Tag Archive for: pornography

Newsom Imposes $1.5M Fine on California School District for Rejecting Textbook Discussing LGBT Activism

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On Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced that he would be levying a $1.5 million fine on the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) over the school board’s recent decision to reject a state-endorsed textbook intended for elementary schoolchildren that discusses the infamous gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

“We’re going to purchase the book for these students — the same one that hundreds of thousands of kids are already using,” Newsom said. “If these extremist school board members won’t do their job, we will — and fine them for their incompetence.”

Joseph Komrosky, the president of the TVUSD Board of Education, has emphasized that the board’s rejection of the textbook is centered around the pedophilia that Milk, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who passed away in 1978, engaged in during his life. “My word choice [of calling Milk a ‘pedophile’] is based upon facts represented by Mr. Milk, and I don’t believe those facts are a good example for our children to learn about in elementary school,” Komrosky said in a tweet in response to Newsom’s claim that Komrosky’s tweet was “An offensive statement from an ignorant person.”

The pedophilic actions of Milk have been extensively documented. As noted by The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson:

“Milk … had a sexual relationship with Jack Galen McKinley, a 16-year-old runaway who committed suicide after their encounter. Milk was attracted to ‘boyish-looking men in their late teens and early 20s,’ wrote LGBT activist Randy Shilts in his biography of Milk, his friend. ‘Harvey always had a penchant for young waifs with substance-abuse problems.’”

The decision by the TVUSD Board of Education is the latest in a growing movement of public school systems taking action to remove pornographic books from school curriculums and libraries in response to a nationwide outcry from parents. In February, Broward County Public Schools in Florida announced they would be removing “Flamer,” a pornographic novel, and would be reviewing other books in their schools’ library catalogues for sexually explicit content. In June, the Hanover County School Board in Virginia announced a new policy that would allow parents to file challenges to remove explicit books from school libraries.

These actions followed the enaction of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) March 2022 bill that requires all school districts in the state to have their instructional and library reading materials reviewed to make sure they are free from sexually explicit content.

Meanwhile, Newsom’s unusually strong public rebuke and large monetary fine of a school district’s decision to reflect the values of the local voters may be an indication of his plans for a future Democratic presidential run.

“Gavin Newsom desperately wants to be president of the United States,” said podcast host and Family Research Council Senior Fellow Joseph Backholm on a recent episode of “Outstanding.” “California is like a glimpse into the window of the future of what happens when progressives get everything they want.”

“I think he’s absolutely running,” Jonathan Keller, president of the California Family Council, concurred. “The question is, is he running in 2024 or 2028? And I think that we will not know that for a while. We may not honestly know that until the Democratic National Convention next year.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

5 Reasons You Must See ‘Sound of Freedom’

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UPDATE: Statement by President Donald J. Trump after watching Sound of Freedom.

I really didn’t want to see this movie. Does anyone want to see a movie about horrific crimes against children and the systems that support or fail to stop child sex trafficking? But I felt an obligation to support “Sound of Freedom.” And I was happy to hear the buzz in the conservative media sphere. “Sound of Freedom” was making noise in all the right places.

So I bought my tickets online and told myself that I had at least done my duty to financially support this worthy cause. My seat was sold, and if it went unfilled, the movie theater would still make money. Despite my best efforts to be somewhere else, I found myself in the seat on July 4.

I still don’t quite understand how I left the theater feeling hopeful. I had expected to feel hopeless and disgusted after watching a movie about child sex trafficking. And there were certainly moments of those feelings during the course of the movie. But the power of art to move the human heart is very real, if hard to describe, even after experiencing it.

It’s also hard to describe a movie without spoiling the plot for others. Here are five impressions this movie left on me, and I hope they inspire you to see the movie.

1. “God’s children are not for sale.”

This is the motivation for the main character to move beyond the soul crushing work of tracking organized pedophile networks to rescuing their victims. “Sound of Freedom” made me reflect, once again, on the work we ask others to do in our name: policing, soldiering, guarding. It is hard work, mostly done by men, who lay down their lives to protect and serve others. We ask them to deal with many of the things we do not want to face. Many do this work because of a higher calling, one that needs our support in prayer.

2. “I feel like she’s my daughter.”

Mrs. Tim Ballard texts this message to her husband while he is away searching for a victim. Her love and support for him and his work is beautifully communicated in this movie. She is also asked to bear part of the burden her husband shoulders on our behalf. She represents a much larger group of people who deserve our gratitude and our prayers.

3. “I was that darkness.”

A man contemplates his role as a consumer in the adult sex industry. His redemption from direct involvement is by the grace of God. But this character made me think about what I could or should be doing to address this grave injustice against women and men, girls and boys. At a minimum, opposing the legalization of “sex work” would be a start. Removing pornography and pornographic content from school libraries and curricula is also imperative.

4. “You’re on your own, Tim.”

Government redress of grievances is limited. Tim Ballard, the main character, had to operate on his own to follow the call to protect God’s children. But as Christians we have an obligation to prove that Tim is not alone. Each of us is called to combat the sex industry, whether through promoting organizations like Covenant Eyes that guard against pornography, by speaking out against endeavors to normalize pedophilia, or simply by living a life that upholds the dignity of every male and every female as a human being — not objects for exploitation.

5. “Could you sleep if your child’s bed was empty?”

The plea of a father for his trafficked daughter. This theme was the main reason for my initial reluctance to see the film. And it was one of the reasons why, if I had to see it, I would see it in a theater. Hearing a question like that asked in a movie theater for me is very different from hearing it asked in my living room, with my own children’s beds right upstairs.

There are some movies to see and “leave” at the theater rather than experience them at home. But this movie is one to share with others, at a theater or at your church, or even in your home. While it is not for young children, this movie is a remarkable work of art about a horrific topic. I’m grateful to Angel Studios for distributing the movie, and I encourage you to see it. I am glad I did.

AUTHOR

Meg Kilgannon

Meg Kilgannon is Senior Fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Rural Virginia Parents Fight for the Removal of Pornographic Kids Books from Public Library

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In a victory for a grassroots movement of concerned parents and citizens of a small town in the Shenandoah Valley of northern Virginia, the county Board of Supervisors has agreed to restrict the funds of a public library until an agreement can be reached on what to do with dozens of pornographic books for kids that were found there.

On June 6, hundreds of local Catholics and other concerned citizens packed a Warren County, Virginia Board of Supervisors meeting in Front Royal to make their voices heard in opposition to dozens of pornographic children’s books that were found on the shelves at the Samuels Public Library.

“This is not literature. This is smut,” one dad said after reading an excerpt about anal sex from “This Book Is Gay.” Another soon-to-be mom discussed the book “It’s Perfectly Normal,” which is aimed at pre-teens and includes cartoon depictions of naked couples in various sex positions as well as discussion of masturbation and abortion. “Ideally, funding the library is important, but a sense of decency is owed the community before funding is owed to the library,” she said.

