Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 11, 2023


Ep 888 ｜ How Porn Drives Trafficking ｜ Guest： Benji Nolot (Part One)

Topics
pornography and trafficking connections pornography trafficking porn manipulation and trafficking
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Guests
Benji Nolot (Part One)
Mentioned
Benji Nolot Sheila Grekel Dennis Prager Porn
Ep 887 ｜ What Do We Do with Frozen Embryos？ ｜ Q&A Ep 889 ｜ Why 'Ethical Porn' Doesn't Exist ｜ Guest： Benji Nolot (Part Two)

Episode Stats


Length

28 minutes

Words per minute

141.83

Word count

4,113

Sentence count

216

Harmful content

Misogyny

11

sentences flagged

Toxicity

28

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Pornography is fueling the sex trafficking and child sex trafficking industry, and the church needs to do more about it, says Benji Nolt, author of Raised on Porn: How Porn is Affecting Our Lives and What We Can Do About It.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.460 What fuels sex trafficking, specifically child sex trafficking?
00:00:05.880 The answer is pornography. 0.95
00:00:08.300 Yes, all forms of pornography, even what is sometimes referred to as so-called ethical
00:00:14.360 pornography.
00:00:15.680 Pornography is fueling the sex trafficking and child sex trafficking industry.
00:00:21.240 Today, my guest, Benji Nolt, is the author of Raised on Porn, How Porn is Affecting Our
00:00:26.980 Lives and What We Can Do About It.
00:00:30.020 He is the head of Exodus Cry, which is an international nonprofit organization that works to uproot
00:00:35.520 trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation.
00:00:38.140 It has mobilized millions of people to fight against this.
00:00:41.800 He's going to talk to us not just about how pornography is fueling the sex trafficking
00:00:46.640 industry and is also wrecking people's relationships, their sex lives, but also how the church isn't
00:00:54.620 really stepping up how we should step up when it comes to fostering and talking about healthy
00:01:01.680 sex and sexual relationships.
00:01:04.380 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:01:07.140 Go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:01:08.660 Use code ALI at checkout.
00:01:09.660 That's GoodRanchers.com.
00:01:11.020 Code ALI.
00:01:20.840 Benji, thanks so much for joining us again.
00:01:23.000 And though most people probably already know in this audience, can you just tell those
00:01:28.360 who may not know who you are and what you do?
00:01:31.260 Yeah, I'm the CEO and founder of Exodus Cry.
00:01:34.020 We're an organization that fights human trafficking.
00:01:37.580 And we were founded in 2007.
00:01:42.100 So we've been at this for about 16 years.
00:01:43.960 And you obviously don't just talk about trafficking, which I think most people agree is egregious.
00:01:51.280 They want that to end.
00:01:52.520 But you talk about what is upstream from trafficking, which is pornography, which is unfortunately a
00:01:59.180 more culturally contentious topic.
00:02:02.860 There are people who would say that they're against trafficking.
00:02:05.720 Of course, they're against sexual assaults, but they draw the line at porn.
00:02:09.940 They don't think that porn is that big of a deal.
00:02:12.340 Tell us about the connections that you guys draw between consumption and production of
00:02:18.040 pornography and then global sex trafficking.
00:02:21.540 Sure.
00:02:22.440 So the larger global commercial sex industry is entirely a system of exploitation, violence,
00:02:30.600 and gender inequality. 0.70
00:02:31.500 So when we think about the larger global commercial sex industry, I'm thinking about stripping. 0.64
00:02:38.020 I'm thinking about pornography. 0.59
00:02:39.640 I'm thinking about all forms of prostitution.
00:02:42.760 And then trafficking is sex trafficking is a part of what happens in that larger system.
00:02:47.760 So some people in our culture would say that the sex industry is a system of female liberation, 0.99
00:02:54.280 sexual empowerment, and those kind of ideas. 0.84
00:02:58.080 But in our analysis over 15, 16 plus years, we view this larger global commercial sex industry, as I said,
00:03:09.400 as a system of violence, exploitation, and gender inequality.
00:03:13.120 So when we think about people who are in the commercial sex industry, we're talking about 98% women and children.
