Links between Pornography and Sex Trafficking

By Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media
Free the Captives: Houston Human Trafficking Conference
February 26, 2011

Bob might well be the leading expert on this subject. However, with his approval, I removed the first page of this excellent article:

Years ago I was invited to be a guest on a national cable TV program to debate the pornography issue. I took a copy of Dr. Victor B. Cline’s monograph, Effects of Pornography on Adults & Children, to read during the limo ride to the studio. I had read parts of it but not all of it. As I quickly read the entire monograph that day, I realized how accurately it described my own experience with pornography. I still remember being emotionally shaken by the time I arrived at the studio.

That car ride prompted me to ask Dr. Cline’s permission to publish his monograph in booklet form, which is available in PDF format at www.moralityinmedia.org (Pornography Effects). This morning, I would like to read brief excerpts from that portion of Dr. Cline’s monograph that describe addiction to pornography:
As a clinical psychologist, I have treated…approximately 350 sex addicts, sex offenders, or other individuals (96% male) with sexual illnesses...With several exceptions, pornography has been a major or minor contributor or facilitator in the acquisition of their deviation or sexual addiction…

FIRST PHASE – ADDICTION
The first change that happened was an addiction-effect. The porn-consumers got hooked. Once involved in pornographic materials, they kept coming back for more and still more. The material seemed to provide a very powerful sexual
stimulant...followed by sexual release, most often through masturbation...It is difficult for non-addicts to comprehend the totally driven nature of a sex addict. When the "wave" hits them, nothing can stand in the way of getting what they want, whether that be pornography accompanied by masturbation, sex from a prostitute, molesting a child, or raping a woman....

SECOND PHASE – ESCALATION
The second phase was an escalation-effect. With the passage of time, the addicted person required rougher, more explicit, more deviant...kinds of sexual material to get their highs...It was reminiscent of individuals afflicted with drug addictions....

THIRD PHASE – DESENSITIZATION
The third phase was desensitization. Material...which was originally perceived as shocking, taboo-breaking, illegal, repulsive, or immoral, in time came to be seen as acceptable and commonplace. The sexual activity depicted in the pornography (no matter how anti-social or deviant) became legitimized....

FOURTH PHASE - ACTING OUT SEXUALLY
The fourth phase was an increasing tendency to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting massage parlors, having sex with minor children, rape...This behavior frequently grew into a sexual addiction which they found themselves locked into and unable to change or reverse....

If Dr. Cline were the only professional who had witnessed these phases, we would have reason to take what Dr. Cline wrote with a grain of salt. But Dr. Cline is not alone in his assessment. If you don’t believe me, go to an Internet search engine and type in “sexual addiction” or “pornography addiction” and “act out” or “prostitute”.

This is not to say that everyone who gets “hooked” on pornography acts out in an illegal manner and, in particular, with prostitutes. But many do act out with prostitutes, and that contributes to the demand for prostitution.

I should also add that not everyone who pays for sex with prostitutes is addicted to pornography. But the two often go hand-in-hand. A good example of this is found in the legal Declaration (dated 4/19/06) filed by Denise Richards in her divorce case against TV actor Charlie Sheen (“Two and a Half Men”). It reads in part:

Respondent promised that he would not be with prostitutes; however, he told me that he was not going to give up his...pornography habit and that I had to accept it[at p.10]...Respondent came into the house...I told him that I discovered some pornography websites that he belonged to which I found very disturbing...I also discovered that the Respondent belonged to several sex search type sites, which he looked for women to have sex with...When I confronted Respondent with this information, he did not deny it. I told him that as a mother, I found this information very disturbing because we had two young daughters and that I believed he had a serious problem...Respondent and I spoke...on April 9, 2006...I told the Respondent that I was very concerned about the children spending the night at his house because of the activities he was involved in with prostitutes...and pornography...I confronted him with information...that he was still having prostitutes at his house. He did not deny this [at p.15]...
[The Declaration is available at www.thesmokinggun.com]

What prostituted women say

I first came across a study of San Francisco street prostitutes (M. Silbert & A. Pines, “Pornography and Sexual Abuse of Women,” Sex Roles, 10:857-868, 1984) while doing research about the link between pornography and violent sexual crimes. That study included a finding that is also relevant to my focus today. And I quote:

The present study…was aimed at studying sexual abuse of street prostitutes both prior to and following entrance into prostitution...Two-hundred juvenile and adult, current and former, women street prostitutes in the San Francisco Bay area participated in the study…The study generated an enormous amount of data…documenting stunning amounts of sexual abuse of street prostitutes as part of their job, outside their work environment and in their childhood prior to entering prostitution. Many of the open descriptions of these sexual assaults made reference to the role played by pornography. These references were unsolicited by interviewers…Out of the 193 cases of rape, 24% mentioned allusions to pornographic material on the part of the rapist. This is even more significant when it is understood that these comments were made by respondents without any solicitation or reference to the issue of pornography by the Interviewer. The comments followed the same pattern: the assailant referred to pornographic materials he had seen or read... [Italics added by RP]

Subsequent studies have reported similar findings:
M. Farley, “Renting an Organ for Ten Minutes: What Tricks Tell Us About Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking,” in Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking 145 (Los Angeles: Captive Daughters Media, 2007), available at www.prostitutionresearch.com:

Interviews with 854 women in prostitution in 9 countries…made it clear that pornography is integral to prostitution. In 9 countries, almost half (49%) told us that pornography was made of them while they were in prostitution. Forty-seven percent of our respondents were upset by tricks’ [johns’] attempts to make them do what the tricks [johns] had previously seen in pornography.

M. Farley and V. Kelly, “Prostitution: A Critical Review of the Medical and Social Sciences Literature,” Women and Criminal Justice, 11(4): 29-64 (2000):

Women in prostitution have described pornography’s role in their being coerced by pimps or customers to enact specific scenes… Customers show women pornography to illustrate what they want…32% of 130 people in one study had been upset by an attempt to coerce them into performing what customers had seen in pornography.

“A facilitator's guide to Prostitution: a matter of violence against women,” WHISPER [“Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt,” Minneapolis, MN (1990), available at http://www.prostitutionresearch.com]:

Eighty percent of prostitution survivors at the WHISPER Oral History Project reported that their customers showed them pornography to illustrate the kinds of sexual activities in which they wanted to engage in...Thirty percent reported that their pimps regularly exposed them to pornography in order to indoctrinate them into an acceptance of the practices depicted.

On the subject of pimps using pornography for instruction purposes, see also, Associated Press, “Police investigating sex trafficking in Wichita,” Kansas City Star, 5/24/09 (“Wichita police say the cases of teenage girls being forced into sexual slavery are increasing...Gang members train their victims in sex acts, often using pornographic movies as ‘training manuals.’”); AND J. Tomassini, “Hotels target of police sting,” Gaithersburg Gazette,12/24/08, where we read:

Another case outlined the use of the motel by [Defendant], who was convicted of illegal sex trafficking throughout the Metro area in 2006. [Defendant] used girls as young as 14 to conduct a prostitution ring…[A]ccording to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which prosecuted the case…[Defendant] would drive around the streets surrounding the hotels showing the girls pornographic DVDs in order to illustrate how to perform sex acts…They would then meet men inside the hotel rooms.
What ‘Johns’ say

Last year, I quickly read through a book by Victor Malarek entitled, The Johns: Sex
for sale and the men who buy it (Arcade Publications, 2009). The author had much to say about the relationship between pornography and “johns,” including the following:

Porn and johns go hand in hand. Porn is often what turns the men on, revs up their sex drive, and sends them out into the night… [At 193]

The Internet is rife with postings by johns admitting addiction to or love for porn…For Bull Rider, “porn and mongering go together like peas and carrots. Many times…I start out watching porn; next thing I know I am in my car looking for the real thing”…A john called The Man says he only watches porn when he’s planning an encounter. “I watch the positions; find a girl who looks like one of the performers and make porn the build up to the…party.” [194-195]

And the john’s interest is not lost on those hoping to sell their services. Ads placed by “call girls”…tempt prospective johns with promises of the “PSE” – porn-star experience. The message is clear: if prostitution is the main act, porn is the dress rehearsal. [At 195-196]

The porn addicts may want to sit in the director’s chair themselves, but most will never have the opportunity or means…What’s their solution? Webcams. A new breed of johns… seek[s] out Web sites that let them create XXX from afar. They sit alone in dark rooms… and order up a woman…They order the woman to perform sex acts, in real time. [At 202]

Following the conviction of a man for the murder of five prostitutes in Suffolk, England, BBC News Magazine also published an article entitled, “The men who sleep with prostitutes” (F. Rohrer, 2/28/08), which included the following:

Having visited prostitutes for...months, Pete says he was attracted while surfing the Internet. “I’ve been leading up to it; using pornography and looking at various websites. Rather than being a fantasy it was someone you could have sex with.”