The grassroots movement, which has become known as “Clean Up Samuels Library,” announced on Wednesday that the Board of Supervisors had agreed to address the concerns of the community during a meeting on Tuesday night.

“The Board of Supervisors appropriated 100% of the funding for Samuels Library, but restricted 75% of it until September while board members negotiate with the library about what to do regarding these books,” the group stated in a press release. “The funds will be in a separate bank account until a deal is worked out.”

“From what we can tell, it’s not looking like the books will be removed entirely,” the release continued. “Rather, the board is negotiating to move them to the adult’s section, and to place restrictions on who can access the adult’s section without an adult.”

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Stand, Thomas Hinnant, a community organizer in Front Royal, described how the movement got started.

“A local grandmother was at the library with her grandchildren, and one of her grandchildren, a four-year-old boy, went and found one of these books in the child section, and she was appalled,” he explained. “A group of local folks went into the library and started looking around and realized that this pornography was all over the place in the kid’s section.”

Hinnant continued, “From there, concerned citizens and parents came together … and [decided to] organize an afternoon where a bunch of [mostly] young parents look through these books and send in requests for reconsideration, which is the process that the library uses to evaluate books. Upwards of 450 requests for reconsideration were submitted, and everything that we got back were denials, and the appeals were denied as well. The library has chosen to hide behind the standards of the American Library Association, which are out of touch and out of step with the community consensus of Warren County.”

Front Royal, the seat of Warren County, is the home of Christendom College, a small Catholic university known for its adherence to orthodox Catholic teaching, as well as a number of other K-12 Catholic schools. A notably large population of Christendom graduates and other Catholics have settled in the area since the school’s founding in 1977. Despite being located relatively close to more liberal counties in northern Virginia, Warren County is deeply red, with almost 70% of the population voting Republican in the 2022 midterm election.

Hinnant further noted that while the movement was encouraged by the results of board meeting, their demands have not changed.

“We want the pornographic books totally removed,” he emphasized. “We want democracy in the bureaucracy. Our tax dollars are ours, and we do not want unelected and faceless bureaucrats spending them on pornography for children. We want that space reserved for the great classics and the great works and the many wonderful books that can be on those shelves. There’s a larger list that we’ve put together that we want put into an adult section … that largely involve sexualization of children, LGBTQ, etc. Some would quibble that it’s not exactly pornography. To us, anything that sexualizes a seven-year-old is pornographic in nature, but we’re willing to say this stuff can be moved to another section for now.”

The fight that has opened up in Warren County over controversial public library books aimed at kids appears to be a relatively new front in the broader nationwide battle which has centered on books in public school libraries. Hinnant told TWS that local communities have every right to demand that their values be reflected in how their tax dollars are spent, not just in schools, but in all other public institutions.

“We want a new standard,” he underscored. “We want cultural secession from the American Library Association and the hegemonic left-wing ideology that it represents, and we want community standards that represents the community consensus of an overwhelmingly conservative county. I think that if we were to do that, then those books would not be in the library anyway. … We are not backing down on any of our demands. We also want the leadership of the library to change and change swiftly. These people need to be held accountable for what they did. They fought tooth and nail to keep this pornography in our library, even though the clear popular will is not on their side.”

Hinnant went on to encourage other conservative communities across the country to take back their public institutions.

“We know that this is a roadmap for rural America,” he contended. “Frankly, for too long, conservatives have focused on elections, while well-trained and well-funded leftists have gone into these rural communities and essentially colonized them. We want to commence the decolonization of rural America, and that takes community organizing. That takes disciplined messaging, and that takes ‘We the People’ coming together to hold our elected officials accountable — and not just when the elections happen. We have to hold these bureaucracies accountable, because that is where the deeply-rooted colonization is, and that is where this cancer that rips through rural America is. This is a great example of a community coming together and standing up against this radical ideology that has truly colonized rural America, and they have done it under the cloak of darkness. And I think now people are finally starting to wake up to that. I hope that this will be a wake-up call to other folks in other rural areas.”

“We have got to take a stand here,” Hinnant concluded. “These elections are great, but if these folks are able to just run wild in our institutions that are educating our children, whether its schools, public libraries, anywhere that our public funds are being used, then it’s a problem.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Guidance for trans groomers

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

A ‘Watershed’ Moment: Pornhub Blocks Access to Utah in Response to Age Verification Law

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In response to a Utah law set to go into effect Wednesday requiring pornography sites to verify the age of users in order to block access to minors, MindGeek, one of the world’s largest pornography companies, has blocked all Utahans from accessing their flagship site Pornhub, along with a number of other porn sites owned by the company. In light of MindGeek’s move, experts are pointing to a potential sea change that could occur in internet safety for minors if more states follow Utah’s lead.

In March, Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) signed SB 287 into law, a bill that requires “a commercial entity that provides pornography and other materials defined as being harmful to minors … to verify the age of individuals accessing the material.” The bill also stipulates that publishers and distributors of porn will be held liable if they do not comply with the requirements.

Michael Toscano, executive director of the Institute for Family Studies, extolled the Utah governor and legislature’s efforts in enacting laws designed to protect minors from obscenity.

“Utah has put itself forward as a leader for governing the internet on behalf of the American family,” he said on Tuesday’s edition of “Washington Watch.” “Under the leadership of Governor Cox, he has decided that he was going to challenge the powers of Big Tech and Silicon Valley and Big Porn with a raft of legislation that would require these companies to verify the age of its users before admitting access. And it’s sending shock waves across the country. Legislatures across the country are looking at it, as well as on the federal level. It’s a remarkable watershed in the history of this country.”

The legislation is part of a growing nationwide push to implement laws designed to protect minors from being exposed to sexually explicit material online. In January, Louisiana enacted an almost identical law to Utah’s. Four other states (California, Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi) have also enacted bills restricting minors’ access to porn and social media sites. In addition, 21 other states have introduced legislation addressing the issue.

Toscano applauded the efforts of the Utah legislature despite protests from pornography industry lobbyists.

“[These] brave men and women were uncowed by the lobby, the lobbyists that were whispering in their ear, telling them that this would be an invasion of privacy or that this would be too burdensome for their companies and legislation,” he observed. “Good policy is a matter of balancing interests, and the legislators in Utah decided that they were going to balance their laws in favor of American families, and I think that was the right choice.”

Haley McNamara, vice president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, echoed Toscano’s support for the Utah law and for MindGeek’s response to block their sites statewide in a statement to The Washington Stand: “Even better for children in Utah!”

She went on to note that “age verification for pornography is not a new technology or idea. There is an entire existing industry of age verification technology and standards that respect privacy. … Our laws have long held that those who distribute harmful material to minors are liable for any harm they cause, and the internet should not be different. Just as one must show an ID to enter, or make a purchase in, an adult bookstore or theatre, one should have to demonstrate he or she is an adult to access online pornography.”

