Prevention

Human Trafficking: The Series

Statistics and Definitions
Labor Trafficking
Sex Trafficking
Selling Eve
Freedom for the Captives
The Church's Response
The Girls
Recovery
Prevention

Note: This series is on human trafficking, including sex trafficking. Where the previous articles were not explicit, this one gets farther into the weeds. If that makes you nervous, you may be the one who needs to read on. Still, reader discretion is advised.

Through a series of links and blogs, I found an excerpt from an interview by John Mayer on the temptation of pornographic sex. He admitted that porn had changed his life and the way he interacts with the world. When he wakes up in the morning, he can reach for his phone and check out 200 images before he gets out of bed. The more pictures he looks at, the less effective they are. Live sex is losing its appeal for him. He'd rather think about past encounters because his imagination is stronger than the woman in front of him. He dreams of writing porn. "The best days of [his] life" are when he's able to remember a past experience and fantasize about it.

This is a rock star who can have pretty much whatever he wants. The trivialization of sex and exploitation of female sexuality has wounded him, deeply. I was researching, reading an article on sex trafficking, and on the bottom of the webpage were several icons advertising different TV shows. One was for Project Runway. But, instead of designs or designers, it shows Heidi Klum, topless, with her arm across her chest.

We know society is messed up. We've seen the magazines at the newsstands and the car ads. I just wanted to make a couple of points about all this. First, for the guys, you know this is all BS, right? Heidi Klum does not want you. She doesn't want anything to do with you. The entire industry is built on a lie. The lie that you are a man because this woman wants you. And, yes, it is amazingly obnoxious that you can't get away from the sexual temptations. But maybe you can minimize the damage. Shut off the TV. Tell your wife you can't go to that movie. Ask her to put away her catalogues. Find a group of guys you can be real with, whether it be through the Samson Society or Wild at Heart. Read Shaunti Feldhahn's For Men Only and Arterburn, Stoeker, and Yorkey's Every Man's Battle. Romance your wife until she responds, not so that she'll respond.

Mostly, understand that nothing is inevitable. Men do not need sex to survive. Men are not at the mercy of their physiology — unless they choose to be. Adam did not have to succumb to temptation and take the fruit from Eve's hand, and men do not have to believe everything women in ads say. Heidi Klum does not control you. Men, and women, are responsible for their own actions.

For the women...

About ten years ago, Dev was with some guys from our Sunday school class. They were talking about sexual temptation and how they wish they could talk to their wives, but they just can't. Dev piped up, "Why can't you? I talk to my wife about this all the time."

"Yeah," Rob said. "But you're married to Kersley."

When you got married, you created a team. A partnership. Your role is to nurture that partnership. You cannot do that if you refuse to come to the aid of the other partner. I'm not talking about delving into deep dark secrets and being his almighty accountability partner. I'm talking about talking. Allowing him to show up, red-faced, and speak. His problem with sexual temptation, should he have one, is not a reflection on you. It is an attack by the enemy on your partnership. You have a choice whether to pick him up and shove him in the right direction or leave him bleeding on the battleground, vulnerable to additional hostile fire.

Okay, considering the audience, maybe that was the wrong metaphor. But it's still valid. You don't have to fix him. You just have to be aware. Do like our friends Jeff and Libby — if a questionable scene is coming up in a movie, Jeff will close his eyes until Libby tells him it's past. She isn't threatened by his mortal weakness, she's just got his back. Install NetNanny. Put away your catalogues and magazines. Stop getting Victoria's Secret.

For ladies in general, yes, every man is responsible for his own thought life. It is not your responsibility to monitor every single aspect of society to make sure it's okay for men to go out into the big, bad world. And it's hot — you want to wear a tank top. And you're going to Home Depot and you want to make sure you get service.* Please just have common sense. I'm not saying to put on a burka. Just be mindful that if you're going to be sitting in a folding chair in low-riders, the guy behind you is going to see your undies. Or worse.

Part of fighting human trafficking is being mindful of sexual temptation and its impact on men and women. It won't do any good to vilify men. Like the motto of Epik Project states, "Men create the demand for this 'product.' Better men have to end it." Porn is fed by human trafficking. You can fight it by helping each other instead of constantly taking offense.

*I swear to Pete this is true! The more you look like you know what you're doing, the fewer employees you'll see. But duck in to get a lawnmower filter in tight shorts...

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Published 8-29-11