Grooming Abusers

“It's a process, it doesn't happen overnight, when you depersonalize another person and view them as just an object, an object for pleasure and not a living breathing human being. It seems to make it easier to do things you shouldn't do.”

-Jeffrey Dahmer

TRIGGER WARNING: This article includes quotes from sex workers in the porn industry discussing topics of pornography depicting "barely legal" adults.

The light from the T.V. screen reflected off mine and my husband's faces of disgust, unable to believe our eyes as we watched Episode 1 of "Beyond Fantasy" a porn industry documentary by Exodus Cry. The first episode was free to watch on YouTube and was titled: "Barely Legal."

"First of all, I make instructional videos," Pornography Producer, Max Hardcore, was saying to the off-camera interviewer.

"Men who watch my videos, they want to see what the girl is capable of doing, what she's willing to do and how to get them to do it... so I show them how to track them down. We find 'em, we locate 'em, we isolate 'em. We get 'em in the car, we get 'em in the public bathroom, wherever it is. You give 'em some compliments and resistance breaks down..."

The documentary goes on to show clips of Max with barely legal women dressed in pigtails, knee-high socks and braces.

"Oh wow, I love your little school girl outfit. Do you have any p*bic hair yet?" Max Hardcore is saying on the screen.

The girl adjacent looks young, she certainly doesn't look like the 18 to 20 year old she actually is, but as a parent, my stomach turns in knots as I watch the next words come out of her mouth.

"No, I haven't reached puberty yet."

While most people may argue that there's nothing wrong with porn (after-all you're not ACTALLY hurting anyone, right?), the sinister truth is that there is a strong correlation between porn and child-abuse. And we're not even talking about the thousands of actual abuse material found in major sites like PornHub (that's a discussion for another day).

We're talking about the global epidemic that is child-sexual-abuse and how abusers and those who have pornographic material involving children are, as one article by the American Psychological Association stated, one and the same.

The question then becomes, is the porn industry actually grooming future pedophiles?

"50% of my work right now is, like, really, really young, barely legal... should we give them the benefit of the doubt and say, "no, they're not dressed like 12 year-olds, they're dressing like 18 year-olds? I mean, I know what I was dressing like when I was 18. I was trying to look 25, I certainly wasn't trying to look 11."

-Aiden Ashley, Pornography Performer

Could it be that porn, especially fetish porn including topics of incest, baby-sitter porn, or barely-legal porn are actually making their way into the minds of abusers around the world?

What happens when, for the people aroused by these images, the screen is no longer enough?

The off-camera interviewer directed his next question at pornography performer, BiBi Jones:

"Do you think that fantasy may influence men into-"

BiBi finishes out the question:

"Liking younger girls and acting on it? Is that your question?" she asks with a smile before darting her eyes away. "Absolutely. If it wasn't there, I don't think there would be so many, you know, rapes and stuff of young girls." Her smile faded as she realized what she was saying.

How many minors have been victimized by adults who indulge in such horrific material? And how can the consumer justify giving their money and time to sites that promote the idea of child sexual exploitation?

"Does it have any consequences beyond that? I try not to think about it." -Will Ryder, Pornography Producer

The screen turned dark at the end of the documentary and closed with the simple statement:

"THE FICTIONAL DEPICTION OF MINORS IN PORNOGRAPHY IS ILLEGAL IN MOST COUNTRIES. YET, IT REMAINS LEGAL IN THE UNITED STATES."

I thought about the young girls in my life, and specifically the ones that were part of the youth group at our church. Many of the teens we've mentored have come from pasts of abuse and neglect, and to think of any of them being lured into the porn industry or by an abuser groomed by it, made my husband and I physically sick.

Porn is not a guiltless past-time, as it is one of the most heavily propagated and least regulated industries in the world.

May we as a people stand behind the victims of abuse by going against depictions of minors in pornography whether fictional or not, and may the consumer think twice before getting involved in an industry that profits from the trafficking and exploitation of men, woman and children around the world.

A huge thank you to Exodus Cry and Magic Lantern Pictures for all of their research and hard work into the dark side of this multi-billion dollar industry. To watch episode 1 of "Beyond Fantasy" click here.