Added to the anecdotal evidence compiled by Malarek and others, researchers in Scotland who interviewed men that used prostitutes [J. Macleod, M. Farley, L. Anderson & J. Golding, “Challenging Men’s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland,” Women’s Support Project, 2008, available at http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk] found that men who were the most frequent users of print, video and Internet pornography were also the most frequent users of women in prostitution.
Other researchers have obtained similar results. See, Monto and N. McRee, “A Comparison of the Male Customers of Female Street Prostitutes With National Samples of Men,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 49(5), 505-529 (2005):

Repeat users reported greater participation in all aspects of the sex industry than did non-customers. They were much more likely to report having purchased sexually explicit magazines or videos, and they were more than twice as likely to have visited nude establishments.

Women trafficked into hardcore adult pornography

In June 2002, Morality in Media launched the www.obscenitycrimes.org tipline to enable citizens to make complaints about possible violations of federal Internet obscenity laws. In 2002, MIM also retained the services of two retired law enforcement agents to follow up on complaints and to prepare detailed written investigative reports of what they observe on websites. The complaints and the investigative reports are forwarded to the U.S. Justice Department in Washington and to local U.S. Attorney Offices. Over the years, I have read many if not most of the reports that the two retired agents have prepared. The degrading, perverse and violent sexual conduct depicted on some of these websites is so horrific that it defies the imagination that the women voluntarily consented to participate for pay.

Over the years, I have also read news articles reporting that trafficked women were sent to work in strip bars. See, e.g., AP, “Iowa man convicted of human trafficking...,” FOXNews.com, 12/22/08 (“Prosecutors said [Defendant]...recruited and harbored two Nebraska girls...for commercial sexual activity, including prostitution and performing at strip clubs”); J. MacIntosh, “‘Strip’ slave driver: NJ sex kingpin guilty,” N.Y. Post, 12/204 (“The leader of an alleged stripper import ring pleaded guilty...to charges that he lured women from Russia to dance nude in New Jersey adult clubs under the threat of mob revenge if they refused.”); V. Pope, “Trafficking in women,” U.S. News & World Report, 4/7/97 (“trafficked each year to disparate ports of call...and...the United States – for work as... striptease dancers...”).

Court cases and news articles indicate that women are also trafficked into hardcore adult pornography. For example, the indictment in U.S. v. Bagley, et al., INDICTMENT (W.D.Mo. 9/7/10) describes in detail how a young woman was allegedly forced into the production of hardcore adult pornography and prostitution:

The Grand Jury charges that: Count One (Conspiracy)...C. Manner and Means...Defendant Edward Bagley, Sr. (Defendant 1) advertised and publicized FV[alleged victim] over the internet and in live cam sessions as his slave who would engage in sexual acts and could be tortured during live online sessions, or in person...Defendants 2-5 [names omitted here] provided Defendant 1 with benefits and things of value including, but not limited to cash...Defendant 1 accepted the benefits and things of value and coerced FV to engage in sexual acts and torture sessions with Defendants 2-5...Defendant 2-5 engaged in sexual acts with FV, including sexual torture...D. Overt Acts...Defendant 1invited FV, a 16-year-old minor, who grew up in foster care homes, into his residence after she ran away from home and promised her a great life...Defendant 1 showed FV, while she was still a minor, images of pornography and sadomasochistic activities on the internet and TV...Defendant 1 had FV sign a ‘sexual slavery contract’..., shortly after her 18th birthday and instructed FV that the contract legally bound her to him as his ‘sex slave’...Defendant 1 performed the following sexual acts, mutilation and torture, any one of which constitute an overt act...Defendant 1 tortured FV on live web cam over the internet...Defendants 2-5 communicated with Defendant 1 on the Internet and the telephone regarding sexual and torture activities involving FV...Defendant 3 tied FV up, strapped her to a wooden pony, whipped her...Defendant 1 and Defendant 3 transported FV from Missouri to California with the intent that FV perform sexual acts during a photo shoot...

According to an AP article (B. Draper, “Questions about accuser surround sex slave case,” www.msnbc.com, 10/23/10), FV also “appeared on the cover of the July 2007 issue of Taboo, a publication owned by Larry Flynt's Hustler Magazine Group, and was the subject of a story and multipage photo spread inside.”

