PORNOGRAPHY, PROSTITUTION, AND CRIME

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THE SEXUAL SIN TRINITY

Warning: This article contains graphic sexual content. Parental discretion is advised.

By Synthia Esther

Their seductive faces and enticing eyes flash a come hither look. Completely nude with their personal anatomy for all the world to see, they are often victims of a soul less world of crime. In my opinion, pornography, prostitution and its crime are Satan's sexual sin trinity. No longer is prostitution seen only on a street corner. It is promoted across the world wide web including prostitutes who solicit and post pictures on many dating sites, promote themselves in chat rooms, on web cams, and pornography sites. Many times prostitution involvement includes parents advertising their own young children for sex. Every prostitute has a story that most of the world, as well as spiritually pious people choose to ignore.

Victims of child abuse are at high risk of becoming prostitutes in adolescence or as adults. More than 50% of prostitutes were sexually abused as children (Silbert & Pines, 1981: Bagley & Young, 1987). 62% of females are sexually abused by age 18 (Finkelhor, David and J. Dzluba-Leatherman, Victimization of Children, American Psychologist, Vol 49:3, 1992). 96% of teenage prostitutes were sexually molested in childhood (CCPA, 1992). Over 75% of juvenile girls identified as delinquent by court have been sexually abused. When they run away from the abuse at home, they are often labeled as delinquent ( Calhoun et al, 1993).

Women who are sexually abused during childhood were 2.4 times more likely to be victimized as adults as women who were not sexually abused (Wyatt et al, 1992). Victims of father – daughter incest are four times more likely than non – incest victims to be asked to pose for pornography (Russell, 1986). Research in the past has unfairly focused on the prostitute and not their clients (Sullivan 1992, Shrage 1992). Past research has also shown only 10% of yearly prostitution arrests are of customers who are predominately men (Alexander 1987; Miller, Romenesko, and Wondolkowski 1993).

Is it the prostitute's and/or pornography model's greed of money, a self consuming drug addiction, or the longing for personal love and attention that lead them down the dark road of emptiness and self destruction? Or could they be the victim of sexual abuse, slavery and human bondage? The John (prostitution customer) doesn't know the victim's story, nor do they care. If they did, they would be helping these women and juvenile girls or boys get out of the business. Instead, they use them in their endless pursuit and need of a deviant sexual fix, to cope, calm and feed their inner demons (reference article, “Don't Feed The Pig – He Could End Up As Big As Hogzillia”).

Yet, everyday, sex addicts feed off the wounds of sexually abused souls, including innocent children, who are in the grips of prostitution's painful reality. Why? Over 95% of perpetrators who sexually abuse female children, and over 80% of those who abuse male children, are men. Most of these men were abused themselves in childhood (Fergusson & Mullen, 1999). The reality is that prostitution is often the gateway crime for most women (Chesney-Lind, 1997).

It has been reported that 70% of female inmates in American prisons were initially arrested for prostitution (Boyer & James, 1983). 80% of women in prison and jails have been victims of sexual and physical abuse. These women are far more likely to be abused while in prison (Smith, 1998). Prostitution is the only criminal offense involving mutual consent between two persons, where, in most cases, only the female partner is arrested (N.J. Davis, 1993). Family dysfunction can play a role in women entering prostitution (Silbert & Pines, 1983), as well as financial difficulties (Benjamin & Masters, 1964; Jennings, 1976; James 1978; Pomeroy, 1965; Vanwesenbeeck, 1994).

Overtime, the prostitute experiences profound depression (Williamson, 2000), decreased emotional, mental and physical well being (Miller, 1993; Vanwesenbeeck, 1994; William, 2000). Due to their traumatic lifestyle, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is another common side effect (Farley & Hotaling, 1995). The prostitute usually endures violence and coercion by pimps, severe circumstances, problematic health issues, and the possibility of ending up dead, becoming just another crime statistic. In today's 21st century of organized crime, sexual trafficking and slavery is another reality in the life of a prostitute.

Arresting prostitutes has not proven to be effective in stopping prostitution (Carmen and Moody 1985). There have been educational programs that focused on the Johns, or male customers, providing them with information concerning prostitutions exploitation and violence. One such program was the Sexual Exploitation Education Project (SEEP), out of Portland, Oregon.

Established as a community organization, the Seep program was independent of local law enforcement. The mission and goals of the 1995, n.p.- Sexual Exploitation Education Project were: re-framing prostitution from a victim less crime to a system of violence against women and stressing the choice and responsibility that men have to create egalitarian relationships without coercion or violence. The SEEP program asserted that efforts to reduce prostitution should focus upon the individuals (John's), for whom the encounter was a choice.