McNamara continued, “Pornhub says that it’s a site only for adults, so why would it fight to stop Utah’s law to enact age verification to prevent minors from accessing its site unless it knows its traffic and profits will be impacted once minors aren’t on there?”

Toscano was equally suspicious of MindGeek’s stated reasons behind shutting off their sites in the state.

“They’re acknowledging that a very large share of their traffic comes from underage users,” he concurred. “Pornhub is worried, as one of its senior officials admitted online [this week]. It’s worried that its traffic could decrease in Utah by 50%. And part of that concern is from their perspective that its age verification is enough of a block for people to decide not to go on a porn site. But it also is an admission that many of the people that are going on their site are underage to begin with. This is obviously a bad thing, and it’s only a sign of the effectiveness of this legislation that Pornhub has decided that it was going to play hardball by withdrawing its platform altogether from Utah.”

Studies show that minors are a significant portion of those who view online porn. A report from Common Sense Media found that up to 73% of minors between 12 and 17 had watched internet smut.

Toscano further underscored that policymakers can do more above and beyond age verification in order to combat the porn industry from exploiting children.

“They should actually enforce the existing obscenity law,” he emphasized. “The existing obscenity law does not permit websites or any other producers of media to provide underage Americans with obscene content. The problem is a lack of enforcement. And I think what you see from Pornhub is [they realize] that Utah is very serious. And so they’re withdrawing. And I encourage other states to do the same thing and to show that they are serious about this obscenity problem.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

How Pedophiles Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Exploit Kids

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Artificial intelligence (more commonly known as “AI”) has gained attention and popularity in recent months, particularly since the launch of the ChatGPT chatbot from OpenAI, which captivated the internet with both its impressive abilities and surprising limitations. The millions of AI users in the U.S. are mostly eager to cheat on their homework or escape writing work emails; however, some bad actors have also discovered how to employ AI technology to attain far more nefarious ends.

Britain’s National Crime Agency is conducting a review of how AI technology can contribute to sexual exploitation after the recent arrest of a pedophile computer programmer in Spain shocked the continent. The man had been found to be utilizing an AI image generator to create new child sexual abuse material (CSAM) based on abusive images of children that he already possessed. The Daily Mail noted that the “depravity of the pictures he created appalled even the most experienced detectives …”

Many AI programs function by inputting data or content that teaches the program to recognize patterns and sequences, and recreate them in new ways. When pedophiles or sexual abusers get their hands on AI, they can further exploit the victims featured in real images to create new — and even more graphic — content. Though the AI-generated images are not “real” in the sense that they are photographs of events that necessarily transpired, they are nevertheless inherently exploitative of the victims used to train the AI, remnants of whose images may still be featured in the new CSAM.

Another form of artificial intelligence that has gained recent notoriety is known as a “deepfake.” In these unsettling images, audio clips, or videos, AI is able to create shockingly realistic manipulations of an individual’s likeness or voice in any scenario that the creator desires. While deepfakes can be used in a variety of harmful contexts, like depicting a political candidate in a situation that would damage his reputation, sexual predators who weaponize the technology have proven to be particularly vicious.

Last week, discussion of deepfake technology reached a fever pitch as a community of female online content creators realized that their images had been uploaded online in the form of pornographic deepfakes. The women who had been victimized reported feeling extremely violated and deeply unsettled with the knowledge that this pornographic content had been created and distributed without their consent — and that people who knew them personally had been watching the deepfakes to satisfy their own perversions. Deepfake technology knows few bounds; pedophiles with access to images of children could similarly employ this form of AI to create CSAM.

The normalization of AI-created pornography or child sexual abuse material serves no beneficial purpose in society — and, in fact, can influence cultural mores in profoundly harmful ways. Already, having the technological capability to manufacture AI-generated CSAM has emboldened pedophile-sympathizers to advocate for their inclusion in the liberal umbrella of sexual orientations.

The Young Democrats, the youth division of the Democratic Party in the Netherlands, recently made a statement claiming that not only is pedophilia “a sexual orientation that one is born with,” but also claiming that the “stigma” surrounding pedophilia is causing pedophiles to suffer from higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. The Dutch Young Democrats group advocates against criminalizing hand-drawn or AI-generated child sexual abuse material because it “does not increase the risk of child abuse” and could potentially “help pedophiles get to know their feelings without harming other people.”

Pornography of any kind is inherently exploitative — the pornography industry thrives off dubious consent and, often, knowing exploitation of trafficking victims and minors. Using AI technology to create images or videos that constitute pornography or child sexual abuse material perpetuates a chain of abuse even if the new content created is different from abuse that physically occurred.

AI-generated pornography or CSAM cannot circumvent the extreme violations against human dignity caused by creating exploitative sexual content. Modern nations require laws that appropriately address modern concerns; while the progression of AI technology can, in some ways, certainly benefit society, its capability to produce exploitative material and allow the rot of pedophilia to continue festering must be addressed.

AUTHOR

Joy Stockbauer

Joy Stockbauer is a correspondent for The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

87% of Books Removed from Florida Schools Were Pornographic, Violent, Inappropriate, Data Shows

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An overwhelming majority of books removed from Florida schools since the beginning of the academic year in September 2022 were pornographic, violent, or inappropriate for students’ grade levels, according to school district data submitted to the state’s Department of Education.

Twenty-three out of 56 school districts reported that they had removed a total of 175 books, while 33 districts (59%) said that they had not removed any books this academic year, according to data reviewed by The Daily Signal.

The data reveals that 164 of the 175 removed books were taken out of school media centers, rather than classrooms, and 153 of the books that were removed (87%) were taken out because the district discovered that the book was “pornographic, violent or inappropriate for the grade level for some other reason.”

The school districts in Duval County and St. Johns County removed the most books at 19 each, according to the Florida Education Department data. Duval County schools reported that they removed 16 out of the 19 books because they were pornographic, violent, or inappropriate.

The data comes amid a review of educational materials in Florida schools prompted by the state’s curriculum transparency bill and a national outcry over explicit conversations, books, and materials for school children.

Media outlets like The Washington Post have suggested that Florida is criminalizing nebulously defined books in schools, forcing teachers to get rid of all their books to avoid prosecution.

“There has been no state instruction to empty libraries or cover up classroom books,” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said in a post on Twitter. “However, we ARE taking a stand against pornography and sexual material in the classroom.”‘

Griffin also denounced the idea that teachers in Florida would be committing a third-degree felony by having certain books and literature in classrooms.

“No. Not literature, not ‘certain topics’ — it’s pornographic material that carries the felony penalty,” he said. “NO classroom or school library should have pornographic material made available to children. Unfortunately, this is a real and ongoing problem. If you are confused about the law, you can review Statute 847.012, which has been the law in Florida for years.”

That statute specifically prohibits adults from knowingly distributing pornography, nudity, or sexual content to a minor on school property.

