed it was my age, he wasn’t entirely wrong about that. Once I turned twenty-one I was different. I had lost so much, I didn’t think of anything in the same way. My determination was so strong that not even my own suffering would deter me from getting what I wanted. FREEDOM! That desire became my life goal and I promised myself that I would always fight to the end! That was how he raised me, fighting, but that hidden commitment was to myself. He knew it was there, he knew it was inevitable, but he wanted to stave it off until the his end. He never knew when, or how I would rebel, he only knew it may come. So with his paranoid personality, he abused in advance for what I may be thinking of doing. That’s how I grew up.
His house was dismantled at some point in the 90s, due to regulations. I was so happy when it finally happened. For the most significant of my developmental years he held a tight grip on me by threatening to take me “home” to “discipline” me. We had “homes” everywhere, believe it or not, that one was the scariest. To him, it was just “sub training”. Sometimes he would take me and leave me there. I didn’t speak the language. It was agony. To me it was the death of my childhood. I buried my inner child there, at 6 years old, in those moments when I passed out for days. When I returned I wasn’t the same. I became the projection of what he truly wanted deep down inside, it was the only way to survive him. I hated it! No one could possibly understand how hard it was to survive it, but I did. “Submit to no one, bow to no other man”. That was how he raised me, so that is where I stand and will forever remain. Not for him, but for me. Some of that training comes in handy.
Healing that little girl that was beaten to death in that torture house was by far the hardest and scariest thing I ever had to do. I didn’t even do it for me, I did it for my children who are watching. I had to show them that if they really wanted to, they could survive anything. If for some reason they don’t, then they would have fought with their heart and soul to the end. This is The Way. When and if their time comes to take their last breath, they will be able to do so honorably with no regrets and a life lived in this way, honorably, bears no shame. If you could bottle this kind of wisdom and impart it to your children, wouldn’t you? Particularly in the stage that our planet is in?
I will never stop fighting for justice. Not in this life or the next. I am who I am and this will never change. I will continue to grow, adapt, and change. But I will not go backwards, I have sacrificed too much and I will not let my life go to waste. I earned the right to hold my head high under ANY circumstance. No amount of money, material possessions, accolades, or attention from any man will ever change that fact! No one can take away what I have earned with my blood, sweat, and tears. No one was ever there to help me through it, I was always totally alone with him. Fighting for survival, for breath, for a glimpse of a brighter day. I always found it, I always survived, even until his end. The worst part is, he was only one of many.
Geisha training for me wasn’t what it was for some. It was a house of horrors, anything but a fun day in a beautiful country full of cherry blossoms and frozen ice on a lovely warm spring day.
There are obviously two Americas. Had I been the daughter of a White special forces operative with my father’s training, a little blond haired girl with blue eyes or even wealthy, it never would have happened. The world would stop to ensure that little girl was safe. Instead, for me, the little poor Black girl of a poor Black man, enslaved to the special forces system that didn’t recognize us as human, no one cared. He stopped the world to reign me in during the midst of my attempted escape, no one cared. That should tell you who he was, but also who I am. “What if I get away” I used to ask. “Then I will stop the world”. It was impossible for me to understand what he meant, but he is the person who taught me about MEE’s so obviously, it is now crystal clear to me.
Everyone turned their heads and looked away just as they do now. So for me, this is just like “training”, he always said it would be this way. NAACP Congressional Black Caucus Library of Congress The White House TIME Nat Geo Explorers
That was 1981, it’s 2021, nothing has changed.