Researchers have acknowledged the strong desire that clients have to keep their activities with a prostitute secret (McKeganey and Barnard 1996; Special Committee on Prostitution and Pornography 1985). The SEEP program ceased functioning in 1997, due to the withdrawal of support from the district attorney's office. While the SEEP program deemed low rates of recidivism, they were somewhat inconclusive due to the low recidivism rates of their comparison group.

However, the nation's largest street prostitution intervention program, San Francisco's First Offenders Prostitution Program, showed the same low recidivism results as the SEEP program. Out of 706 men participating in the First Offenders Prostitution Program, there were only 14 recidivists, or two percent, over an 18 to 36 month follow-up. Providing educational community awareness programs is a step in the right direction.

It is consistent law enforcement policies that will ultimately help to curtail prostitution and its influx of crime. Double standards in prostitution and John arrests enable the John to just take his business elsewhere. Prosecuting both the prostitute and the John is the only fair and logical deterrent to alleviating such crime. God loves and cares about the prostitute, pimp, and their clients (Johns). He wants to change their abused soul and spirit from a heart of stone into a healed heart of flesh.

PROSTITUTION, SLAVERY & SEXUAL SERVITUDE
- A CYCLE OF VIOLENCE -

Many women in prostitution's cycle of violence are physically beaten if they don 't meet their money quota demanded by the pimp that prostitutes them. Within sexual trafficking crimes, young teens and children are killed, often times in snuff pornography (taped accounts of live sex, torture and death), if they don't cooperate by satisfying a John's sexual perversions and generate enough profit income.

A report in the Daily News, The Front Page, Prostitution Horror for Young Women, reports a news investigation into the plight of young women forced into the horror of prostitution. Nicole Bode, daily news staff writer reports on girls as young as 8 being forced into cold blooded sexual slavery, forced prostitution, that begun when they were kidnapped from their small towns in Mexico and Central America. They are then smuggled through a dangerous corridor that leads into the United States.

After they work their apprenticeships in Tijuana, many of the girls end up as sexual servants in New York's illegal brothels. Martin Ficke, who over sees the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's in New York, states that they are coming from everywhere, and the problems have become more prevalent. As many as 17,500 sex slaves are smuggled into the United States each year, according to the latest federal statistics. One out of every three people trafficked into New York is forced into prostitution, according to Safe Horizon, a Manhattan based human rights organization. It is easy to get from Tijuana into Arizona, California, Texas, and New York.

The pimps beat the girls with coat hangers, cables, beer bottles, and belts. Many are forced to have abortions when they become pregnant, and others are given crystal meth and cocaine so they become addicts. They say, “We'll kill your family,” or if they have babies, they say, “We'll kill your babies,” said deputy Sheriff Rick Castro of the San Diego Sheriff's department. A ring of traffickers busted last year forced 50 girls to have sex with 300 to 500 men a day in a field of reeds just north of San Diego. The girls were given a piece of carpet or a towel to lay on, and an egg timer to keep track of their 10-minute sessions. The sex ring catered to day laborers and advertised through word of mouth.

President Bush's administration has moved aggressively to combat human trafficking and has mentioned the problem in many major speeches. “A lot of people think prostitution is voluntary, and maybe for some women it is, “Castro said. “But when you're talking about children or people who were brought in under false pretenses, that's not voluntary, that's something completely different.” Many sex traffickers use the seductive lure of bogus ads in local papers to deceive young women into becoming prostitutes. This article was originally published on April 2, 2005, and listed the following private and government agencies that can help a victim of human trafficking, or for those who want to help combat the international problem.

According to the web site United States- Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, http//www.catwinternational.org (CATW), a non-government organization that promotes womens human rights and the fight against human trafficking. Trafficking in women plagues the United States as much as it does underdeveloped nations. In 2006, the U.S. State Department reported that one million children are exploited in the global sex trade. Sex tourists, seeking anonymity and impunity in foreign lands, exploit many of these children in child sex tourism.

Most women in prostitution are trafficked into the sex industry as children. 75-80 percent of women in prostitution were sexually abused as children. Worldwide, the average age of entrance into prostitution is 13. When girls in prostitution become 18, their prostitution does not become a self-determined choice. CATW reminds us that we cannot separate child trafficking from the trafficking of women.

Alien smuggling of young boys is also a problem as pedophiles travel to Central America and Asia to find male victims. Marvin Hersh, a Florida Alantic University professor, was charged with alien smuggling and passport fraud for going to Honduras and bringing a teenage boy back to Boca Raton, Florida, for sex. He passed the boy off as his son. According to U.S. Federal Statute, Title 18, Section 2423, it is a crime for any American citizen to travel abroad with the intent to sexually abuse children.

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