Introduction

At both the federal and state levels, law enforcement agents and prosecutors are working hard to stop sexual trafficking.  In large measure, these individuals are also turning a blind eye towards the ever-expanding problem of “adult” obscenity that helps stimulate the demand for both adult and child prostitutes.  “Adult” obscenity does not depict actual children, but it does include hardcore pornographic depictions of sex with persons who look like children and with “teens,” sex with excrement, sex with dominatrixes, rough sex, unsafe sex, fetishes, and the degradation, rape and torture of women.   Except for pay, many men would find it difficult if not impossible to find a woman who would consent to participate in such activities.  What the agents and prosecutors fail to see (or refuse to acknowledge) is that by ignoring the explosion of “adult” obscenity, which helps drive the demand for adult and child prostitutes, they are undermining their efforts to curb sexual trafficking.  The evidence set forth here is the tip of the iceberg.

V. Malarek, The Johns: Sex for sale and the men who buy it (Arcade Publishing, 2009):

Porn and johns go hand in hand.  Porn is often what turns the men on, revs up their sex drive, and sends them out into the night…  [At 193]

The Internet is rife with postings by johns admitting addiction to or love for porn…For Bull Rider, “porn and mongering go together like peas and carrots.  Many times…I start out watching porn; next thing I know I am in my car looking for the real thing…The Man says he only watches porn when he’s planning an encounter.  “I watch the positions; find a girl who looks like one of the performers and make porn the build up to the…party.”  [At 194]

And the john’s interest is not lost on those hoping to sell their services.  Ads placed by “call girls”…tempt prospective johns with promises of the “PSE” – porn-star experience.  The message is clear: if prostitution is the main act, porn is the dress rehearsal.  [At 195-196]

The porn addicts may want to sit in the director’s chair themselves, but most will never have the opportunity or means…What’s their solution?  Web cams.  A new breed of johns… seek[s] out Web sites that let them create XXX from afar.  They sit alone in dark rooms… and order up a woman…They order the woman to perform sex acts, in real time.  [At 202]

C. Watson, “Report from Buenos Aires (Prostitute Plaza): The globalization of sex,” CBC News, 6/18/09, available at http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/06/18/f-rfa-watson.html:

Prostitutes hit their peak earning potential by the time they're 25…Which is one reason why recruiters are going after younger and younger girls.  [Canadian sociologist Richard Poulin] says the $100-billion pornography industry is fuelling the appetite for children as well. Teenage girls now make up the biggest slice of viewable porn.

AP, “Police investigating sex trafficking in Wichita,” Kansas City Star, 5/24/09:

Wichita police say the cases of teenage girls being forced into sexual slavery are increasing in the city.  Police and social workers…blame the increase on street gangs…The gangs lure the children with food, money, shelter, and romance, police said.  Gang members train their victims in sex acts, often using pornographic movies as ‘training manuals.’”

S. Azam, Oral sex is the new goodnight kiss (www.thegoodnightkiss,com 2008):

The recent Craigslist posting for sex with a minor included photos of a 14-year-old “party girl.”  Recruited into prostitution by Justine [last name omitted], 19, and pimped out until Justine was arrested by the FBI for child trafficking.  [Justine’s] job as a front desk clerk [name of hotel and city omitted] gave her access to rooms.  Since November 2006, she had been pimping girls from 2 area high schools…She would text the girls at school with meeting times…Unlimited access to hard-core pornographic images, websites that facilitate “hookups” and chat rooms where sexual bartering take place, shape teen expectations and beliefs about what is normal sexual behavior…The predominance of online porn and the constant soliciting of sex in chat groups have given girls a fast and easy way to make money without ever leaving their bedrooms…  [At 63, 65-66]

J. Tomassini, “Hotels target of police sting,” Gaithersburg Gazette, 12/24/08, available at http://www.gazette.net/stories/12242008/montnew114835_32483.shtml, where we read:

Within the binder that [Assistant State’s Attorney] Lynch brought to the December 16 community meeting was a litany of offenses that have occurred at the hotels…Another case outlined the use of the motel by [Defendant], who was convicted of illegal sex trafficking throughout the Metro area in 2006.  [Defendant] used girls as young as 14 to conduct a prostitution ring…[A]ccording to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which prosecuted the case…[Defendant] would drive around the streets surrounding the hotels showing the girls pornographic DVDs in order to illustrate how to perform sex acts…They would then meet men inside the hotel rooms.

