Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 888 | How Porn Drives Trafficking | Guest: Benji Nolot (Part One)

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Today, we're joined by Benji Nolot, the founder and CEO of Exodus Cry, an organization dedicated to ending human trafficking. We start off with a discussion on the fact that pornography is upstream from trafficking and that if people want to justify consuming porn, they also have to sign off on the atrocities that happen to make porn. We talk about why porn isn't just something between two consenting adults, but rather that it always results in objectification and dehumanization. We talk about how porn producers view men and women and how many Christian books on sex have even gotten the subject of a woman's responsibility in relationships wrong. Stay tuned for part two! You can get Benji's book 'Raised on Porn: How Porn Is Affecting Our Lives and What We Can Do about It' here: https://www.amazon.com/Raised-Porn-Affecting-Lives-about/dp/B0BYLSK5Y5 --- Timecodes: (01:48) Pornography is upstream from trafficking (06:25) Porn is never just between two consenting adults (11:25) Consent-based morality / coercion (18:19) The role of men and women in porn (24:03) Christian books teaching sex (27:26) Beauty of God's design for sex --- Today's Sponsors: A'Del — Go to adelnaturalcosmetics.com and enter promo code "ALLIE" for 25% off your first order! Bambee — You run your business. Let Bambee run your HR. Go to bambee.com and type in "RELATABLE" at checkout. Pre-Born — Will you help rescue babies' lives? Donate by calling #250 & say keyword 'BABY' or go to Preborn.com/ALLIE. Help us reach Blaze's goal of 70,000 ultrasounds in 2023! Holy Pals — Get your child pajamas that help make the Bible a regular part of their life at home. Go to HolyPals.com and use promo code ALLIE at checkout for a discount. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 498 | Exposing the Threat Porn Poses to Kids | Guest: Benjamin Nolot https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-498-exposing-the-threat-porn-poses-to-kids-guest/id1359249098?i=1000537150888 Ep 717 | From Porn Star to Pastor | Guest: Joshua Broome https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-717-one-mans-journey-from-porn-star-to-pastor-guest/id1359249098?i=1000588385066 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. What fuels sex trafficking, specifically child sex trafficking? The answer is pornography. Yes, all forms of pornography, even what is sometimes referred to as so-called ethical pornography. Pornography is fueling the sex trafficking and child sex trafficking industry.

Today, my guest, Benji Nolt, is the author of Raised on Porn, how porn is affecting our lives and what we can do about it. He is the head of Exodus Cry, which is an international nonprofit organization that works to uproot trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation. It has mobilized millions of people to fight against this. And so he's going to talk to us not just about how pornography, is fueling the sex trafficking industry and is also wrecking people's relationships, their sex lives, but also how the church isn't really stepping up how we should step up

when it comes to fostering and talking about healthy sex and sexual relationships. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Ali at checkout. That's good ranchers.com. Code out. Benji, thanks so much for joining us again. And though most people probably already know in this audience, can you just tell those who may not know who you are and what you do? Yeah, I'm the CEO and founder of Exodus Cry. We're an organization that fights human trafficking. And we were founded in 2007.

So we've been at this for about 16 years. And you obviously don't just talk about trafficking, which I think most people agree. is egregious. They want that to end. But you talk about what is upstream from trafficking, which is pornography, which is unfortunately a more culturally contentious topic. There are people who would say that they're against trafficking, of course, they're against sexual assaults, but they draw the line at porn. They don't think that porn is that big of a deal. Tell us about the connections that you guys draw between consumption and production of pornography and then global sex trafficking.

Sure. So the larger global commercial sex industry is entirely a system of exploitation, violence, and gender inequality. So when we think about the larger global commercial sex industry, I'm thinking about stripping. I'm thinking about pornography. I'm thinking about all forms of prostitution. And then trafficking is sex trafficking is a part of what happens in that larger system.

So some people in our culture would say. say that the sex industry is a system of female liberation, sexual empowerment, and those kind of ideas. But in our analysis over 15, 16 plus years, we view this larger global commercial sex industry, as I said, as a system of violence, exploitation, and gender inequality. So when we think about people who are in the commercial sex industry, we're talking about 98% women and children, and then, and then we're talking about 99% of the people buying are men. So the entire global commercial sex industry exists as a result of male demand.