See also, United States v. Marcus, 628 F.3d 36, at 39-40 (2nd Cir. 2010), where the U.S. Court of Appeals stated in part:

Marcus and the complaining witness, Jodi, engaged in a consensual relationship that involved bondage, dominance/discipline, submission/sadism, and masochism ("BDSM")... At Marcus's direction, Joanna maintained a membership BDSM website called "Subspace," which contained pictures of Jodi and other women participating in BDSM activities and fantasy diary entries written about these activities... By October 1999, the nature of this arrangement changed. Because Jodi refused to recruit her younger sister to become one of Marcus's "slaves," Marcus inflicted upon Jodi a "punishment" that was the most physically severe that she had experienced to date. Jodi testified that she cried throughout the incident and that thereafter her relationship with Marcus became nonconsensual... Jodi testified that upon her move to New York, Marcus directed her to create and maintain a new commercial BDSM website called "Slavespace"... Marcus received all revenues from the website, consisting primarily of membership fees and advertising. Although Jodi did not want to work on the website as Marcus instructed, she did so because she feared the consequences of her refusal...

See also, Expatica News, 1/27/05 (“A Dutch court has imposed sentences...on four people found guilty of kidnapping asylum seekers and forcing them to take part in pornography... The men were arrested...after the asylum seekers were kidnapped and forced to have sex with men and animals in a farm shed. The sex acts were filmed.”).

I don’t mean to say or imply that all or even most hardcore adult pornography depicts participants who did not consent. But with so much sexual trafficking taking place internationally and in our country, it would be surprising indeed if no women were being videotaped while they engaged in sex acts. In some cases the video is for the johns’ personal use; in other cases it is disseminated for commercial purposes.

I hasten to add that last year Professor Donna Hughes wrote a paper which argues that since passage of the Trafficking Victims Prostitution Act, even long established U.S. based commercial producers of hardcore adult pornography may have engaged in sex trafficking of adult women (over the age of 17). In some cases, there may have been force or coercion; in other cases, fraud or preying on a performer’s drug use or addiction. The paper, “Sex trafficking of women for the production of pornography,” is available at http://www.citizensagainsttrafficking.org.

Serial killers ‘act out’ pornography fueled fantasies with prostitutes
Ted Bundy was an exception. He sexually assaulted and murdered “nice girls.” Unlike Bundy, most serial killers sexually assault and murder prostituted women, many of whom sell their bodies to feed a drug addiction. Not all of these women are trafficked into prostitution, but drug induced behavior isn’t voluntary. One example of a killer acting out pornography fueled fantasies is found in the book, Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation (CRC Press, 2003), authored by Vernon Geberth, a retired NYPD Lieutenant Commander of the Bronx homicide squad. He writes:

In many cases, the offenders use their girlfriends or prostitutes to act out their sadistic fantasies…This case involved a serial killer who was killing prostitutes…Once he completed the sex act, he stripped and tortured them for hours…The significance of fantasy in this case was graphically revealed when…detectives went to the killer’s home and retrieved a number of items, including one pornographic videotape…This videotape contained a number of scenes that were similar to what the offender was doing to his victims. The breast assault and paddling activities appeared to be based upon this sadomasochistic videotape, which seemingly fueled his increasingly sadistic activities.

In his monograph, “Pornography’s Effects on Adults & Children” (Morality in Media, 2001), Dr. Victor B. Cline states that “a study by FBI researchers of 36 serial killers revealed that 29 were attracted to pornography and incorporated it into their sexual activity, which included serial rape-murder.”

For more on the subject of the link between pornography and sexual violence, and sexual violence against prostitutes in particular, see R. Peters, “Link between pornography and violent sexual crimes,” Morality in Media (2004), available at www.moralityinmedia.org (Pornography Effects...Sexual Violence).

Concluding thoughts
I did not come here today to tell you that addiction to hardcore adult pornography “causes” prostitution. I did come to tell you that the proliferation of hardcore adult pornography on the Internet and elsewhere is contributing to the demand for prostitution and thus for women and children trafficked into prostitution.

I also came to tell you that federal and state law enforcement agencies and prosecutors make a big mistake when they turn a “blind eye” to this proliferation and refuse to enforce our nation’s constitutional federal and state obscenity laws.
Enforcement of obscenity laws alone will not solve the pornography or prostitution problems, but vigorous enforcement of these laws will certainly help. I would add that unlike child pornography, much if not most hardcore adult pornography is created and distributed by a relatively small number of U.S. based pornographers. Put these racketeers out of business, and there will be real progress towards maintaining a safe and decent society for all Americans and for family life.

I would also add that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that obscene materials are not protected by the First Amendment. Congress has also repeatedly updated and strengthened federal obscenity laws. What is now needed is vigorous enforcement of these constitutional laws by U.S. Justice Department prosecutors and the FBI.
To my knowledge, there have been no new obscenity indictments against commercial distributors of hardcore adult pornography since the November 2008 elections.