00:03:22.840 And then we're talking about 99% of the people buying are men.
00:03:29.140 So the entire global commercial sex industry exists as a result of male demand.
00:03:36.660 So it is quite literally a construct of male demand.
00:03:40.660 And it was one of the last strongholds and yokes of oppression that are holding women hostage on the planet. 1.00
00:03:52.660 And so in our investigation of sex trafficking, I traveled across four continents, 19 countries and 42 cities over four years,
00:04:05.360 making a documentary and began to see the way in which pornography was overlapping with sex trafficking in five specific ways.
00:04:15.480 And so from that investigation developed a conviction that we needed to address the porn industry specifically.
00:04:25.840 And so in 2012, we made a conscious decision to do that and then did an eight-year investigation of the porn industry
00:04:33.680 that has resulted in numerous documentaries, a book I just released.
00:04:37.780 And so the subject of pornography is something that I think we really need to talk about as a culture right now
00:04:45.740 because, again, it's cast under this cover narrative that says, you know, this is just about consenting adults,
00:04:55.800 you know, bringing some arousal to their sexuality and, you know, erotica as a way to kind of enhance their sexual experiences.
00:05:06.060 But people aren't seeing the deeper truth of what pornography actually is, how it's created, and its impact on us as individuals in the society.
00:05:19.140 And so I think there's a lot to frame around that conversation.
00:05:36.060 Those who kind of defend pornography, maybe it's something totally separate from trafficking or even coercion.
00:05:44.640 They would say, look, of course coercion is bad.
00:05:48.120 Of course using children they might say is bad, but most people aren't consuming that kind of stuff.
00:05:55.420 If it's consensual, if it's between two consensual adults, there's nothing wrong with that.
00:06:02.140 And so they'll click on Pornhub, they'll click on OnlyFans, they'll say sex work is work, whatever the mantra is,
00:06:10.620 and they will defend pornography in that way.
00:06:14.300 But what you're saying is that it's all part of the system that then lends itself to the perpetuation of the trafficking of victims.
00:06:22.180 Like, can you talk about why that kind of narrative is false that, well, most pornography is just between two consenting adults, so what's the big deal?
00:06:35.220 Yeah.
00:06:36.100 So, I mean, I think there's like several things that you have to sort of like be okay with or sign on for if you're going to be a pornography consumer or if you're going to recommend pornography to other people.
00:06:49.540 So, the first is that just kind of fundamentally you have to buy into the idea of sexual voyeurism as a way to enhance our relationships and as a way to enhance, yeah, just like our sexual lives.
00:07:07.980 And so, when you think about it, the way that our planet has been hardwired with the internet, pornography is ubiquitous now.
00:07:20.400 And so, in a way, we are all living in proximity consciously to this large global sexual orgy. 0.84
00:07:30.360 And it's almost unavoidable.
00:07:33.780 And at the very least, it affects our psyche and our collective conscience.
00:07:39.340 And so, there's a question of, you know, is that aspect of interacting and engaging our sexuality around observing other people having sex beneficial to us and our relationships and our children?
00:07:54.380 And so, in one scenario, you know, you could say, would we take our children to parks, we take them to zoos, petting zoos, would we take our children to an orgy and sit them to observe this, you know, large orgy of people having sex?
00:08:11.700 So, what would people answer to that? 0.98
00:08:13.920 Would you take your spouse to an orgy to go watch? 0.63
00:08:18.140 So, at some level, you have to wrestle with that. 0.71
00:08:21.940 Then you have to wrestle with the idea that you don't know who is in these videos.
00:08:29.340 You don't know how that content is being created.
00:08:31.540 Even some of the biggest performers in the industry have later come out to say how they were coerced, they were trafficked, all these different things.
00:08:39.220 I had one of the largest contract porn performers, I sat down to interview her. 1.00
00:08:46.340 The first thing she said to me is, I've never told this to anybody, but I'm going to say it, tell it to you, and I don't even know why.