So it is quite literally a construct of male demand. And it was one of the last strongholds of, and yokes of oppression, that are holding women hostage on the planet. And so in our investigation of sex trafficking, I traveled across four continents, 19 countries and 42 cities over four years, making a documentary and began to see the way in which pornography was overlapping with sex trafficking in five specific ways. And so from that investigation,

developed a conviction that we needed to address the porn industry specifically. And so in 2012, we made a conscious decision to do that. And then did an eight-year investigation of the porn industry that has resulted in numerous documentaries, a book I just released. And so the subject of pornography is something that I think we really need to talk about as a culture right now, because, again, it's cast. under this cover narrative that says, you know, this is just about consenting adults, you know, bringing some arousal to their sexuality and, you know, erotica as a way to kind of

enhance their sexual experiences. But people aren't seeing the deeper truth of what is actually, what pornography actually is, how it's created and its impact on us as individuals in the society. And so I think there's a lot to frame around that conversation. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers

wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Those who kind of defend pornography, maybe it's something totally separate from trafficking or even coercion.

They would say, look, of course coercion is bad. course using children, they might say is bad, but most people aren't consuming that kind of stuff. If it's consensual, if it's between two consensual adults, there's nothing wrong with that. And so they'll click on porn hob, they'll click on only fans, they'll say sex work is work, whatever the mantra is. And they will defend pornography in that way. 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. 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? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 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. 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. And so when you think about it, the way that our planet has been,

been hardwired with the internet, pornography is ubiquitous now. And so in a way, we are all living in proximity consciously to this large global sexual orgy. And it's almost unavoidable. And at the very least, it affects our psyche and our collective conscience. 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? 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?

this, you know, large orgy of people having sex. So what would people answer to that? Would you take your spouse to an orgy to go watch? So at some level, you have to wrestle with that. Then you have to wrestle with the idea that you don't know who is in these videos. You don't know how that content is being created. 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.

I had one of the largest contract porn performers. I sat down to interview her. The first thing she said to me is I've never told this to anybody, but I'm going to tell it to you, and I don't even know why. And she began to tell me her whole story of how she was trafficked into porn. Now, this person was held up as the contract star, you know, the true embodiment of what it means to be a porn star. I've 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. People don't understand the human rights implications of porn, how this is being created, the impact of it on performers. So there's a lot to unpack there. 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. I'm actually okay with observing these orgies as part of the way to enhance my sexuality. You have to begin to sign off on a number of things that for me create a lot of internal conflict. I go, yeah, I don't know if that's how I want to cultivate sexuality. 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. There's no way for you to know that. 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. That's one part of it. 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. Even if two people are consenting to something and you're watching a consensual sexual act between two people, it's still objectification.

And there is something wrong and immoral about objectification. all pornography is objectification because you don't have a relationship with that person. You don't have any emotional or spiritual tie to them. Therefore, there really is no other option except for viewing that person as only an object of vessel of pleasure. And that's not what human beings are. And you guys talk about this. You've talked about this a lot, how viewing someone as a sexual object, which is absolutely

inevitable if you're viewing pornography always carries over into how people, 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. It's really difficult for our mind to separate our like pornography brain from our real life brain. The pornography brain ends up in one way or another taking over how we view people in real life. 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, not as someone with a soul and autonomy and a personality and all of that, but just as an object. 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. That's just one consequence of viewing pornography, whether the porn is consensual or not. Okay, so a couple of things. First, I want to just hit the first point that you mentioned. 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. 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. Now go into amateur porn, Porn Humb's biggest partner channel, Girls Do Porn,

has now been indicted and convicted of numerous counts, dozens of counts of sex trafficking. So it was an entire trafficking operation that was their mainstream partner channel and the most popular porn channel out there. And so what we're talking about is, you know, The idea that there are two consenting adults engaging in ethical porn is really the exception or the anomaly. And so I just want to just to say that, just to clarify that point.

But, you know, if you think this through, so for the person that's recommending this, I mean, what is that scenario? Like you're in your room with your spouse or your partner. And then what do you do? You say, hey, you know, I have an element. appetite for other or you know other orientations in my sexuality would you mind excusing me from the room for a few minutes while I jump on Pornhub and the person gets out their lotion they do you know they get themselves ready for whatever and kind of that I mean how does that actually become a part of your relationship

so now you're on Pornhub and well now we know this is a site and I mean this X videos name the site we know Pornhub is a site that is in infested with videos of real trafficking, sexual abuse, rape, on and on and on. Child sexual abuse is rampant. Child sexual abuse. So now you're on that site. And now you're, you are rationalizing, 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, in order to get an erection

and then, you know, masturbate to these images and then knit your sexuality to a computer screen and to the objectified people who are behind that screen, again, whose stories that you don't know. So when we talk about the idea of consent, you know, I mean, even that is such a flimsy notion in the sex industry. 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.