J. Macleod, M. Farley, L. Anderson and J. Golding, “Challenging Men’s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland,” Women’s Support Project, April 2008 [Published at: http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/documents/Challenging_Men%27s_Demand.pdf]:

We found a statistically significant association between these punters’ [johns’] pornography use and the frequency of their use of women in prostitution.  We compared men who were high frequency users of prostitutes (once a month or more) to those who were low frequency users (once or twice, ever) with respect to their use of print, video and Internet pornography.  Those who were the most frequent users of pornography were also the most frequent users of women in prostitution.

J.W. Kennedy, “Help for the Sexually Desperate,” Christianity Today, Mar. 2008

[published at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/march/18.28.html]:

Douglas Weiss, 45, executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, says an addict's brain doesn't discern whether his sexual behavior is moral or immoral—the addict only knows that this is a place to feel loved, important, and significant, albeit only temporarily…. “A major factor in progression is what a guy fantasizes about during sexual release,” Weiss says. “If a guy masturbates to something it would take a prostitute to do, he's more likely to find one.”

F. Rohrer, “The men who sleep with prostitutes,” BBC News Magazine, Feb. 22, 2008

[Published at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7257623.stm]: 

Management consultant Pete…is blunt about his motivation for buying sex.  “I’ve not had sex with my wife for at least five years,” he says…Having visited prostitutes for 18 months, Pete says he was attracted while surfing on the Internet.  “I’ve been leading up to it; using pornography and looking at various websites.  Rather than being a fantasy it was someone you could have sex with.”

M. Farley, Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connection (Prostitution Research and Education, at pages 153-154, 2007):

Pornography is also advertising for prostitution.  Men learn how to use women by looking at and masturbating to pornography, often developing a taste for prostitution [Footnote omitted]…Women have explained that they study pornography in order to know how to perform prostitution: “I watch pornos and act like that in the room [with a john].”  [Footnote omitted]  Men show pornography to women to illustrate what they want them to do.  Strip clubs show video pornography to promote lap dancing and VIP-prostitution.  Legal brothels show pornography in the waiting area to speed men along in their purchase of women…Pimps make more money from johns when they advertise women in prostitution as “adult film stars” who are available as “escorts.”  [Footnote omitted]

M. Farley, “Renting an Organ for Ten Minutes: What Tricks Tell Us About Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking,” in Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking 145 (David E. Guinn and Julie DiCaro, Esq. eds., 2007):

Interviews with 854 women in prostitution in 9 countries…made it clear that pornography is integral to prostitution.  In 9 countries, almost half (49%) told us that pornography was made of them while they were in prostitution.  Forty-seven percent of our respondents were upset by tricks’ attempts to make them do what the tricks had previously seen in pornography.

M. Coy, M. Horvath & L. Kelly, “‘It’s just like men going to the supermarket:’ Men buying sex in East London,” CWASU, London Metropolitan University, 2007 [Available at: http://www.toynbeehall.org.uk/news_item.asp?section=00010001000100010001&itemTitle=New+research+on+men+who+buy+sex+%96+%93it%92s+just+like+going+to+the+supermarket%94&itemid=1024 ]

Once the study was underway, the research team added a question about the use of pornography to the telephone interview schedule.  A total of 85 men answered this question.  Nearly two thirds (62%) reported using pornography, and 47 respondents specified frequency of pornography use.  [Of the 47 who specified frequency, 18 said, “A little;” 13 said, “Every week;” 9 said “A lot;” 7 said, “Every day.”]

“Online porn addiction turns our kids into victims and predators,” Sydney Sun-Herald, Aug. 14, 2005 [published at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/miranda-devine/online-porn-addiction-turns-our-kids-into-victims-and-predators/2005/08/13/1123353539758.html]:

But as Internet pornography becomes increasingly pervasive, making every home computer

a potential red light district, Australian parents…are becoming alarmed.  Enter American sex abuse expert Dr Mary Anne Layden, who visited Sydney last week to address a forum on sex trafficking at NSW Parliament House.  Layden, a psychotherapist at the University of Pennsylvania, has testified before the United States Senate on the dangers of online porn, gleaned from her experience treating sexual violence victims and perpetrators for 20 years… The connection to sex trafficking is that increased use of pornography leads to increased demand for prostitution. When demand outstripped supply of local prostitutes, women and children were brought in from overseas, often against their will, Layden told the forum…

M. Monto and N. McRee, “A Comparison of the Male Customers of Female Street Prostitutes With National Samples of Men,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 49(5), 505-529 (2005):

Repeat users reported greater participation in all aspects of the sex industry than did non-customers.  They were much more likely to report having purchased sexually explicit magazines or videos, and they were more than twice as likely to have visited nude establishments.