00:08:51.540 And she began to tell me her whole story of how she was trafficked into porn.
00:08:54.940 Now, this person was held up as the contract star, you know, the true embodiment of what it means to be a porn star.
00:09:03.980 I have had the person who is called the queen of porn, the most successful porn performer of all time, reach out to me personally to cheer on our efforts to expose what pornography is.
00:09:17.680 People don't understand the human rights implications of porn, how this is being created, the impact of it on performers.
00:09:23.720 So there's a lot to unpack there.
00:09:26.660 But just to say that you have to be okay, you have to say in your heart, I'm okay that I don't know who you are, how you ended up in that video, how it was made, where you came from.
00:09:42.540 So I'm actually okay with observing these orgies as part of the way to my enhance my sexuality.
00:09:52.440 You have to begin to sign off on a number of things that for me create a lot of internal conflict.
00:09:59.100 I go, yeah, I don't know if that's how I want to cultivate sexuality.
00:10:06.040 Well, there's no way to know that every part of a pornographic scene or picture, whatever it is that you're viewing, was consensual.
00:10:14.720 There's no way for you to know that.
00:10:16.640 You can assume that it was consensual, but there's no way to know that every single part of that had nothing to do with manipulation or coercion and that that person wasn't forced to do that.
00:10:28.900 That's one part of it.
00:10:29.940 The second thing is that I'm sure that you agree that this whole like flimsy setup of consent-based morality, this idea that's really a progressive idea, that consent is the only thing that has to exist to make something moral.
00:10:45.640 Even if two people are consenting to something and you're watching a consensual sexual act between two people, it's still objectification.
00:10:55.100 And there is something wrong and immoral about objectification.
00:10:58.200 All pornography is objectification because you don't have a relationship with that person.
00:11:03.200 You don't have any emotional or spiritual tie to them.
00:11:06.340 Therefore, there really is no other option except for viewing that person as only an object, a vessel of pleasure.
00:11:13.940 And that's not what human beings are.
00:11:16.200 And you guys talk about this.
00:11:17.860 You've talked about this a lot, how viewing someone as a sexual object, which is absolutely inevitable if you're viewing pornography,
00:11:25.100 always carries over into how people view real life, you know, three-dimensional humans, how they treat their spouses, how they treat their friends, how they treat the people that they go on dates with.
00:11:37.960 It's really difficult for our mind to separate our like pornography brain from our real life brain.
00:11:45.180 The pornography brain ends up in one way or another taking over how we view people in real life.
00:11:52.880 And obviously, like we don't even have to detail all the consequences of viewing someone not as a human being, not as an image bearer of God,
00:12:00.580 not as someone with a soul and autonomy and a personality and all of that, but just as an object.
00:12:07.100 You can justify not just sexually using them, but violence against them, emotionally abusing them because you don't see them as real people worthy of dignity and respect.
00:12:20.660 That's just one consequence of viewing pornography, whether the porn is consensual or not.
00:12:37.100 Okay, so a couple of things.
00:12:40.040 First, I want to just hit the first point that you mentioned.
00:12:43.680 When we talk about the idea of coercion in the realm of pornography, we're not talking about a few anomalies on kind of the fringes of pornography.
00:12:55.000 What I'm talking about is the mainstream above board porn industry operates in such a way that coercion is a part of the backdrop and the landscape for how the vast majority of porn is being produced.
00:13:12.540 Now going to amateur porn, Pornhub's biggest partner channel, Girls Do Porn, has now been indicted and convicted of numerous counts, dozens of counts of sex trafficking.
00:13:26.140 So it was an entire trafficking operation that was their mainstream partner channel and the most popular porn channel out there.
00:13:33.780 And so what we're talking about is the idea that there are two consenting adults engaging in ethical porn is really the exception or the anomaly.
