Category: Elona Washington

Elona Washington

Even with my bachelor’s degree, I still felt more comfortable at the strip club than anywhere else. And that feeling hit me the very first time I walked through those doors. While I initially starting dancing to avoid eviction, I stayed because I felt more at home in the strip club than I did in college, at church and at my parent’s. Not only was I accustomed to feeling degraded, I believed I didn’t deserve any better or that any man would treat me better than the men at the club.

Elona Washington

Those years of anger weren’t just directed inward and towards others, I was also angry with God. As a kid, when I sang songs in the children’s choir and memorized verses in bible study, I was told there was a God who loved and protected us. He was a jealous God and could be angered, yes, but He always showed grace and mercy towards His people. I must not have been one of His people. He never protected me. As a matter of fact, I remember crying and pleading to God to make it stop when I was in DC being raped at five years old. I thought he heard my prayers when I moved to New Jersey. But when the abuse became worse and more frequent, it was easy for me to conclude God’s protection didn’t apply to me.