00:00Before we get into the issues that we're facing today, which I know is like such a big topic and there's so much to talk about, I just want to touch on the sex trafficking issue because that's something that, you know, has come up so much.
00:11And that is something that a lot of people, when they hear about, you know, these anti-sex trafficking organizations, they think, well, of course, I want to get behind that.
00:20Like, we don't want people forced into sex, which we also don't want.
00:26But the problem is, is that, like you said, it's a lot of these faith-based organizations whose ultimate goal it is, is to eradicate sex work in all of its forms, whether it be in-person, full-service sex work, or porn on the internet, hide behind this anti-sex trafficking agenda because that sounds like something that everybody can get behind.
00:47So can you talk a little bit more about, like, how prevalent is sex trafficking actually?
00:54You know, I actually don't know the numbers, but we've talked about it in terms of our industry, right?
00:59There's almost none, right?
01:02Like, in terms of what we're doing is we're looking at, you know, model releases, right?
01:06We're working, if you're working on a fan site, a fan site is making sure that the money is going into your account, not somebody else's, right?
01:13They're making sure as best as possible that people are consenting and they're agreeing into it.
01:17And there are very few cases related to trafficking, related to our industry, right?
01:21You think about we're an industry that makes millions of pieces of content a year, right?
01:26I mean, even a month, right?
01:28I was going to say a day?
01:29A day, right?
01:29Like, there's tons of stuff.
01:31So it's a very, very minuscule percent.
01:33I think that where we get with the anti-trafficking groups, and like you said, we all agree, right?
01:38Nobody wants trafficking.
01:39You know who doesn't want trafficking?
01:41Sex workers, right?
01:42They want, like, they're the ones that are on the front lines, right?
01:45They're the ones that are most vulnerable to this, right?
01:47They're the ones that are going to be affected by this if they are, you know, if we allow coercion or, you know, force or fraud or things like that.
01:55So they have a vested interest in this more than some faith-based organization.
01:59They're the ones that really should lead on this.
02:02Most of these organizations that call themselves anti-trafficking don't believe that any sex work is valid, right?
02:08They don't believe – they believe that all sex work is trafficking because, as they say, well, there's money involved.
02:14How can you consent when there is money involved?
02:17As if the work that we do is, you know, can be non-consensual because you're getting paid, you know, or you're being coerced because you're being paid and maybe you need to make rent.
02:27But that's not the same as McDonald's where, you know, people are freely going to McDonald's to work because they don't – they love it, not because they need to pay bills, right?
02:37Like, nobody looks at a McDonald's cashier and it's like, that's labor trafficking because you've got to pay rent.
02:42You're not consenting to be in front of this register, right?
02:45It's just this different thing.
02:46And so I think that you're right, right?
02:48When you hear anti-trafficking, people think, oh, I'm a good sit too.
02:52So are we.
02:52But these people are doing it in bad faith, right?
02:55A lot of the groups that are pushing the anti-porn legislation, for instance, rebranded themselves as anti-trafficking, you know, around the time of SESTA-FOSTA because it was more palatable
03:05to legislators and to the press than, you know, morality or anti-porn type language.
03:14Right, right, exactly.
03:15I mean, didn't morality and media rebrand themselves as –
03:20Oh my gosh, what did it say?
03:20National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
03:22Yeah, and COSE.
03:23Right, yeah, yeah.
03:24And their website is endtrafficking.org, right?
03:28The other thing that really kills me about the sex trafficking argument is that, you know,
03:32so often it's, you know, it points towards women, right?
03:36Because it's almost always like the women are the victims.
03:38And for me, that's infuriating because I see it as this very sexist view where you automatically assume that, like,
03:46women have no agency over their choices and they are not sexual beings and they couldn't actually decide to take on this career
03:55because they actually enjoy sex and they see a way to monetize the thing that they love.
03:59So it's like this whole idea that, like, women are – should not be sexual.
04:04They are not sexual.
04:05They cannot make, you know, sound choices.
04:08It's always like there's always a man behind that that's pushing them into –
04:12and, like, that makes me so mad.
04:16It's this old Victorian idea.
04:21And I spend a lot of time in these fever spumps, right?