DeSantis signed a curriculum transparency bill in March 2022, which requires school districts to be “transparent in the selection of instructional materials, including library and reading materials.” The legislation aims at preserving the rights of parents to know and decide what their children are being taught.

“In Florida, our parents have every right to be involved in their child’s education,” DeSantis said at the time. “We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools. I’m proud to sign this legislation that ensures curriculum transparency.”

This week, DeSantis officials took to Twitter to highlight some of the more horrifying books found in Florida schools. This includes the books “Let’s Talk About it,” “It’s Perfectly Normal,” and “Gender Queer,” which includes “shockingly obscene comics.”

This article was originally published by The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Mary Margaret Olohan

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

It Started With A Band-Aid: The Intersection of Racism, Adultification, and Exploitation

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*Gabrielle’s story is a composite story, based on common experiences of black survivors which have been expressed to NCOSE and/or documented in research. The header image for this block is a stock image, not a picture of an actual survivor.

It started with a band-aid.

Gabrielle had tripped during recess and scraped up her knee. Crying, Gabrielle limped inside to go find her Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Evans, and show her what had happened.

Ms. Evans was a kind lady. Gabrielle hoped that, when she saw her bleeding knee, she might give her a hug and a lollipop for comfort. She had seen Ms. Evans do this last week for beautiful, blonde-haired Kylie, when that little girl had fallen off the monkey bars.

But Ms. Evans simply gave Gabrielle a pat on the back, told her to “be a big girl,” and reached inside her desk for a band-aid.

Swallowing her disappointment, Gabrielle took the band-aid and struggled to put it on. She’d never put on a band-aid herself before, but she finally managed to get it to stick.

Only, it looked funny . . .

Gabrielle frowned at the band-aid for a moment, trying to figure out what was wrong.

Then she realized.

The band-aid was “skin color.” Not Gabrielle’s skin color. Kylie’s skin color.

It was that band-aid that first made Gabrielle understand that she was “different.” That the color of her skin somehow made her an outsider.

And as Gabrielle frowned at the band-aid, standing out so pale against her dark knee, she couldn’t help but wonder if the color of her skin was also the reason why Ms. Evans hadn’t given her a hug or a lollipop.

Fact: Studies show that adults tend to perceive Black girls as older and less innocent than White girls. This is known as “Adultification” and it often leads to Black girls not receiving the same level of nurturing and compassion as White girls do. It also often leads to Black girls being sexualized at an earlier age, which increases the risk that they will be sexually exploited.

Gabrielle soon realized that Kindergarten teachers weren’t the only ones who treated her differently. There were also the men. Young men, old men – so many of them seemed to leer at Gabrielle like they wanted to do something to her. Gabrielle didn’t know what that something was . . . until one day, her latest foster father made it clear.

Fact: Black children are overrepresented in the foster care system. Although they make up only 14% of children in the United States, Black children make up 23% of the foster care system. Foster children are ten times more likely to be sexually abused and Black children are sexually abused twice as much as their White counterparts in the foster care system. Statistics show that a history of sexual abuse dramatically increases a person’s chance of being exploited in prostitution. 

Gabrielle carried the trauma from what her foster father did to her for years. She carried it into her first relationship, during which she felt intense fear of doing anything physical. When she told her boyfriend that she didn’t want to, he wasn’t pleased.

“I thought girls like you were always into it?” he said.

Gabrielle didn’t ask what he meant by “girls like her.” She didn’t have to. Because next, her boyfriend showed her his favorite “ebony” pornography videos, as examples of what he wanted to do with her.

Gabrielle had nightmares for weeks.

Fact: Contemporary Internet pornography sites feature grotesquely racist themes such as those depicted in the screenshots below. Pornography is perhaps the only remaining mainstream media where racism is not only permitted, it is encouraged.

After years of enduring experiences of this nature, Gabrielle eventually decided: if the men in the world were determined to see her as nothing but a Jezebel whom they could use and abuse as they pleased . . . well then, she might as well get paid for it.

And so, Gabrielle entered prostitution.

What she didn’t know was that, in the prostitution marketplace, racism would be uglier than ever.

Her grim conclusion that she “might as well get paid” for being sexually used turned out to be misplaced – for she found that she could not make as much money in prostitution as the White girls.

Gabrielle almost laughed at the cruel irony of it . . . She had supposed that in the prostitution marketplace, where all the women were degraded to mere objects, she would be on “equal footing” with other women at last. But no. Even here, she was worth less. It was somehow possible for the color of her skin to sink her even below the value of an object.

Watch Dr. Stephany Powell discuss beauty standards in the prostitution marketplace, and how black women/girls are sold for less money:

Gabrielle was barely scraping by, so when she met a pimp who promised to help her make more money, she agreed to his offer.

That was a terrible mistake.

The pimp wasn’t interested in helping Gabrielle – he was only interested in controlling and profiting from her. Not only did he not help her make more money, but he beat her when she didn’t make enough to satisfy him.

When Gabrielle pleaded for mercy, explaining that it was harder for her to make money than his other girls because she was black, he simply laughed.

“I know that,” he said, his lip curling in a derisive sneer. “Why do you think I don’t beat my White girls? They’re too valuable, I can’t mark up their faces. You on the other hand . . .”

Fact: Traffickers disproportionately target Black women and girls. It is reported that 40% of sex trafficking victims in the U.S. are Black, despite Black people making up only 13.6% of the U.S. population.

Then one day, while Gabrielle was soliciting on the streets trying to make enough money to avoid a beating, she was arrested. She would be charged with the crime of prostitution, the policeman told her.

As she sat in the police station, Gabrielle knew she ought to be afraid, but she couldn’t help but feel hope . . . Perhaps if she told the police about being under the control of an abusive pimp, they would recognize her as a victim. Perhaps they would rescue her from her situation and give her services, rather than a sentence.

Unfortunately, that didn’t end up being the case.

Gabrielle told her story – but only skeptical, unimpressed faces stared back at her.

Watch Dr. Stephany Powell explain how implicit bias can influence how black survivors are treated by law enforcement and non-profit agencies, and how NCOSE is seeking to address this with their training programs:

ACTION: Request Information about the ELEET Training Program

The Equipping Law Enforcement to End Trafficking (ELEET) training program was developed with a working group of survivors, prosecutors, and seasoned officers in order to educate law enforcement and/or prosecutors on the importance of developing a victim-centered approach during initial contact with victims of human sex trafficking while minimizing the court appearance of victims and addressing implicit bias. Request to book a training or get more information here.

Stories like Gabrielle’s are not rare. Together, adultification, implicit bias, racism and more are risk factors for experiencing sexual exploitation, and even decrease opportunities to exit. We must act together to learn about these realities ourselves, to hold entities responsible for normalizing these themes, and to better equip those who serve survivors.

AUTHOR

Lily Moric

EDITORS NOTE: This NCOSE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: What is Human Trafficking?

