Pornography is not a victimless crime. It is a social evil with very real negative social impact. Sure, it has been mainstreamed and legitimised big time the last few decades, but it remains nonetheless a soul-destroying evil. No matter how much the sleaze-merchants try to dress it up, it is still a destroyer of individuals, marriages, families and societies.
The normalisation and mainstreaming of porn continues apace. For example, the sleaze show Sexpo is on again in Melbourne. It is even in its 18th year now. I have been fighting this for years, but now it seems to be as acceptable as a pet show or a boat show.
But sleaze is still sleaze and smut is still smut. And people are still being harmed greatly by all this. I remember many years ago the head of the porn industry faxed me with an invitation to debate him live at Sexpo. I of course turned him down immediately. All that would have done is further legitimise these smut merchants.
Of interest – and of real concern – this year the sleaze show is sharing a building which also has a children’s event on at the same time as well. Ironic perhaps, but we know that child porn is always part and parcel of the sleaze industry. Indeed, we just had a major international police bust of “horrific” child pornography, involving 66 Australians.
Speaking of children and porn, we all know that children love sport. So thanks a lot to the sleazeballs at Ch 7 for bringing American “lingerie football” to a television near you. As one news report states, “The Seven network will broadcast the soon-to-launch Australian equivalent of America’s Lingerie Football League.
“The local version of the female gridiron (or American football) competition, in which women compete in lingerie, padding and helmets, is called the Legends Football League Australia. The eight regular season matches will be telecast exclusively on Seven’s male-skewing multichannel, 7mate, from December 14.”
Great, just what we need: getting even more kids hooked on soft core porn so they can go on and get addicted to the harder stuff. What immoral monsters we have at the Seven network. But plenty of other examples of the mainstreaming of porn can be mentioned.
Here is one more: you can now rate your favourite brothel, just as you can rate restaurants. And once again, there is an undeniable connection to sexual trafficking: “One critic bemoans the surrounding space for being ‘too small’ and with its 1950s decor, ‘slightly tacky’. But with ‘first-rate’ service received, he pledges to become a regular and advises others to do likewise.
“Welcome to the XXX Australian Reviews website, where members post restaurant-style reviews of brothels in Melbourne and other cities, and rate sex workers on a scale of one to 10. The site is one of several forums where membership is restricted to ‘punters’ who contribute regular reviews and feedback.
“But not only do these sites cater for tens of thousands of men who pay for sex in legal parlours, they double as an underground information exchange for those who fuel the illegal sex trade. There are numerous tiers of membership available, based on the number of reviews and level of detail posted. In nearly every case, these highly explicit, degrading evaluations read the same: The illegal sex worker hails from an Asian background and offers ‘exotic’ services at a fraction of the cost being charged in legitimate premises elsewhere in the city.”
Chuck Norris has recently written about this connection: “A few years back, Dr. Mary Anne Layden, a sex abuse expert and psychotherapist at the University of Pennsylvania who has testified before the U.S. Senate on the dangers of online porn, addressed a forum on sex trafficking at Parliament House in Sydney.
“In an article titled ‘Online porn addiction turns our kids into victims and predators,’ The Sydney Morning Herald reported Layden as saying to the forum that in her 20 years of experience treating sexual violence victims and perpetrators in the U.S., she ‘didn’t have one case of sexual violence that didn’t involve pornography’….
“Despite its legal legs, the porn industry, in fact, aids and abets sex trafficking. Porn fuels trafficking and vice versa. As noted by She’s Somebody’s Daughter (http://www.somebodysdaughter.org):
-‘Pornography drives the demand for sex trafficking.’
-‘Trafficking victims are exploited in the production of pornography.’
-‘Pornography production is a form of trafficking.’
-‘Pornography is used as a training tool with sex trafficked victims’.”
Nita Belles has also recently written about this: “If you believe that human trafficking – modern-day slavery – primarily takes place in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, you’re like most people. There are more slaves in the United States today than at any time in history.”
She offers some gory details here:
“ • There are 27 million slaves in the world today.
• Human trafficking is the second largest – and fastest growing – criminal enterprise in the world.
• About 80 percent of all U.S. trafficked individuals are female, about 50 percent are children.
• In addition to the 100,000 youngsters trafficked annually, 244,000 to 325,000 American children are at risk for sexual exploitation and sex trafficking every year.
“Although more brutal than ever, modern-day slavery is not as obvious as it was centuries ago. Today human trafficking isn’t limited by race, class or gender. Victims are not just the poor or disenfranchised. They come from every socio-economic group. And U.S. victims are not just foreign-born nationals. In fact, the vast majority of sex-trafficked children are American-born citizens.”
Finally, the story of one real life character in all this – a former porn star who looks to be fully trapped in the world of porn: “Jenna Jameson, former porn star, is back in the business after retiring and vowing never to return. Upon leaving the porn industry, Jameson said ‘I made a promise to my children when they were in my tummy that there is no way I could ever, ever, ever go back.’ She explained her reason for leaving was in order to take care of her family.
“But after alleged drug addiction, a divorce, losing custody of her two children, a DUI and foreclosure on her home, Jameson is broke and in need of an income. So she’s going back to porn to make more films. With her fame, you would think she’d have the means to support herself, but being in porn does not award a performer the same advantages as other forms of celebrity.
“The harms of porn are well documented, but often people forget that the performers are victims as well. Many consent to what they think porn will be like but are shocked to discover the reality of violence, drugs and coercion. In an interview with women’s rights activist and a freelance journalist Maya Shlayen, ex-porn star Vanessa Belmond said, ‘I never met any woman that had a professional career and left it to go into porn just for fun. Many got into it because of financial desperation. Many also had abusive childhoods.’ The fact that these performers are looking for a life and validation via the porn industry shows how little they have to choose from.”
