pornography Archives - Shared Hope International

December 12, 2012 by SHI Staff

Overcoming the Past: Understanding Through Renting Lacy

Guest Blog Post by Zen Loveall

False beliefs: I use to think that porn, strip clubs, and affairs were all O.K. I thought this was just part of being a guy. I use to think that my wife’s inability to satisfy me sexually was due to a problem with her. I am not hurting anyone. Women in porn and strip clubs want to do what they are doing and I am helping my mistresses by giving them the sex that they need. TV, movies, bars, clubs, advertising, magazines, and the Internet all fully supported these false beliefs.

What was my reality? I was using sex and fantasy for the wrong things and so too much would never be enough. Regular porn, and small amounts use to be O.K., but over time I needed more and more. Eventually, I was a walking dead man that lost total control of his sexual desires, living a fantasy life in my head, destroying my marriage, causing deep harm to the women that came into my life, all while supporting an industry that destroys women and children.

I was afraid of feeling my feelings and I had a lot of bad feelings. I did not understand that you can’t stop the bad feelings without stopping the good ones. I used the objectification of women and fantasy as an escape. Eventually I had no feelings…I was like a walking dead man. I wanted intimacy but bought into the myth that sex with a woman was intimacy. Sure it is a form of physical intimacy, but it is not real intimacy. You cannot have true intimacy with an object and that is what women had become for me. When I was out with my wife or friends I would just check out all the women in the room and spin fantasies in my mind around how these “objects” could satisfy me.

After I started to come out of my delusion, it took me years to turn this around. For over 15 years in my marriage, I made my wife feel less than and defective because she could not meet my insatiable sexual needs. I will have to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for that crime. I spent years in recovery groups around sex and I always use to wonder why don’t I see more strippers and prostitutes in recovery? The book “Renting Lacy” helped me to understand this. Very few of these young women make it into recovery because most of them die. The movie “The Whistleblower” also helped me to understand what I was contributing to.

When I read the book “Renting Lacy” and contemplated all the women and children suffering from this I cried and cried. I can never make that right, but I can support groups like Shared Hope and The Defenders and continue to come out of my delusion, learn to respect women as people, and continue to learn to be present and truly alive.

– Zen Loveall

October 29, 2012 by SHI Staff

It’s a Drug

In the past week, two large events have taken place in Portland to help end human trafficking. Exactly a week ago, the 2-day Do You Know Lacy? sex trafficking awareness training took place. The training had over 200 attendees. Just yesterday an event called ConnectPDX took place, where organizations from all over the Pacific Northwest gathered to create a common plan to end human trafficking. This next blog post is a compilation of my thoughts from these events.

I could write pages and pages about the wisdom that was shared, but today i’m going to focus on something related to the Defenders. But before I begin, here is a reminder of what our Defenders pledge is:

1. I will not participate in pornography, prostitution, or any form of the commercial sex industry.

2. I will hold my friends accountable for their actions toward women and children.

3. I will take immediate action to protect those I love from this destructive market.

Shamere McKenzie, a sex trafficking survivor, says this about men:

“Men–Understand. Understand what it is to be a man. Understand why a woman was created from your rib. Understand that a women was not taken from your head to be on top of you, or your feet to be below you, but from your rib to be beside you. Men need to stand up and be Defenders for women.”

Ultimately, as Shamere pointed out, it’s men that need to stand up and defend women. These girls are being violated, and we cannot just sit here. Men have to rise up and stop this issue. After all, are we not the demand for this brutal business? And if we are the demand, are we not the cure as well? We are the ones that have to stop this problem. (For more information on the supply and demand culture, I recommend you watch this video by our friends at the EPIK Project)

Men, when it comes to ending the trafficking in this world, it’s our job. As a fellow Defender pointed out at the Do You Know Lacy? training, we have absolutely no right–ever–to disrespect any human being. When we look at pornography, go to the strip club, or purchase a prostitute, we are objectifying these women. We are completely taking away their rights, saying that they are ours for the taking.

I want to take some time to talk about pornography. After all, that’s not related to trafficking at all, right? Well, as I’ve done my research on pornography, I’ve found that they are completely intertwined. As it turns out, you cannot have one without the other. To put it simply, pornography is simply the pictures or videos of the prostitution. Ultimately, if you are supporting pornography, you are supporting trafficking. in some way.

What if I told you that pimps used pornography to train the little innocent 12-year-old girls on how to treat the client? What if I told you that pornography is used by pimps to advertise their girls, and what if I told you that buyers often demand that the little girls do the acts that they saw in the pornography they viewed? All of these are true. It happens, and It’s real.

If that doesn’t convince you pornography and trafficking are intertwined, lets talk about science.

In the drug world, marijuana is referred to as the gateway drug. People call it this because of a thing called habituation. When a person experiences the high that marijuana offers, their brain falls in love with it, and of course they continue to use it because it satisfies them so much. Eventually, habituation kicks in and his/her brain gets used to the high that marijuana offers. After a while, the marijuana high no longer satisfies the person, so he/she has to move on to something more powerful. This cycle continues on forever.

Pornography works the same way. It’s actually proven that the same chemicals are spinning in your brain when you indulge in pornography. When you view pornography, you get a certain “high,” but eventually that kind of pornography doesn’t please you anymore, and you have to move on to something even more hardcore. Pretty soon, pornography won’t even please you, and that’s when people move on to the more physical things, like prostitution and private strip clubs shows. This is not a slippery slope argument; this is a scientific fact.

So, where do we go from here? I hope you have realized that pornography is deeply intertwined with human trafficking. If you have, and you struggle with sexual addiction, know that there is hope. As Defenders we can support each other, and acknowledging that you have this addiction is the first step towards healing. If you haven’t already, take the pledge, and then get friends to join you. Support each other. Create a men’s support group.

In the words of a fellow Defender, Nick Lembo, “We are supposed to be sexual beings. But when you take it outside of what it’s supposed to be, lives are ruined.”

Together, we can end demand. We are Defenders.

April 14, 2011 by webdesigner

Sacrifice made at the cost of convenience – Sexual exploitation on the Internet

National Pornography Statistics estimatethat 68 million pornographic search engine requests are made daily, equaling 25% of total requests. There are currently 4.2 million pornographic websites on the Internet. Among these, 100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography. This shows that many children are being exploited daily.

Due to the highly unregulated nature and anonymity of the internet, pimps and buyers are able to conceal their own identities and use this platform for criminal activities with minimal risk of prosecution. While sex trafficking is not a new phenomenon, the Internet is a new source for sex traffickers to find vulnerable women and sell them for sexual exploitation.

In addition to Internet pornography, sexual exploitation occurs in different forms such as websites that offer advertisement services. Most commonly known is Craigslist. Before shutting down its “Adult services” section, there was an average of 1,690 advertisements posted each day on the New York City board alone. Craigslist produced an estimated $80 million in annual profits from the “adult services” postings. There are also other sites still offering similar advertisement services, including Backpage.com, CityVibe.com, and Eros.com. Those websites allow customers to browse and compare the characteristics, photographs and prices of a large number of individuals selling or being forced to sell sex.

In addition to advertisement services, social networking websites are becoming nests of prostitution. According to a study by Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor at Columbia University, 83 percent of sex workers advertise their services on Facebook. He also estimates that, by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading online recruitment space for prostitution.

Although it is a fact that the Internet facilitates many illegal activities, it does not only do harm. If it is used for a right purpose, the Internet can be a very useful tool for many good causes.

For example, Change.org has an option for individuals or groups to start a petition for different issues of concern. Here is one success story. Last August, the United Kingdom chose to opt out of the European Union’s Directive on human trafficking, leaving hundreds of British children at risk. After pressure from tens of thousands of advocates across the globe, including several hundred on Change.org, the U.K. government has opted in to the EU’s anti-trafficking initiative. This action significantly strengthened the fight against human trafficking on the European continent.

As much as the Internet contributes to sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of women and children, it can be used in many ways to bring public awareness and help alleviate the issue if we all work together.