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HUMAN TRAFFICKING HAS TRULY BECOME A GLOBAL THREAT to vulnerable men, women, and children worldwide. It is an injustice that affects millions of people every year on every continent and at all socioeconomic levels. Human trafficking is a highly-organized and lucrative business, generating 150 billion USD per year, 99 billion of which is generated by sex trafficking within the prostitution industry.

The latest global estimate according to the International Labor Organization (the United Nations agency that deals with global labor issues), calculates that nearly 21 million people are victims of human trafficking worldwide. Roughly 4.5 million of those victims are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

The most significant number of victims are said to come from Asia and the Pacific region, although human trafficking in Africa continues to grow when compared to its 2005 estimates. The International Labor Organization also estimates that 55 percent of all trafficking victims and 98 percent of sex trafficking victims are women and girls. That is why sex trafficking is often considered a “gender” crime and why Exodus Cry focuses its intervention largely on women and girls.

Defining human trafficking

The most widely accepted definition of human trafficking comes from the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, otherwise known as the Palermo Protocols. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 and accepted by over 150 countries, the Palermo Protocols defines human trafficking as:

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

Exploitation is at the heart of human trafficking. In the case of sex trafficking, exploitation implies the forced prostitution or sexual abuses of vulnerable men, women, and children. The United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) declares it a crime to coerce, force, or mislead men, women, and children into sex slavery, whether those efforts to coerce are subtle or overt. However, if a victim is a minor (under 18), it is a considered a crime regardless if there is evidence of force, fraud, or coercion.

Victims are trafficked across both national and international borders, infiltrating nearly every part of the world, according to one World Health Organization report. The global scale of the problem is attributed to the various roles nations play in the exploitation of the victims, whether that be recruiting, harboring, transporting, or acting as destinations for victims. One UN report estimates that trafficking victims represent over 130 different nationalities and are present in almost 120 countries. While the problem is clearly of global scale, with some 600,000 to 800,000 victims trafficked across international borders each year, most human trafficking surprisingly still occurs within national borders.

The effects of human trafficking on victims

HUMAN TRAFFICKING HAS A DIRECT EFFECT ON THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELL-BEING OF VICTIMS. During the initial trafficking, victims are coerced and deceived usually through the exploitation of their current circumstances, as most victims have a history of abuse and are already living in precarious circumstances.

Once enslaved, victims typically are forced into unsanitary and stressful living conditions and receive little to no healthcare or basic services. Their movement is often restricted, their personal documentation withheld, and most experience significant physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological violence. Escaping from slavery is extremely difficult and dangerous, putting the victim at great personal risk. If rescued, integration back into society is incredibly difficult because of the shame, stigma, threat of retribution, and trauma experienced during enslavement.

Global efforts to combat human trafficking

There are several international organizations fighting human trafficking at the global level. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime combats human trafficking worldwide through promoting policies that incriminate traffickers and protect victims. The UN agency also produces tools and publications to help train law enforcers and raise awareness of this injustice worldwide.

Additionally, many governments are taking action to protect potential victims from trafficking predators. The United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) was established by the US Department of State and has been highly influential in protecting potential victims worldwide. The TVPA defines, mandates, and funds United States’ anti-trafficking efforts, including producing the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which is the most comprehensive resource of governmental, anti-human trafficking efforts in the world. The United States’ Officer to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons is also combating human trafficking worldwide through three avenues—prevention, protection, and prosecution—which includes activities to raise awareness, identify victims, enforce appropriate laws, and convict traffickers.

However, perhaps some of the greatest work being done to combat human trafficking is performed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These anti-trafficking groups are working hard to prevent human trafficking, protect vulnerable populations, lobby for policy reformation, and even rehabilitate victims both at local and global levels. Exodus Cry is an active part of this global community of abolitionists and involved in these key areas of intervention.

How you can help combat human trafficking

You can join us in our fight to stop human trafficking and end modern-day sex slavery through engaging in any of our three areas of action—shifting culture, changing laws, and reaching out.

Through committing to praying for victims, raising awareness, advocating for policy reform, and donating to organizations like Exodus Cry who are combating this injustice, you are playing a direct part in ending slavery today.

Join the movement. Sign the pledge. Become an Abolitionist.

©The Exodus Cry. All rights reserved.

PODCAST: What It Will Take To End Sexploitation

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In a follow up Dawn Hawkins, as the new CEO of NCOSE, wants to share more about HOW we can achieve a world free from sexual abuse and exploitation.

Hear about my vision:

Before any real problem solving can be done, it’s essential the problem is properly laid out and defined. That’s why NCOSE’s work to expose the interconnected web of sexual exploitation issues is so critical to achieving our vision—we cannot solve one problem while ignoring the influences and tangled nature of another.

Our nearly 60-year history has given us a unique, panoramic perspective which enables us to see that we cannot succeed in preserving human dignity if we approach the work from a narrow lens, such as a singular religious, political, or social perspective. It’s this wisdom that has allowed NCOSE to adapt and change over the past decade to unite and grow a movement and address current issues while utilizing myriad advocacy tools, cutting-edge tactics, and the latest research.

NCOSE has built a diverse team of top experts, broad coalition partners, and a deep grassroots network and it now leads the movement to end sexual abuse and exploitation through research, litigation, and corporate and legislative advocacy

This is what it will take to build a world free from sexual abuse and exploitation: 

  1. Destabilize the pornography industry and make pornography intolerable in society. Pornography does not have room to exist in a world that truly believes in human love, connection, and equality.
  2. Stop sex buying to end sex trafficking and all exploitation. The world should not allow and even celebrate the commodification of any human being, especially the most vulnerable, who are preyed upon by the commercial sex industry.
  3. Protect children online. The Internet should be a safe space for all, including the children who are now growing up with access to people and unlimited information.

Read About Our Tactics Here

With your help, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation has made significant progress on these three objectives and more in just the last few years. Best of all, there are more victories and accomplishments to come!

The light of human dignity will always burn brighter than the shadow of exploitation. By eschewing the boundaries of politics, religion, and other divisive backgrounds, NCOSE is in a unique position to ignite that light and continue to bring organizations and individuals from all walks of life out of the shadows of a world that allows and normalizes sexual exploitation to thrive.

All our work is dedicated to realizing the vision of a world free from sexual abuse and exploitation—a world I know is possible.

EDITORS NOTE: This NCOSE column with podcast is republished with permission. ©All right reserved.

Law Center Files First Ever Anti-Trafficking Lawsuit Against Pornography Producers on Behalf of Survivor

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How Cissy Steele Groomed Jane Doe

Cissy Steele was using the internet to disguise herself as a talent agent from Royal Loyalty Management who was looking for models and actresses when she came across Jane Doe (not her real name). Steele then proceeded to prey upon Jane Doe by intentionally cultivating a sense of trust and building a false relationship. Steele reached out to Jane Doe online and offered her lucrative acting and modeling opportunities. After communicating, Steele convinced Jane Doe to take a modeling opportunity with the promise of making Doe into a successful model and actress. Steele manipulated Doe to go a step further and move into Steele’s home with the reassurance that this move would benefit Doe’s supposed new career.