There are people who consent and there are people who don't consent. No, there's many shades of gray in consent. Consent can be forced. Consent can be manipulated. Consent can be bribed. So there are a lot of ways to, you know, and the idea behind the making of porn is to get somebody to consent. Right. So there's already inherently a manipulative aspect to it. Because if I can get them to sign the fore, then I can do whatever I want to them. 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?

Did you want to jump back? No, go for it. 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. And the porn producers have been very calculating in the way that they,

the way that they draft the male character, the male avatar, and the way that they draft the female character and the female avatar. 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. The porn man has no empathy. He is simply a life support system for his erection. So he is there to subjugate, degrade, humiliate the woman. He is there to exercise power over her, to penetrate her, and

ultimately to humiliate her. So that is, that is, in the vast majority of pornography casts the porn man into that role. 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. Now, the woman in this world is also stripped of her humanity because she just has no preferences of anything. She's just a hollow shell to be penetrated. She does not exist. She has no desires of her own, no history, no preferences. I mean, her only desire is to satisfy every advance of the hyperaggressive dominant male who is there to punish her, subjugate her and humiliate her.

And so she also is stripped of her humanity. So now I'm viewing her as the object to be acted upon. I will choke her. I will penetrate her. 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 I'm enhanced, when it's going to enhance their sexuality. This is more of a train wreck than anything.

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. This is a very patriarchal mindset from the standpoint of, let's just say, the dark side of patriarchy.

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. 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, rejects, feelings of rejection and

all manner of sexual energy. So she's meant to contain that. So now this, some people would say, well, that sounds really intense. That's an intense picture. But again, surely that's just kind of the fringe. No, the main line evangelical teaching in most Christian books on sex view women as the sponge to absorb men's sexuality and marriage so that they don't watch porn. That is how they're cast. It is you, the ideas that is preached to women is you will have sex essentially whenever he wants so that he doesn't go to porn. 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. And therefore it's the woman's job to satisfy his sexuality so he doesn't go to porn. This is a, this is absolutely, uh, mainline evangelical teaching through most Christian books on sex. So I will say that I do think that that teaching exists. I don't know. And I truly mean that I don't know. 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. I mean, that, I mean, I'm an evangelical. Now, when you say main line, mainline typically means like the liberal evangelical church, but if you mean mainstream, I'm, maybe I do see some of that certainly and maybe like the 80s and 90s kind of purity talks. I don't see that as the mainstream teaching in the evangelical church today. In fact, there's a lot of berating of men. men, that men, you need to get it together. In fact, Jesus specifically addresses men when he says, look, it's not enough to not commit adultery. If you look at a woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart. And so I agree that that teaching exists somewhere. I would maybe push back on the idea that that is what all evangelical women are taught. As someone who is in the Southern Baptist Convention or whole life, that's not what I was taught. So there's a lady named Sheila Gregor that wrote a book called The Gretax Rescue.

So she did a research project of 20,000 women to ask their experience of sex and marriage. 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. quotes. 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. This is the key so that he doesn't go to porn. And that is a, again, that is a very objectified view of women. And again, casts women as this receptacle sponge. So what we see in the secular culture at large is extremely troubling, but it's, you know, it's also going on in the evangelical church. Yeah. 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. It's there are threads of this that run across all of it. And it's very. disturbing. 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? 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. Well, I think that we obviously agree that whether it is a mainstream teaching in the church or whether it's a French teaching, it doesn't matter where it exists. It's wrong. 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. That is wrong. 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. Yeah, yeah, 100%. 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. there is you know i'm just like what about self-control i mean isn't that like part of the way that we should be expected to kind of manage our own lives like uh so the idea that you have a desire for something is not the reason to follow through on it and i just i just think that because of how ubiquitous porn has become in our culture it it is

It just necessitates a deeper processing of what this is, like I said before, like taking an inventory for what porn is, its impact on us, how it's affecting our relationships, to be thoughtful about this. 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. 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. So there is something inherently powerful, beautiful, about sex. And so my view is that by virtue of that, it deserves respect. It deserves reverence, that we approach it with a measure of sobriety. 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. And I mean, I'm withhold. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm tempted to start citing rattling off examples because this is a big problem in the church. And I have a lot of energy on that because 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 to reverence our sexuality. And yet we have been some of the greatest offenders of not only in the United. 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. All right. That was part one of our conversation with Benji Nolot.

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. You can imagine my thoughts on it, but Benji's thoughts are really interesting. So we'll talk about that and much more in part two of this episode, which will come out tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening and watching. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political.

They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God. humanity and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we

are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.