Grisélidis Réal (11 August 1929 - 31 May 2005) is a writer and prostitute from Geneva, Switzerland. August 11 is the 223rd day of the year (224th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... May 31 is the 151st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (152nd in leap years), with 214 days remaining, as the last day of May. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Prostitution is the sale of sexual services (typically manual stimulation, oral sex, sexual intercourse, or anal sex) for cash or other kind of return, generally indiscriminately with many persons. ... Geneva (French: Genève) is the second-most populous city in Switzerland located where Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman, but the Genevois are fond of calling it Lac de Genève) empties into the Rhône River. ...

She was norn is Lausanne, in a family of teachers and spends her childhood in Alexandria, and then in Athens, where her father is working. Back to Switzerland, she undergoes artistic studies in Zurich. She starts to prostitute herself at the beginning of the sixties. She lives in Germany, with her children (she has four) and her lover. In her first book, Le noir est une couleur ( Black is a color ) - Balland, 1974 - she tells her story in a blunt and honest way, with a dark lyrical tone she got from her own experience. Lausanne ( 46° 31′ 10″ N 6° 37′ 56″ E) is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman), and facing Évian-les-Bains (France). ... General view showing Grossmünster church. ...

During the seventies, Grisélidis Réal becomes an activist, in particular with the occupation of the Chapelle Saint-Bernard, in Paris, in June 1975. She rejects the argument of the alienation by the pimps, and states that prostitution can be a choice, a free-will decision. The revolutionary whore was born. She helps in the creation of a support association (Aspasi). In her tiny home in Geneva, she creates an international documentation center about prostitution.

In parallel to this political fight, Grisélidis Réal has developped a positive vision of what she called in January 2005 (in the preface to Carnet de bal d'une courtisane, Verticales, March 2005), "an Art, a Humanism and a Science" .

Grisélidis Réal stopped prostitution in 1995, at the age of 66 ans. Three years earlier, in 1992, she had published La Passe imaginaire (L'Aire/Manya), a compilation of letters sent to her friend Jean-Luc Hennig. Far from any caricature and any moral stance, with her free and stingy spirit, and also her true generosity, Grisélidis Réal was the embodiment of a true vision of human dignity.