Online Grooming Turns Into Sex Trafficking Situation

Once Jane Doe was ensconced in Steele’s house, Steele furthered her deception of Doe by setting up several faux modeling photoshoots. After a few months, Steele began verbally degrading Doe and telling Doe that the only way she had a chance at becoming a lucrative actress or model was through pornographic “acting.” When Jane Doe resisted this pressure, Steele began using psychological manipulation, direct coercion, intimidation, threats, and physical violence against Doe including threatening to kill Doe’s dog and harm her family. In the end Steele managed to effectively imprison Jane Doe and coerce her into commercial sex acts with men at various hotels in several states. All the money made from Jane Doe’s sexual exploitation was immediately pocketed by Steele.

From there, Steele also trafficked Jane Doe to multiple pornography production companies in California and Nevada including Diabolic Video Productions, Black Ice Ltd., Zero Tolerance Entertainment, Third Degree Films, and Elegant Angel, Inc.  All of the pornography producers directly paid Steele for Jane Doe’s participation in the videos despite clear signs that Doe was being trafficked.

Pornography Production Companies Complicit in Crime

The pornography production companies distributed the videos of Jane Doe to a multitude of internet pornography providers. As a result, the online porn providers illegally profited from the sex trafficking of Jane Doe through advertisements on their websites as well as through viewers’ subscription fees.

Eventually, with the help of a friend, Jane Doe escaped from Cissy Steele’s home and control and began a new life. Despite Jane Doe’s many efforts to have the videos taken down, her videos remain on several online sites to this day.

Legal Argument Filed on Behalf of Jane Doe

Cissy Steele, the pornography production studios, and the internet pornography websites violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) which prohibits anyone from knowingly using force, fraud, and coercion to entrap victims into commercial sex acts and profiting off of their exploitation.

Accordingly, Jane Doe has now sued Cissy Steele, the pornography production companies, and the online pornography providers which continue to show and sell videos of her sexual abuse and exploitation against her will. The case, filed on September 24, 2020, is in federal district court in San Diego.

As horrific as this case is, it is not an anomaly. Countless Jane Does are trafficked and exploited by the pornography production industry and internet pornography providers. Jane Doe repeatedly attempted to have her sex trafficking videos removed to no avail and there are websites that continue to profit off of her sexual abuse and exploitation to this day. The same is the case for myriad survivors who find their sexual abuse images and videos on internet pornography websites and are afflicted with the paralysis of not being able to remove the degrading and re-traumatizing content. As long as someone is willing to pay for this content, pornography production companies and internet pornography providers have proven more than willing to provide it—no matter how violent, dangerous, and degrading the content may be.

Jane Doe is Not the Only Victim

Take the case of Mia Khalifa as another example.

In 2015, Mia Khalifa mistakenly signed a contract with a pornography production studio and resigned after two weeks. The contract she signed gave the company control over the websites and domains that contained her stage name. Although Khalifa has been out of the pornography business for over five years, the pornography production company is still promoting her videos and creating an illusion that she is still engaged in the commercial sex industry even though she has worked hard to have her videos removed from pornography sites. This reality has made it difficult for Khalifa to find employment in other fields, which only furthers the reach and extent of the exploitation.

Like many others, Khalifa’s attempts to remove her videos have been met by indifference from the pornography companies. “Pornography companies prey on callow young women and trap them legally into contracts where they’re vulnerable,” Khalifa noted in comments published by The Guardian. She also stated that during every filmed scene she would black out, yet no one on the set seemed to notice or offer any assistance: “The abuse and exploitation of young women is normalized in pornography, and if you don’t comply, you’re threatened, beaten, and intimidated.”

Pornography Producers Are Sexual Exploiters

Whether or not there is a contract in place, the sexual exploitation and abuse that comes from pornography production studios and internet pornography providers is degrading, traumatizing, and crippling. These abusive companies know they are profiting off of the sexual exploitation of women who have been beaten down, manipulated, often drugged, and are in no condition to acquiesce to such exploitation. The pornography industry’s lack of regulation hinders many survivors from fully healing, as they are continuously haunted by the existence of videos of their abuse living on in the Internet.

The Hope Jane Doe v. Cissy Steele Gives

The Cissy Steel lawsuit is the first federal lawsuit against a pornography producer and online pornography website for federal anti-trafficking violations. We hope this lawsuit and many others like it will hold pornography producers and internet pornography providers accountable for the damage, abuse, and exploitation of the untold numbers of women and children trafficked in the pornography industry.

Read NCOSE Law’s Amended Complaint here.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center offers survivors of pornography-related abuse a way to seek justice. More information can be found at: https://sexualexploitationlawsuits.com/.

COLUMN BY

Madison Van Oss

LEGAL ASSISTANT
Madison is the Legal Assistant for the Law Center at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Madison supports the Law Center and its quest to bring justice to survivors of the sex trade industry through civil and criminal litigation. Madison brings with her a master’s degree in Homeland Security, several years of professional experience in the corporate world, as well as strong desire to protect and defend individuals against sexual abuse and exploitation.

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EDITORS NOTE: This NCOSE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Cosmopolitan Magazine Promotes Sexting and Self Pornification

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Donna Rice HughesDonna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough® Making the Internet safer for children and families writes:

Recently, Cosmopolitan Magazine wrote a “how to” on sending the “perfect” sext. No, this isn’t a joke. You read correctly. You and I know there’s no such thing as a perfect sext. And deep down they know it, too.

They know full well that preteen and teen girls are within their demographic buying audience. They also bank on the fact that Cosmo is typically in full view of minor children, along with Time Magazine and People, and is not segregated like Playboy types of mags unavailable for browsing or sale to youth. While Cosmo continues to push the envelope on soft porn with how to articles on having titillating illicit sex etc., they really crossed the line by promoting and normalizing the dangerous activity of sexting.

What Cosmo neglects to mention is that:

  • Sexting and self pornification among youth are at crisis levels
  • 62% of teens and young adults have received a sext (Barna 2016)
  • 40% of teens and young adults have sent a sext (Barna 2016)
  • 15% of teen sexters sent texts to someone who they just met (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 2008)
  • 44% of teens say it is common for sexually suggestive text messages to get shared with people other than the intended recipient. (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 2008)
  • Nude and sexually explicit photos of anyone under the age of 17/18 years old is considered under the law to be child pornography and can lead to federal prosecution by those who produce and distribute these images. Many unsuspecting teens have found themselves on the sex offenders’ registry.
  • There are no take backs online and nothing is truly private. Reputations and lives have been ruined when sexting goes bad … when a sexted photo or video goes public and or viral. Revenge porn, sextortion, and cyberbullying are harmful consequences that lead to devastation.

