2nd Sold Post: Katie Coduto

It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, or who you associate with, everyone pretends. Sometimes people pretend to be something they're not, sometimes people pretend situations are better than they are so they don't seem broken or disturbed inside, and sometimes people pretend so that others won't realize the pain that they suffer and yet are able to endure day by day. In the novel Sold to pretend is to survive and to survive is to pretend. Every day, each of the girls live their lives while pretending that they're not dead inside. They look men in the eyes and lure them in with their crimson red lipstick and blackened eyes while their hearts are breaking because they know that this will be their lives forever... Well... Unless they conduct an STD or they're too old to be considered "sexually appealing", then they're out on the streets like trash. In these brothels, children are hidden away by makeup to convey false facades of womanhood. Each of these enslaved girls have different techniques that they have established to lure men into picking them over the other girls which is enough to chill your backbone and terrify you to your core. The teenage girls in this book should have no reason to know how to seduce men into their bed so that they make enough money to survive. In this novel, one of the main themes is the loss of Lakshmi's innocence which was so prevalent and enduring in the first half of the novel. Now instead of playing with her pet goat and tending to her crops, she is learning how dark the world truly is and how terrifying life can be for a young woman. On page 144, Lakshmi witnesses Pushpa, another prostitute in the brothel, taking care of and whispering sweet nothings to her baby about how they didn't always use to live in this house, but an actual home where there was safety and love. Lakshmi then goes on to talk about how Pushpa's child isn't the only baby in the brothel and that other women have had babies as well to aid them some kind of family or companionship that they wouldn't be able to experience anywhere else. Lakshmi is filled with confusion when she sees how each of the mothers try to give their babies lives that hide away the fact that they're living in a sex slave home. Mothers buy them nice clothes for school, ribbons, and buy them sweets even if it means that they themselves are going further and further into debt. "I ask Shahanna why this is so. 'We all need to pretend.' she says. 'If we did not pretend, how would we live?'" (p.144) This quote conveys that pretending is an essential part of the survival of these women and that no matter how afraid, angry or scarred these women are they keep on picking themselves up by pretending to live lives that should have been theres in the first place. Mothers are pretending that they can buy their babies luxurious items like fresh clothes because they know in their hearts that even if they have to pretend to give these lives to their children, they will do everything they can to do it. Mothers are so devoted to their children that they will give up more of their lives to prostitution so that their children can be happy and live lives that aren't like those of their mothers. Mothers have to pretend for their children and young girls have to pretend for their lives. All in all, pretending is what keeps these women alive because they know if they show who they truly are, they will be slaughtered like cattle.