Sex Trafficking and Pornography

Benjamin Nolot has a good article on the connection between human sex trafficking and pornography entitled Who Buys Sex? Linking Porn and Human Trafficking.  Here is a portion of his thought:

When first considering human trafficking, it may not seem like the issue has anything to do with you or me. To us, human trafficking seems like a troubling issue that poor souls somewhere out there–somewhere far from here–are suffering from.

However, when we begin to ask the question “why?” when we consider human trafficking, we must look at our culture. What kind of culture is producing so many men who are eager to buy women and children for sex, contributing to a $32 billion per year human trafficking industry? I believe the answer is the kind of culture that produces and perpetuates a $100 billion per year pornography industry.

Of all the men we talked with who had purchased a woman or child for sex in prostitution, there wasn’t one who didn’t have a history of viewing pornography. The deviant behavior of men in our world is not simply pathological; it has been taught to them. The hyper-sexualization of this generation has awakened an unprecedented demand for illicit sex. When men pay to view sex, they aren’t too far from taking the step to buy sex.

Boys growing up in this culture form an objectified view of females at an early age. Ninety percent of them will view pornography between the ages of 8-16, with the average age of initial exposure being 11. When a young child’s fragile mind is exposed to the graphic images in pornography, it distorts his view of girls, sex, and relationships. He begins to see them as inanimate objects, devoid of humanity–a thing to be conquered instead of a person to love.

By the time many reach adulthood, they have been disinhibited by their exposure to the graphic images in pornography. Consequently, a man will only fantasize for so long before he begins to rise up and demand the living embodiment of his masturbation fantasy. The result is an entire generation of men who are mongering for sex and willing to pay for it.