00:13:48.620 And so I just wanted to say that just to clarify that point.
00:13:53.140 But if you think this through, so for the person that's recommending this, I mean, what is that scenario?
00:14:00.120 Like you're in your room with your spouse or your partner and then what do you do?
00:14:04.540 You say, hey, you know, I have an appetite for other or, you know, other orientations in my sexuality.
00:14:12.580 Would you mind excusing me from the room for a few minutes while I jump on Pornhub and the person gets out their lotion?
00:14:19.000 They do, you know, they get themselves ready for whatever and kind of that.
00:14:21.660 I mean, how does that actually become a part of your relationship?
00:14:25.820 So now you're on Pornhub and well, now we know this is a site and I mean, this X videos name the site. 0.67
00:14:35.260 We know Pornhub is a site that is infested with videos of real trafficking, sexual abuse, rape on and on and on and on. 0.98
00:14:43.740 Child sexual abuse is rampant. 0.99
00:14:45.920 Child sexual abuse. 0.96
00:14:46.880 So now you're on that site and now you're you're you are rationalized.
00:14:52.280 You are engaging in rationalizing, justifying cognitive dissonance in order to sort of prop up a cover narrative that takes you off the hook from the inner conflict of I don't know who, where, what. 0.66
00:15:11.500 In order to get an erection and and then, you know, masturbate to these images and then and then knit your sexuality to a computer screen and to the objectified people who are behind that screen, again, whose stories that that you don't know.
00:15:28.680 So when we talk about the idea of consent, you know, I mean, even that is such a flimsy notion in the sex industry. 0.72
00:15:37.660 I mean, consent can there's so many shades of gray and consent, the way that it's presented as this is very black and white.
00:15:44.640 There are people who consent and there are people who don't consent.
00:15:47.120 Now, there's many shades of gray consent.
00:15:49.000 Consent can be or consent can be manipulated.
00:15:51.760 Consent can be bribed.
00:15:52.940 So there are a lot of ways to, you know, and the idea behind the making of porn is to get somebody to consent.
00:16:03.520 Right.
00:16:03.760 So there's already inherently a manipulative aspect to it, because if I can get them to sign the form, then I can do whatever I want to them.
00:16:11.760 So, but what you're describing as like this, this objectification of, you know, individuals, predominantly women and children's bodies, what we're talking about, the way that you get there is, is it okay if I speak to that for just a second or did you want to jump in?
00:16:33.080 No, go for it.
00:16:33.660 Okay, so the way the porn industry has created this universe, let's call it the porn universe, and when you access that universe, you are not, you are accessing it through the avatar of either the male or the female.
00:16:54.660 And the porn producers have been very calculating in the way that they draft the male character, the male avatar, and the way that they draft the female character and the female avatar.
00:17:12.860 So the first thing is both of these people, the porn man and the porn woman in the porn universe, are completely stripped of their humanity.
00:17:21.460 The porn man has no empathy. 0.99
00:17:25.200 He is simply a life support system for his erection. 1.00
00:17:28.960 So he is there to subjugate, degrade, humiliate the woman. 1.00
00:17:33.820 He is there to exercise power over her, to penetrate her, and ultimately to humiliate her.
00:17:41.760 So that is, in the vast majority of pornography, casts the porn man into that role.
00:17:47.940 So as a man, as I'm internalizing that in my engaging this world and my sexuality, you can't come away from that without it affecting your psyche.
00:18:01.240 Now, the woman in this world is also stripped of her humanity because she just has no preferences of anything. 1.00
00:18:06.900 She's just a hollow shell to be penetrated.
00:18:09.060 She does not exist.
00:18:10.160 She has no desires of her own, no history, no preferences.
00:18:13.160 I mean, her only desire is to satisfy every advance of the hyper-aggressive, dominant male who is there to punish her, subjugate her, and humiliate her.
00:18:22.360 And so she also is stripped of her humanity.