Youth who are coming of age and sexually curious in a pornified culture rewards the pornographic impulse (Barna). The Cosmo article encourages self pornification and paints a picture in the minds of young men and women that it is exciting and acceptable to degrade themselves, that their worth and value are tied up in their sexuality, and that it is okay for them to lower expectations they hold for themselves and each other. That it is somehow okay for them to allow others to strip away their dignity by sending sexts.

Doesn’t Cosmo know that they are destroying the dignity of the human person? Do they even care? Well, I do, and I know you do, too.

That’s why we’re launching a #NoPerfectSext letter to the editor campaign. This campaign has one goal: to get Cosmo Magazine to stop normalizing the self-pornification practices that harm youth like sexting.

We need you to do three things:

  1. Tweet to Cosmopolitan. You can borrow this tweet: @Cosmopolitansexting isn’t normal, & it degrades our children. It’s harmful. #NoPerfectSext.
  2. Tweet to Joanna Coles, Cosmo’s Editor-in-Chief. You can borrow this tweet: @JoannaColes, sexting isn’t normal, & it degrades our children. It’s harmful. #NoPerfectSext.
  3. Send Cosmo an e-mail at inbox@Cosmopolitan.com asking them why they think sexting is normal.
  4. Learn and share the following information about what you can do to prevent your children and grandchildren from sexting

Making the Internet Safer for Children and Families logoABOUT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

The Enough Is Enough® (EIE) mission is to Make the Internet Safer for Children and Families. We are dedicated to continue raising public awareness about the dangers of Internet pornography and sexual predators, and advance solutions that promote equality, fairness and respect for human dignity with shared responsibility between the public, technology, and the law. We stand for freedom of speech as defined by the Constitution of the United States; for a culture where all people are respected and valued; for a childhood with a protected period of innocence; for healthy sexuality; and for a society free from sexual exploitation.

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Face-to-face with Verizon’s CEO on ‘Sexploitation’

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I wanted to update you on our efforts with Verizon since you signed the petition, because we are hopeful for change! Below is a message from Lisa, our Director of Education and Outreach, who just got back from meeting with Verizon’s CEO and Chairman:

When I began working for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation last July, I never dreamed that one day I’d be sitting face-to-face with the CEO and Chairman of Verizon talking with him about the harms of pornography. But that is exactly what happened last week!

Now some backstory: as many of you know, Verizon has been on NCOSE’s annual Dirty Dozen List for the past three consecutive years due to its steadfast refusal to stop selling pornography via its Fios television network. While the company no longer offers explicitly child-themed films, on a daily basis it still serves up a nauseating menu of pornography that features themes of incest, racism, sexism, exploitation, and abuse. This is intolerable!

So, NCOSE adopted a new strategy. We bought Verizon stock so that we would be eligible to attend the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting on May 5th and so we could raise our concerns there. Thus, this country-girl from Kentucky, found herself sitting in a room with non-other than the CEO and Chairman of Verizon, Lowell McAdams, as well as Verizon board member and former CEO of Darden Restaurants, Clarence Otis, and Verizon’s Chief Counsel, Craig Silliman! Is that incredible or what?

I won’t get into all the nitty-gritty of what we discussed, but I will note that this was NCOSE’s first opportunity to directly raise our concerns with the individuals at Verizon in the best position to make change happen. What happens after this remains to be seen, but we know for certain that now Verizon knows there is a movement of people across this country who will no longer tolerate their sickening distribution of, and profiting from, sexploitation.

Our movement’s time has come. We wait expectantly to see if Verizon will choose to take progressive action, and join us on the right side of history.  In the meanwhile, if you’ve not done so already, please join us in sending a message to Verizon that sexploitation is not an acceptable business model for any company by signing our petition to Verizon.

We are on the verge of some incredible victories, but we need your help to get there! Please consider donating to ensure we are able to continue changing corporate policies, and culture.

 

Dump PayPal Support Cornerstone: A company that opposes abortion, pornography, gay rights

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The Florida Family Policy Council (FFPC) and Florida Family Action (FAA), as organizations rarely endorse businesses but they felt this one is important and unique enough to both endorse and encourage others to consider. FAA in an email states, “[We] proudly promote Cornerstone credit card processing for the following reasons:

  1. cornerstone.jpgFirst and foremost, Cornerstone refuses to process credit card transactions for morally objectionable businesses.  For instance, Cornerstone refuses to provide online merchant services to websites that contain pornographic content.  They will also have nothing to do with facilitating charitable contributions for Planned Parenthood, or other abortion providers, which cannot be said for many other credit card processing companies. They also refuse to provide services to groups and organizations that promote so called “gay-rights” agendas.
  2. Second, Cornerstone will save your business, church or organization money by taking less of a processing fee.  Additionally, Cornerstone also makes financial contributions back to the ministries and businesses that use their services so you can benefit financially in at least two different ways.
  3. Third, Cornerstone is a secure and trusted banking organization.   Cornerstone has been around for over 15 years and processes billions of dollars in over 30,000 ministries and businesses including, Home School Legal Defense Fund, American Family Association, Teen Pact, Liberty Counsel, The Gideon’s International, The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family,  Forty Days For Life, Calvary Chapel churches and World Magazine to just name a few of thousands of ministries they serve.  Finally, also please note that your online gifts will continue to still be strictly confidential and your transactions secure, as Cornerstone’s proprietary encrypted technology gives the highest levels of protection to your personal and financial information.

To learn more detailed information and see the portfolio on Cornerstone and the businesses and ministries using them and other security data CLICK HERE:

You may have heard in the news about how the Pay Pal company is choosing to punish the state of North Carolina for adopting laws which have basic religious liberty protections.  Pay Pal is choosing to not open one of their 400 employee centers in that state because of their bias and hostility toward religious liberty and their advocacy for gay rights.  This is the kind of intolerance that we do not want to promote and which Cornerstone avoids.

John Stemberger, President of the Florida Family Policy Council asks, “Please consider changing your church, business or ministry to the clean credit card processing company, Cornerstone.  Don’t support those companies that are supporting evil and opposing all that we believe to be good, right, and beautiful.”

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EDITORS NOTE: Readers may sign up for a quote and more information with Cornerstone HERE.

Sex Starts in the Womb? Child Porn and Abuse

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How have we reached the point that “an estimated 50,000 Americans, at any given time, are trading child sex abuse images/videos,” of infants and children being raped and tortured, i.e., child pornography?

Let’s look. Angered by the film “I Pedophile,” an incest survivor blogged recently: “Children are NOT sexual from birth” to which a reader responded by sending her a link to “It starts in the womb.” “Sexpert” Remi Newman echoes the mantra first penned by guru Dr. Alfred Kinsey in 1948 in “Sexual Behavior of the Human Male.” Kinsey claimed to have proven that children are sexual from birth based on his “scientific research,” which was in fact systematic sexual torture of infants as young as two months depicted in tables 30 to 34 on pages 175-180 of his book on males.