V. Geberth (a retired NYPD Lieutenant Commander of the Bronx homicide squad): “Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation,” CRC Press (2003):

In many cases, the offenders use their girlfriends or prostitutes to act out their sadistic fantasies…This case involved a serial killer who was killing prostitutes…Once he completed the sex act, he stripped and tortured them for hours…The significance of fantasy in this case was graphically revealed when…detectives went to the killer’s home and retrieved a number of items, including one pornographic videotape…This videotape contained a number of scenes that were similar to what the offender was doing to his victims.  The breast assault and paddling activities appeared to be based upon this sadomasochistic videotape, which seemingly fueled his increasingly sadistic activities.

A. Sanders, “Heartland daughters for sale,” San Francisco Examiner, 5/8/02:

Each year in the United States, 400,000 children are lured or forced into prostitution, according to a Justice Department report… Pimps are masters at psychological control who can smell attention-starved teens states away. They often pretend to be a young girl's boyfriend, using her romantic devotion to put her on the streets…To desensitize the girls to street life, pimps expose them to increasing amounts of pornography and violence.

M. Farley and V. Kelly, “Prostitution: A Critical Review of the Medical and Social Sciences Literature,” Women and Criminal Justice, 11(4): 29-64 (2000):

Women in prostitution have described pornography’s role in their being coerced by pimps or customers to enact specific scenes… Customers show women pornography to illustrate what they want…32% of 130 people in one study had been upset by an attempt to coerce them into performing what customers had seen in pornography.

“A facilitator's guide to Prostitution: a matter of violence against women,” WHISPER [“Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt,” Minneapolis, MN] (1990):

[published at http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/factsheet.html] 

Eighty percent of prostitution survivors at the WHISPER Oral History Project reported that their customers showed them pornography to illustrate the kinds of sexual activities in which they wanted to engage in…Fifty-two percent of the women stated that pornography played a significant role in teaching them what was expected of them as prostitutes.  Thirty percent reported that their pimps regularly exposed them to pornography in order to indoctrinate them into an acceptance of the practices depicted.

M. Corwin, “Life on the Street: New Wave of Prostitution With More Violence Is Overwhelming Los Angeles Authorities,” Los Angeles Times, 12/8/85:

In a small banquet room…about 30 madams and call girls gathered to discuss a significant change in their business. [Name omitted], a North Hollywood madam, told the women that a number of customers had asked her to procure 12- or 13-year-old girls. And more customers, she said, were beating, torturing and even killing out-call prostitutes.

Most madams refused to accommodate the more violent customers and would not supply the young girls, [Name omitted] said.  But because the customers were willing to pay so much more, a few madams complied…

This new wave of prostitution is overwhelming Los Angeles law enforcement agencies, officials say…An increasing number of customers are requesting violent or kinky sexual services and seeking younger girls, prostitutes and call girls say.

The sexual revolution has contributed to the change prostitutes have seen, said Dr. Michael Grinberg, a psychiatrist, sex therapist and chairman for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex…There are several possible reasons for the change, Grinberg said. Our society is more violent now than in the past. Pornography is more graphic and readily available and some of the behavior displayed “can become incorporated in one's sexual fantasies.”

M. Silbert and A. Pines, “Pornography and Sexual Abuse of Women,” Sex Roles, 10:857-868 (1984):

The present study…was aimed at studying sexual abuse of street prostitutes both prior to and following entrance into prostitution.  Yet, as it happens in every large research project…unexpected information emerged, important information…Such was the case in the present study with regard to the relationship between sexual abuse and pornography…Two-hundred juvenile and adult, current and former, women street prostitutes in the San Francisco Bay area participated in the study…The study generated an enormous amount of data…documenting stunning amounts of sexual abuse of street prostitutes as part of their job, outside their work environment and in their childhood prior to entering prostitution.  Many of the open descriptions of these sexual assaults made reference to the role played by pornography.  These references were unsolicited by interviewers…Out of the 193 cases of rape, 24% mentioned allusions to pornographic material on the part of the rapist.  This is even more significant when it is understood that these comments were made by respondents without any solicitation or reference to the issue of pornography by the Interviewer.  The comments followed the same pattern: the assailant referred to pornographic materials he had seen or read and then insisted that the victims not only enjoyed rape but also extreme violence. 

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