WRAP Week

The first week of November is White Ribbon Against Pornography week! It’s really important to learn about the dangers of pornography. Pornography is something that educates our generation about sex, and the outcome of that leads into sex trafficking. Pornography is creating a more sexualized and violent society, which plays into sex trafficking. While some forms of pornography are legal, much pornography is actually a form of sex trafficking.

Why is that?

Many people in porn are constantly abused and forced by directors and other members of the set. Coercing and abusing employees  is always unlawful, regardless of the industry

People who are abused in the porn industry often have difficulty with personal relationships later in their life. Many people go on to struggle with their self worth, making it nearly impossible to have healthy relationships with others.  Also, pimps tend to use porn as a guide for sex trafficking victims to show the victims what they want to reenact. It’s considered training material for new victims. Finally, there is a supply and demand chain with pornography and sex trafficking. Society is demanding more porn, which means it is demanding more exploited women. The best way to stop the exploitation of women is to educate the public on the dangers of porn, therefore there will be less demand for it.

So how does WRAP help?

White Ribbon Against Pornography is a campaign that aims to educate the public about the harm in pornography. When WRAP educates the public about the dangers of porn, it helps with lessening the demand for it. This week is very special for the people who have been exploited due to pornography, because it helps remind people that porn is an issue and it isn’t just a fun business.

Take a stand!

It is time to stop ignoring the problem and start facing it instead. Talk with your kids about the dangers of pornography, because if you don’t they’ll never really understand the harm it can cause them. I came across this article and it could really help start the conversation. http://www.safekids.com/2011/12/17/so-your-kid-is-looking-at-pornography-now-what/

Fighting for Freedom

Jenny

 

Rape Culture vs. Porn Culture

 

Rape culture exists when dominant cultural ideologies, media images, social practices, and societal institutions support and condone sexual abuse by normalizing, trivializing and eroticizing male violence against women and blaming victims for their own abuse.

In other words,  a rape culture is a  society that accepts men sexually exploiting and/or assaulting women and then blaming the women themselves for being exploited or assaulted.

 

Porn culture is normalizing rape culture and it’s time to connect the dots. In porn culture,  violent sexual exploitation of women and children is portrayed in media images, music, and the written word. Today, it is both accessible and acceptable, and is normalized as a form of sexual education for teens. Unfortunately, it starts much earlier than college or even high school.

 

It begins as young kids in elementary school and middle school start to view it. The average age that a child in the United States first encounters porn is 11.  While their bodies and minds are in key developmental stages, kids are viewing images that portray women as objects to be used in whatever way a male desires. Is it any wonder that boys being educated about sex by pornographers become men who associate sex with the rape and bondage pornography that ignores the humanity of women?

 

 

One study published in CyberPsychology and Behavior found that 39 percent of college-aged males and 23 percent of college-aged females said they had viewed bondage porn as teens, and 18 percent and 10 percent respectively said they had viewed rape porn

 

 

Connecting the Dots Between Porn and Rape Culture

 

Here’s how I connect the dots between children’s and teenagers’ porn consumption and the increase of rape in our society.

 

Pornography presents women as inferior —The majority of pornography devalues and degrades women. In pornography, women are only valuable as they bring pleasure to men.

 

 

Pornography objectifies women — Similarly, the vast majority of pornography objectifies women; their bodies are important, as is their function as an element in sexual gratification. But their hearts, minds, opinions, experiences, feelings, and everything else that makes them who they are is completely irrelevant. The attitude that the women involved in porn are voluntarily participating only further perpetuates excuse in the minds of men and boys who tell themselves “this is what she really wants.”

 

Pornography perpetuates the harmful notion that sex is everything- The value of things like consent, the perspective of others, relationship, love, conversation, covenant, interaction, deeper meaning? Unimportant.

 

Pornography addicts require increasingly more violent images  — Not only is pornography continuing to expand, but formerly fringe forms of pornography are becoming more mainstream (i.e., bondage porn, rape porn, BDSM). There is a logical reason for its growth; scientists have found “people who watch a lot of porn are likely to need increasingly graphic material to achieve the same sexual stimulation.”

 

Pornography encourages male aggression against women. Studies show that men who watch porn are more likely to sexually assault women, and more likely to say that rapists should receive light sentences (if any). Serial rapist and murderer Ted Bundy said exposure to pornography as a child (and his subsequent addiction to porn) contributed to his crimes. He also said that every rapist that he encountered in prison “without exception” was “deeply involved” in pornography. (View the video.)

 

Now more than ever, we must address the impact pornography has on sexual violence against women. I believe we can begin changing rape culture by changing the way we educate and raise our youth. Many are standing up against our rape culture. But what we need is to connect the dots and be as outraged against the root of the problem, pornography.

 

Learn more here:  http://fightthenewdrug.org/