04:23Like, one of the things that FSC gets to do, right, is that I get to go to weird conferences, right,
04:28where these people are speaking and I get to sit in on webinars and I read all of their blog posts and listen to podcasts and things like that.
04:36And at the root of it are two things.
04:39One, a woman possibly – wouldn't possibly do that, right?
04:45Like, because they think of themselves, right, I'm a good Christian woman.
04:49There's – the only way that I would ever have oral sex on film would be if I was being forced.
04:55Like, no woman wants to do that.
04:57No woman likes to do that.
04:59They're, like, even if they say they're consenting, they can't be – they must be unhappy about it because I would be unhappy.
05:05I would feel degraded.
05:06And so that's part of it, right, that, like, no one – they can't conceive that somebody might want to do this.
05:13And so in their head, they must be being forced.
05:15The other thing is this idea that by you doing it, by you creating content, by you participating in adult film, it's forcing them to do dirty sex acts, right?
05:28Their husband is going to watch this oral sex scene and then he's going to come home and want me to do that to him.
05:34And, I mean, it's a weird myth, right, but it's that sort of – like, your activity is creating a situation for me.
05:42So even if you're consenting, even if you're doing it, well, I don't consent to that.
05:46And it's the most bonkers logic, like, threat of logic that I've ever heard, but I hear it over and over again.
05:54They're going to want me to do that disgusting stuff, and I don't want to do it.
05:58And so the best thing that we can do is shut down all of that disgusting stuff.
06:01Because if my husband doesn't see that, then he'll never come home and expect me to perform oral sex on him.
06:06And, you know, our industry talks about consent constantly.
06:09So we're in support.
06:10If you don't want to perform oral sex on your husband, we don't want you to have to do it.
06:15But we want to give you the language to say no, and we want to give your husband the education to understand you can't force someone to do that,
06:23or you can't pressure someone, or, you know, theoretically, you could go to a sex worker, you know, and actually do that.
06:30Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:31I think also, too, I mean, not to get caught up in all of this, because I know, like, again, we have so much more to talk about.
06:37But this idea of just the basic shame around sexuality, right?
06:41And, like, the fact that men who watch porn are in some way, like, cheating on their wives, which is, like, also insane to me.
06:49Yeah.
06:50And that, you know, masturbation is bad, and self-pleasure is bad.
06:53And it, you know, creates addiction, and it corrupts, you know, the family unit, and all of these myths that are really, you know, just incredibly damaging for the industry.
07:04And for people, right? Like, I think that there's so much shame around sex and sexuality, you know, and our desire.
07:12And, like, that's what leads to sex crimes, right? That's what leads to, you know, a lot of the stuff that's actually bad that's happening.
07:19And our industry is actually, you know, one of the people who are talking about these things.
07:24We're talking about consent. We're talking about different sexuality. We're talking about genders, right?
07:28We're at the forefront of this, and I think that that often makes us a lightning rod.
07:32Yeah, absolutely. I'll never forget, I had Dr. David Lay on way back, and I asked him about, like, you know, why he decided to get into, you know, the psychology with sex work.
07:46And he said that before, he used to always believe that, you know, swingers, there was some kind of disconnect there, there was some kind of mental issue there.
07:55And then he found that when he actually would work with them, that they had better communication than, like, the traditional married couple.
08:04And he said that that really started to change the way that he thought about it.
08:07And I have found that to be true, that, you know, my parents were swingers.
08:11And the communication and, like, the level of trust, too, is often stronger in those cases because you kind of have to have those conversations if you're having sex with other people.
08:23And you have to talk about boundaries, and you have to talk about, you know, your wants and desires.
08:28Whereas the traditional married couple, I think often it just comes with these assumptions that we're going to be together forever, we're only going to have sex with each other, we're only going to do missionary, you know, once every six months to have a child or whatever.
08:41And then there's no room to talk about what one may want to try or what one may feel like they're lacking.
08:49And then they turn to something else in shame, in secrecy, and then it comes out, and then the other person's angry, but they never felt that they had the option to talk about what they wanted.
09:01And I hear this from a lot of men that I talk to, like, a lot of listeners of the show or, like, fans who say, I want to, you know, I want to do these things, I want to do them with my wife, but I can't even talk to her about it, you know?
09:15And that's always, like, really sad for me to hear.
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