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Pornography

Pornography.

Pornography is a word that conjures up a variety of images: a man standing on a sticky carpet in a rather seedy "bookstore" furtively viewing images on a screen, a newsstand vendor handing a man a package wrapped in brown paper, a couple of flashes of a woman's breast, images of women being beaten and tortured while a man becomes more and more sexually aroused, slasher films, snuff films, cunt, pussy.

Other images don't come to mind: images of women being beaten until they "consent" to make a pornographic film – then, after being raped, being tossed a few dollars, which is often quickly claimed by a pimp, so that it can be said that the woman was paid to star in the film; of pimps with their stable of consenting women – women who will assure you that they consented to make the movie of their own free will, but who will not tell you that if they do not convince you that they consented to make the movie, they will be beaten, again; of women being trafficked into sexual slavery; of forced prostitution; of children sexually servicing adult males; of an underworld where prostitution, forced prostitution, organized prostitution, organized crime families, drugs, trafficking in women, and sexual slavery intertwine and intermingle until they become indistinguishable; of mob violence to protect organized crime's largest growth industry; of nice, friendly, middle-class, upwardly mobile, white men, maybe even your neighbors, in suits and ties renting videos for viewing in the privacy of their own homes; of wives and girlfriends being forced to reenact what the male views on the video, even if they find it physically painful or emotionally degrading; of men who become desensitized to women's pain, making it easier to ignore the pain they visit on women; of the rape of women who are otherwise unconnected with pornography; of domestic violence; of women being murdered and stalked.

Defenders of pornography claim that pornography is a victimless pursuit, that laws exist to protect women from being forced into appearing in the films, and that the images men view are of no lasting consequence. Or they claim some sort of moral high ground for being unwilling to "sit in judgment" of other people's morals and for being open minded about sexual matters, all the while ignoring the very real damage that pornography does to so many women. Or they refuse to "succumb to the lures of victim feminism," forgetting that for many women the issue of pornography is quite literally an issue of life and death.

Yet study after study finds that people are not insensitive to the messages they receive when they view a film. We should not find that surprising. Major corporations spend billions of dollars each year on TV advertising for just 15 seconds of your time in an attempt to convince you to purchase their product. Obviously people in the highest levels of corporate management are convinced that the images you view, the words you hear spoken, and the bouncy little jingle that you hear in just 15 seconds are powerful enough to change your behavior. Yet, those defenders of pornography expect us to believe that viewing hundreds of hours of violence against women juxtaposed with images of male sexual arousal do not change men's attitudes toward women for the worse. Indeed, one study after another finds that men are desensitized to violence against women after viewing only one or two pornographic films.

Let me tell you something about just one small part of the making of many pornographic films: trafficking in women.

Women are trafficked from poor countries to rich countries. At the current time, women are trafficked from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia to Western Europe and North America. Typically, a woman in a desperately poor country will see an ad in a newspaper for a job in a foreign country, often a job waitressing. She answers the ad and so begins he nightmare journey into the world of trafficking in women, sex slavery, and organized prostitution. She is offered what she believes to be a good deal. If she accepts the job, the company will pay her moving expenses, arrange all necessary papers, provide transportation to her new location, and even set her up in an apartment. In return, she is to sign a contract to work for the company for some period of time, a year, maybe two. She signs the papers and arrives at her point of departure at the appointed time, and so begins her journey through the underground trafficking in women.

She arrives at her destination, is taken to her room to settle in, then is taken to her place of employment, a seedy, barely respectable place. She is told she gets a bonus for every drink she sells. A couple of days later, the manager tells her that one of the customers offered her money if she has sex with him. She refuses, she is not that kind of girl. So the pressure begins. She does not speak the local language, her passport is in the safe keeping of the people who own her contract, she now has a reputation for working in a brothel, she has no friends or family to help her, she is alone. The people who hired her as a waitress pay the local constabulary well; they will not help her. Perhaps they offer her more money to send to her family back home if she will do this only once. Perhaps they threaten to beat her. Perhaps they do beat her. Isolated, afraid, and alone, she eventually gives in. But it is not the only time they ask her to do this, it is the first. A couple of days later, another customer offers her money to be with her. Then the tricks begin coming daily, then several times a day, each time feeling like she has been violated, raped. She is now a prostitute; if she tries to escape, her pimp brings her back and beats her until her will is broken. Perhaps she turns to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain she feels inside.

But she is a very pretty girl. A video of her would sell well. So the threats and beating begin anew until she once again agrees to do what they ask, and she becomes a porn star. She smiles for the camera and assures everyone that she does it of her own free will, knowing that if she does not do those things, she will be beaten, again. Her owners toss her some money to assuage their consciences or to tell people that she was paid to star in the film, but it is never enough to compensate her emotionally for being raped. She has long ago forgotten about the contract she signed; she has come to understand that it doesn't matter if she agreed to work for them for a week or a month or a year or for ten years, they will never let her go. Somewhere along the line her soul died and she learned how to survive in the underground where prostitution, pornography, and trafficking in women intertwine and intermingle.

I cannot speak of this issue dispassionately. For me, pornography is quite literally an issue of life and death for the "least of these my brethren" and to ignore their plight condemns my immortal soul to hell.

For those who would like more information on these interrelated topics, you can use the key words "trafficking in women" or "forced prostitution" or "pornography" and "violence against women" to find additional information. Here are a couple of links to get you started.

Women, Violence, and the Media

UN: Office of Drugs and Crime, Trafficking in Human Beings

Human Trafficking

Trafficking in Women -- The Misery Behind the Fantasy: From Poverty to Sex Slavery

Pornography, Free Speech, and the Law

Pornography: What's the Big Deal? by Laurie Hall

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