So there you have it: the wonderful world of porn. Yet those getting rich off of abused men, women and children keep pushing for the normalisation of porn, be it Sexpo, lingerie football, or brothel reviews. But no matter how we seek to dress it up (or undress it, in this case) it is a horrible, diabolical, oppressive and exploitative world which must be utterly resisted, not shamelessly promoted and legitimised.
8 Replies to “Porn, Prostitution and Sexual Trafficking”
Terribly sad state of affairs.
Jo Deller
Where are the outraged denunciations of feminists, worldwide, against this sleazy trade.
One could be forgiven for thinking that they actually condone what is happening to their sisters at the hands of despicable, and predatory males whom they pretend to despise.
It doesn’t surprise me at all – you can see a whole generation now brought up on electronic gadgets and games. They struggle with simple things like a conversation or discussion, let alone the complexity of a long-term relationship with a human being who is not a machine. Mark Steyn has an article on the flight from intimacy in Japan that is resulting in plummeting population growth. http://www.steynonline.com/5865/sex-at-sunset
Nina Blondel
I feel so sorry for the young girls of today. If brought up in non-religious homes – the majority – they accept the current mores. They’ve been brainwashed to think that hooking up sexually on first acquaintance is normal.
Consequently they will never experience the bitter-sweet delights of longing and yearning for a beloved. They’ll never understand any literature that features chastity and fidelity: “If they loved each other why didn’t they just do it?” will be their genuinely perplexed response.
Yet for all their sexual liberation they’re surely the most miserable teenagers in history. They don’t know that the phrase, ‘sexual liberation’, is just the latest euphemism for ‘depravity’. The word, millstone, comes to mind.
As a mother of four sons I also feel sorry for the boys who have been equally corrupted to think casual, promiscuous, and violent sex is normal.
It’s all just so sad.
Antonia Feitz
Sure is Antonia.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It is also so sad to hear that many church-goers are also involved in watching porn. I can only think that the intimacy in many ‘normal’ marriages is also wrecked by this. With wrong expectations brought into the marriage bed by the acting out of what has been seen. There must be many people (mainly women) suffering in silence, and many couples finding it difficult to maintain a caring, mutually enjoyable relationship. The days of purity and innocent discovery in sexual relationships have been lost to this generation and they don’t even know what they have lost. Sad.
Lesley Kadwell
Sad, but also infuriating. Where is the righteous anger and outrage of our godly men? Amy Carmichael gave her life to rescue Indian girls from temple prostitution. We need people like her now and I am sure there are some. But judgement begins at the house of God. If what Leslie said is true, the church needs a clean out and more than that, it needs the courage to rise up and show a better alternative. A vacuum clambers to be filled, it is happy to be filled with the nearest and most pushy and that is usually not a community of godly families.
Rise up oh man of God, have done with lesser things with heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the king of Kings.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Terribly sad state of affairs.
Jo Deller
Where are the outraged denunciations of feminists, worldwide, against this sleazy trade.
One could be forgiven for thinking that they actually condone what is happening to their sisters at the hands of despicable, and predatory males whom they pretend to despise.
Dunstan Hartley
They think it’s “empowering”. Even the Women’s Weekly is writing stories that glamourise prostitution. e.g, http://www.aww.com.au/news-features/in-the-mag/2013/2/im-42,-married-and-a-sex-worker/
Jo Deller
It doesn’t surprise me at all – you can see a whole generation now brought up on electronic gadgets and games. They struggle with simple things like a conversation or discussion, let alone the complexity of a long-term relationship with a human being who is not a machine. Mark Steyn has an article on the flight from intimacy in Japan that is resulting in plummeting population growth.
http://www.steynonline.com/5865/sex-at-sunset
Nina Blondel
I feel so sorry for the young girls of today. If brought up in non-religious homes – the majority – they accept the current mores. They’ve been brainwashed to think that hooking up sexually on first acquaintance is normal.
Consequently they will never experience the bitter-sweet delights of longing and yearning for a beloved. They’ll never understand any literature that features chastity and fidelity: “If they loved each other why didn’t they just do it?” will be their genuinely perplexed response.
Yet for all their sexual liberation they’re surely the most miserable teenagers in history. They don’t know that the phrase, ‘sexual liberation’, is just the latest euphemism for ‘depravity’. The word, millstone, comes to mind.
As a mother of four sons I also feel sorry for the boys who have been equally corrupted to think casual, promiscuous, and violent sex is normal.
It’s all just so sad.
Antonia Feitz
Sure is Antonia.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It is also so sad to hear that many church-goers are also involved in watching porn. I can only think that the intimacy in many ‘normal’ marriages is also wrecked by this. With wrong expectations brought into the marriage bed by the acting out of what has been seen. There must be many people (mainly women) suffering in silence, and many couples finding it difficult to maintain a caring, mutually enjoyable relationship. The days of purity and innocent discovery in sexual relationships have been lost to this generation and they don’t even know what they have lost. Sad.
Lesley Kadwell
Sad, but also infuriating. Where is the righteous anger and outrage of our godly men? Amy Carmichael gave her life to rescue Indian girls from temple prostitution. We need people like her now and I am sure there are some. But judgement begins at the house of God. If what Leslie said is true, the church needs a clean out and more than that, it needs the courage to rise up and show a better alternative. A vacuum clambers to be filled, it is happy to be filled with the nearest and most pushy and that is usually not a community of godly families.
Rise up oh man of God, have done with lesser things with heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the king of Kings.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett