listen: porn is *not* okay.

I just have to say this - call it ranting if you like; I call it pleading.

I spend a lot of my time trying to make this world in which I live safer for other women, through helping with self-defense/rape prevention training and through the anti-human trafficking movement (a.k.a., the modern abolitionist movement). So I've become quite familiar with a lot of the stories and the issues that thread their way through the huge problems of sexual assault and sex trafficking (which overlap, of course).

There are a lot of causes for both of these problems, but one that really, really breaks my heart is the porn industry - because there are so many people, good people, who don't grasp the harm they're inflicting by engaging with the porn industry.

It's common, especially in this age of accessibility. It's so common that it's easy to joke about and write off--I know there are plenty of people who don't want to admit it's wrong, and plenty more who seriously don't see the big deal, period. But let me break it down for you:

1) Both the supply of and demand for porn create a need for "talent." Some individuals supply this of their own free will; some do not. Trafficked women and children are sexually exploited every day, in ways that you don't want to imagine, for the sake of sustaining the porn industry (as well as all other markets of the sex industry).
2) Maybe you personally think you respect women, but the porn industry feeds an incredibly dangerous mindset of contempt and disregard for women (again, like all other aspects of the sex industry). This mindset is what allows for unspeakable things to be done to women for the sake of money, pleasure and power.

So to anyone who is a porn consumer, or anyone who is involved with the production of it, I have no condemnation for you here, because I'm a completely imperfect person myself and am in no place to judge you. But what I do have for you here is a plea - please, commit to stop; commit to getting out. Find a way. You're contributing to something so much bigger than yourself. And it's something evil; there's no way around it.

(It's actually a bigger issue than just pornography and even bigger than the sex industry, but I don't have the energy to go into it right now....you can read this post (especially the end) by my friend Traci to see more of what I'm talking about.)