CAPTIVE DAUGHTERS: Conference on Pornography and International Sex Trafficking

Off Our Backs, Jul/Aug 2005 by Mantilla, Karla

* In qualitative interviews, tricks made these statements:

* Women in pornography are the same as prostitutes because they are getting money for doing the film.

* Women have less value than men.

* Prostitutes give up the right to say no.

* Prostitution is an act of force and not love.

* Men get off on controlling women.

* Prostitution is paid rape.

* Prostitution makes women subservient.

* Men talked about using a prostitute as a means of "getting even" or "scoring points."

* Many tricks said that they thought women got into prostitution because they got beaten and abused as children, and that prostitution takes away a part of themselves that they can't get back.

* Tricks said that prostitutes help men who are angry at women.

* Tricks are aware of pimp-prostitute relationships and see them as exploitive.

* Farley concluded that these statements reflect profound ambivalence about men's behavior and guilt. One man said, "Sometimes I feel it's wrong,...you just have to block it out." Another said, "Prostitution is really a lie for both people, I'd never recommend it." Another described his rape of a woman, and then asked, "Am I a bad guy?"

Presenter:

Dr. Neil Malamuth, professor of psychology, communication and women's studies at University of California, Los Angeles.

Main Points:

* Pornography is one of several factors potentially contributing to sexual aggression. Exposure to violent rape media can cause changes in attitudes and can increase sexually violent fantasies. The effects of violent rape media on men at high risk for committing rape are stronger.

* Impersonal orientation toward sex, a hostile style of masculinity, a history of family violence and use of pornography were the top four factors predicting a man would score highly on a scale for likelihood to be sexually aggressive, according to a study on 2,879 men.

* Pornography may serve as an activation or priming of aggressive tendencies brought by a man to a situation, and as a reinforcement of existing tendencies for sexual aggression. Pornography can also result in a tipping point effect that may be manifested in other ways-such as how a man votes on a jury in a rape trial, or a tendency toward dominating conversations.

* Pornography tends to make men see the woman they are currently in a relationship with as less attractive.

The Danger of False Distinctions Between Pornography, Prostitution and Trafficking

Reported by Stacie Remensnyder

Presenter:

Julie Bindel, a founder of the national law reform organization Justice for Women. Bindel writes regularly for the Guardian and other newspapers and is the coeditor of The Map of My Life: The Story of Emma Humphreys (Astraia Press, 2003).

Main Points:

"Trafficking" has become a buzz word, claimed Julie Bindel in her discussion of false distinctions between trafficking, prostitution, and child prostitution. Such distinctions perpetuate the notion that there are good and bad (that is, legitimate and illegitimate) victims of prostitution, rather than seeing all forms of prostitution as forms of violence against women. Furthermore, Bindel noted, trafficking and sex with children are already legally and socially condemned, and thus do not provide a compelling focus for any debate over prostitution.