Wait, what?
How can something you view in the privacy of your bedroom hold girls hostage on the other side of the world? Porn has nothing to do with slavery, you say. What I watch on my own time isn’t hurting anyone. Besides, the performers are enjoying themselves.
But are they?
Let’s start with the basics.
No one can deny that pornography is a common thread within the sex trafficking industry. The research is clear.
70% of underage trafficking victims say they have been filmed in porn
Traffickers use porn to desensitize their victims to the type of acts they will experience
Porn is used as advertisement of the victims’ sexual abuse
The clients of traffickers are twice as likely to have watched a porn film in the last year
47% of trafficked women say they were harmed by men who forced their victims to do things the men had seen in porn
See the pattern? Pornography tends to be the common denominator for both traffickers and their clients. This leads to the main problem…
There’s no way to tell if the porn you’re watching is consensual.
It could be someone’s daughter who was kidnapped and coerced into selling sex. It could be the real life abuse of an uncle against his niece. It could be a model who was tricked or blackmailed into making porn.
Even in “professional” studios, the performers are victimized, but this often goes overlooked. Because pornography is protected by the first amendment, there is very little regulation in the industry. Abuse, drugs, and disease are rampant. Coercion is also commonplace, but no one wants to speak out for fear of not getting work. For example, when an actress shows up on set to shoot the agreed upon scene, the producers often inform her they’ve decided to do a different scene. Something more violent. If she doesn’t cooperate, they’ll threaten not to pay her, they’ll complain to her agent, or they’ll make sure she doesn’t get any more scenes.
Coercion is the very definition of human trafficking.
The Department of Homeland Security defines trafficking as “the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” Taina Bien-Aimé, the executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, says that pornography is prostitution on screen. The traffickers are the same, the pimps are the same, the victims are the same. Porn is just another avenue of exploitation.
The truth doesn’t come out until the performer breaks free of the industry. Click here to watch former porn stars share the truth about their most popular scenes. Regan Starr, a former porn actress, said: “Most of the girls start crying because they’re hurting so bad …. I couldn’t breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset and they didn’t stop. They kept filming. [I asked them to turn the camera off] and they kept going.”
The simple truth is that porn fuels the demand for sex trafficking.
Fight The New Drug says it best in their article By the Numbers: “The higher the demand for porn…the more sex traffickers will want to profit from that lucrative porn demand, and the more they’ll exploit vulnerable people to get there.”
Every time you click on a pornographic video, you are telling the world to create more porn. And the world is listening. Today, porn is an estimated $97 billion dollar industry, and up to $12 billion of that comes from the United States alone.
Trafficking and porn end up creating a vicious cycle with each other, because porn literally creates clientele for the traffickers, and traffickers make porn to advertise their “products” and gain new clients. Men who seek to buy sex are twice as likely to have watched porn. Many times they come with pornographic images in hand and seek to live out their “fantasy” in real life.
Still not convinced?
If you still don’t see–or don’t want to see–the link between porn and trafficking, I challenge you to dig deeper. Do the research yourself. Study the accounts of the men and women who were forced into situations and scenes they wanted no part of. Read Saki’s story, Shelley’s story, Jessica’s story…it’s heartbreaking.
Honestly, another thing that baffles me is this: how can today’s culture, which relentlessly promotes equality for women, be so saturated with porn that normalizes the abuse of women? These days, 88% of porn contains violence, and the abuse on film is very real.
Catharine MacKinnon stated, “Just as throwing money at victims of sexual abuse does not make it a job, taking pictures of it does not make it freely chosen or desired.” If prostitution is illegal in the U.S. (excepting some counties in Nevada), then how does filming it make it legal? How is it okay to legitimize the buying and selling of women?
Every click is a stick on the fire. The bigger the fire gets, the harder it is to put out. We already have a raging wildfire on our hands, so let’s come together with our buckets of water, our water hoses, our sprinklers, whatever we’ve got. Let’s douse the kindling as well as the fire and make room for freedom to grow again.
“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8