Elite institutions from all segments of society have built on Kinsey’s criminal, fraudulent foundation to transform the culture. Among those institutions is the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS), which published Ms. Newman’s article in its Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality. IASHS, whose “academic dean” was Kinsey co-author/lover Wardell Pomeroy, is an unaccredited storefront that has awarded more than 100,000 unaccredited degrees and certificates in “human sexuality,” “AIDS prevention,” “sex education” and similar “sexology” disciplines. Current IASHS President Rev. Ted McIlvenna says accreditation is “a bunch of crap. … They would never let me keep my … kiddie porn … library.”

Those credentialed by Pomeroy and Rev. McIlvenna’s “library” and morals now train or have trained sex educators, counselors and therapists teaching and counseling America’s children and adults.

Many are among the thousands of university professors and elementary and secondary school teachers arrested for possession of child pornography reported by Dr. Lori Handrahan’s Data4Justice.org, a crowd-sourced database of arrests chronicling our infant and child pornography epidemic.

Kinsey’s frauds have become so engrained in academia, law and the behavioral sciences that fables of “infant sexuality” are taught as truth by “sexperts” resembling Ms. Newman whose courses like, “Helping Parents Understand Infant Sexuality” are part of her stated mission to empower simpler folks “to feel more comfortable as sexual beings.”

My, my. She especially likes us to be comfortable about “infant and child sexuality.” She and her colleagues cite Kinsey, Pomeroy and their disciples’ sexpertise, like Dr. Floyd Martinson, who wants children to be “freed up” for pornography performances as a means of earning financial independence.

Another sexpert Ms. Newman admires is Dr. John Money. Time quotes he and his female coauthor: “One who commits incest … is like a religious deviant in a one-religious society” – thus neatly planting the notion that opposition to incest is quite like religious intolerance.” ISAHS dean Pomeroy adds, “It is time to admit that incest need not be a perversion or a symptom of mental illness. Incest between … children and adults … can sometimes be beneficial.” “The last taboo.”

Newman’s article was a presentation given to the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), another of the Kinseyan based “sex science” think tanks. None other than Playboy chuckled in 1996 at the SSSS conference attendees, asked to refrain from, at least:

  • “nasty, hostile remarks about women (and men);”
  • “joking about ones sexual orientation;”
  • “belittling ‘asexual prudes’;”
  • “making nipple, a–, crotch comments;”
  • “kissing, stroking, hugging, or pursuing a sexual advance that was rebuffed;”
  • “revealing a colleagues’ sexual act in public,” etc.

These are the deviants (yes!) and their organizations, which create the school sex education curricula to indoctrinate the teachers who then teach allegedly “medically accurate” sex information. Unfortunately, as Dr. Handrahan documents, in too many cases IASHS and SSSS “trained” teachers practice what they teach – on their students and other children. A recent prominent example from our neighbor to the north is Dr. Benjamin Levin, former deputy education minister in Ontario. Levin developed the province’s current sex education curriculum before being convicted and sent to prison for possessing and creating child pornography.

After all, if people believe children are sexual from – or before birth – that can justify children being tricked, forced into sex acts, particularly having been sexually groomed in our nation’s schoolrooms.

Unfortunately, until the poisonous root of Kinsey’s frauds, his sex crimes against infants and children and the sex education edifice built upon it are fully known, eradicated and replaced by the Judeo-Christian roots upon which our society was built, the pandemic of sexual violence against our children will continue its upward spiral.

Read more by clicking here. 

EDITORS NOTE: Mary McAlister, Esq., contributed to this column. Copyright 2016 WND Click here for reuse options! Dr. Judith Reisman is the foremost expert on how sexuality has been twisted in our day: Order her book “Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America” — with a free copy of “The Kinsey Corruption.” The featured image is courtesy of ABC News 10 in Schenectady, New York.

The United Nations Must Consider This Torture by Haley Halverson

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The United Nations must recognize that all individuals have an inherent right to be free from the sexual exploitation, objectification, and violence which are inherently found in prostitution and pornography.

The experiences of physical, mental, and verbal abuse commonly experienced in both pornography and prostitution are consistent with torture and should be addressed accordingly. This is why the National Center on Sexual Exploitation submitted two important reports to help inform the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, as he formulates a thematic report on gender perspectives on torture. These documents, The Gender-Based Torture Found in the Pornography Industry and On a Street Corner Near You: Pimps as Practitioners of Torture, addressed research and precedent in international codes that the UN ought to apply to a formal recognition of pornography and prostitution as forms of torture.

This would not be the first time that the United Nations addressed prostitution and pornography as forms of exploitation.

At the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, it was stated that, “Countries should take effective steps to address the neglect, as well as all types of exploitation and abuse, of children, adolescents and youth, such as abduction, rape and incest, pornography, trafficking, abandonment and prostitution.”(1) The United Nations must continue to build upon this history of recognizing the harms of these interrelated industries.

Due to the advent of the Internet, the problem of pornography has especially escalated to a pervasive and globe scale. An individual in Africa can watch the torture of an American woman, while someone in Germany can be downloading the digital evidence of sexual abuse that occurred in the Middle East.

One of the world’s largest pornographic websites recently released an annual review that revealed statistics on porn consumption by country. By percentage of traffic, the United States was the primary consumer of the videos, followed by the U.K., India, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico. The violent and sexualized torture that is inherently part of the nature of pornography must be recognized on an international level.

The treatment experienced by female pornography performers and prostituted persons is often identical to the treatment of women who are recognized as torture victims. It is therefore time for the United Nations to take a stand, and to fight for the dignity of all.

DOWNLOAD THE GENDER-BASED TORTURE FOUND IN THE PORNOGRAPHY INDUSTRY REPORT HERE.*

*Trigger warning for descriptions of scenarios and themes in pornography

(1) International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). (1994). 5.9. Retrieved February 02, 2016

ABOUT HALEY HALVERSON

Untitled design-5DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

Haley Halverson joined the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) as Director of Communications in May of 2015. Haley cares deeply about human rights and the issue of sexual exploitation, particularly regarding those exploited in the sex industry. In her role, Haley acts as a spokesperson for NCOSE and oversees strategic messaging development, press outreach, email marketing, social media marketing, and creative video production.

Prior to working at NCOSE, Haley wrote for Media Research Center. Haley graduated from Hillsdale College (summa cum laude) where she double majored in Politics and interdisciplinary religious studies, and conducted a senior thesis on the abolitionist argument regarding prostitution. During her studies, she studied abroad at Oxford University and established a background in policy research through several internship experiences in the DC area.

Since arriving at NCOSE, Haley has appeared on, or been quoted in, several outlets including the New York Post, the Washington Times, USA Radio Network, CBC News, The Rod Arquette Show, the Christian Post, Lifeline with Neil Boron, KCBS San Francisco Radio, LifeSiteNews, News Talk KGVO, and American Family News.

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