00:18:24.200 So now I'm viewing her as the object to be acted upon. 0.97
00:18:27.340 I will choke her. 1.00
00:18:28.320 I will penetrate her. 0.99
00:18:29.320 And ultimately, I will – I don't want it to get too graphic, but it's not a pretty picture in terms of, you know, let's say, if the idea is that one is going to enhance their sexuality. 0.96
00:18:41.000 This is more of a train wreck than anything.
00:18:43.480 But in this scenario, here's the point that I want to get to is this is a very – you know, I think there are positive – and I don't want to trigger people with this comment or make this a toxic conversation because I know how controversial the subject is.
00:19:05.420 This is a very patriarchal mindset from the standpoint of, let's just say, the dark side of patriarchy.
00:19:15.740 And so the idea that the woman is a receptacle, that she's a sponge, that she is a retainer for and a soother of the offloaded sexuality of men.
00:19:29.120 So in this dark patriarchal mindset, women exist as receptacles and sponges and containers for men's internal existential psychic offloaded perversion, rage, hopelessness, alienation, reject feelings of rejection, and all manner of sexual energy. 0.98
00:19:58.040 So she's meant to contain that.
00:20:01.040 So now this – some people would say, wow, that sounds really intense.
00:20:04.400 That's an intense picture.
00:20:05.720 But again, surely that's just kind of the fringe.
00:20:08.140 No. 0.91
00:20:08.560 The main line evangelical teaching in most Christian books on sex view women as the sponge to absorb men's sexuality in marriage so that they don't watch porn. 0.89
00:20:23.880 That is how they're cast. 0.81
00:20:24.860 It is you – the idea that is preached to women is you will have sex essentially whenever he wants so that he doesn't go to porn. 0.99
00:20:34.320 So it's this idea that men are these mindless, consciousness, roving sexual beasts who, like I said before, are basically just a support system for their erection and have no control over themselves. 0.97
00:20:45.680 And therefore, it's the woman's job to satisfy his sexuality so he doesn't go to porn. 0.99
00:20:51.140 This is a – this is absolutely mainline evangelical teaching through most Christian books on sex.
00:20:59.540 Now, I will say – so I will say that I do think that that teaching exists.
00:21:06.140 I don't know, and I truly mean that.
00:21:08.760 I don't know. 0.91
00:21:09.320 I don't know that that is the mainstream teaching today that, hey, women, if your husband does turn to porn or does commit adultery, it's because you weren't having sex with him enough. 0.85
00:21:23.980 That's – I mean, that – I mean, I'm an evangelical. 0.73
00:21:27.080 Now, when you say mainline, mainline typically means like the liberal evangelical church.
00:21:32.020 But if you mean mainstream, maybe – I do see some of that certainly in maybe like the 80s and 90s kind of, you know, purity talks.
00:21:43.440 I don't see that as the mainstream teaching in the evangelical church today.
00:21:50.900 In fact, there is a lot of berating of men, that men, you need to get it together.
00:21:56.920 In fact, Jesus specifically addresses men when he says, look, it's not enough to not commit adultery.
00:22:02.480 If you look at a woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart.
00:22:09.600 And so I agree that that teaching exists somewhere.
00:22:13.520 I would maybe push back on the idea like that that is what all evangelical women are taught as someone who is in the Southern Baptist Convention her whole life.
00:22:21.500 That's not – that's not what I was taught.
00:22:23.580 Okay.
00:22:24.240 So there's a lady named Sheila Gregor that wrote a book called The Gregor's Rescue.
00:22:30.120 So she did a research project of 20,000 women to ask their, you know, their experience of sex and marriage. 0.70
00:22:37.420 And as also part of her research, did a deep research study on all the best-selling Christian books and sort of the – and kind of like pulled out of it this consistent message with examples in quotes.
00:22:54.560 And again, I don't want to go into specific books and individuals, but it is across the mainstream of all the best-selling Christian books that consistently have this idea that it is the woman's job to satisfy the man's sexuality.
00:23:10.040 This is the key so that he doesn't go to porn.
00:23:13.300 And that is a – again, that is a very objectified view of women and again casts women as this receptacle sponge. 0.91
00:23:24.820 So what we see in the secular culture at large is extremely troubling, but it's also going on in the evangelical church.
00:23:36.480 That's what's part of our space really difficult to navigate because it's not that the conservative Christian church has it all right and the secular liberal world over here has it all wrong.
00:23:49.060 It's – there are threads of this that run across all of it, and it's very disturbing.
00:23:54.340 And so I just feel this because our work is so focused on this issue to step back and be objective about, hey, how do these issues pertaining to pornography and sexuality affect all of us?
00:24:12.800 And I do think it's time for us as a culture to do an inventory for the way in which our sexuality has really gotten off course as a result of porn's impact on us.
00:24:24.340 Well, I think that we obviously agree that whether it is a mainstream teaching in the church or whether it's a fringe teaching, it doesn't matter where it exists, it's wrong.
00:24:44.200 This idea that women are responsible for preventing men's lusts or men's wandering eyes or their adultery or their consumption of pornography and that they have to be the perfect recipients of all of his sexual advances in order to kind of like stave off the darker parts of his appetite, that is wrong.
00:25:05.160 That is wrong.
00:25:05.700 So wherever that teaching exists, you and I agree that that is a problem that I do think fuels the kind of ugliness that we see perpetuated through pornography.
00:25:18.360 Yeah.
00:25:19.220 Yeah, 100%.
00:25:20.660 I just – what I take exception to – so what I take exception to is the idea that you pointed out that it's women's job to sort of solve the problem of men's lust.
00:25:33.380 There is – there is – there is – you know, I'm just like, what about self-control?
00:25:42.000 Yeah.
00:25:42.160 I mean, isn't that like part of the way that we should be expected to kind of manage our own lives?
00:25:48.480 It's like – so the idea that you have a desire for something is not the reason to follow through on it.
00:25:56.580 And I just – I just think that because of how ubiquitous porn has become in our culture, it just – it necessitates a deeper processing of what this is.
00:26:12.100 Like I said before, like taking an inventory for what porn is, its impact on us, how it's affecting our relationships.
00:26:19.560 To be thoughtful about this and – but I think part of the problem is because it's been so normalized that it just seems like it's become part of kind of an accepted aspect of our sexual lives.
00:26:34.380 In my view, sex is a very powerful, meaningful, mysterious, sacred part of the human experience that has the potential and the capacity to bond to people in a deep, committed way, has the potential to create life.
00:26:57.580 So there is something inherently powerful, beautiful about sex.
00:27:02.780 And so my view is that by virtue of that, it deserves respect.
00:27:08.260 It deserves reverence, that we approach it with a measure of sobriety.
00:27:13.300 And when I look out across our culture, I can't think of anything that has hijacked and derailed more people's lives both in and out of the church than the issue of a compromised sexuality.
00:27:25.520 And, I mean, I'm tempted to start rattling off examples because this is a big problem in the church.
00:27:36.580 And I have a lot of energy on that because, you know, we as people of faith are – part of our way of being in the world is trying to uphold an ethical standard for what it looks like to reverence our sexuality.
00:27:56.700 And yet, we have been some of the greatest offenders of not only engaging in sexually fraudulent behavior, but then perpetuating that through cover-ups and all kinds of things in large segments of both the evangelical and Catholic church.
00:28:12.580 All right, that was part one of our conversation with Benji Nolot.
00:28:29.680 And tomorrow, we're going to talk about a few different things, but we are specifically going to respond to a conservative radio host, someone that I am a big fan of, Dennis Prager, basically saying that there's nothing wrong or immoral about looking at pornography.
00:28:51.000 You can imagine my thoughts on it, but Benji's thoughts are really interesting.
00:28:54.260 So we'll talk about that and much more in part two of this episode, which will come out tomorrow.
00:28:58.520 Thanks so much for listening and watching.