The sexual exploitation of children for profit is a horrible crime on the surface. Words like “gross,” “disturbing,” and “awful” come to mind when one thinks about a person using a young girl or boy for sex. But what is even more frustrating and disturbing than the surface level crimes is the big picture of the situation: treating the victims like objects. Currently, the number of male victims has risen drastically (see Beth Clymer’s 5/25/11 post Why Human Trafficking is a Men’s Issue), however, this week I want to focus on women victims. Our society has twisted manhood in such a way that seeing women as objects is becoming alarmingly normal.
Manhood—where has it gone? What is manhood? Our culture is greatly impacted by the media, which does not serve any justice to true manhood. It makes us guys believe that big muscles, zero feelings, lots of money, a daredevil attitude, and dominance over women—namely in the form of disrespecting girls and/or “hooking up” with as many as possible—makes you a true man. Do you agree?
Tony Porter is an activist for ending violence against women, and delivered a compelling speech at a TEDWomen conference in December 2010. In regards to this issue of discriminating against women, he said, “Growing up as a boy we were taught that…men are in charge, women are not…men lead, and [women] should just follow and do what we say…men are superior, women are inferior…men are strong, women are weak…that women are of less value, property of men, objects, particularly sexual objects.”
Porter went on to define these distorted teachings that young men are receiving today as the “collective socialization of men.” Acknowledging the fact that there are many great things about being a man, and lots of positive attributes, he states the truth that manhood has indeed been twisted in today’s society.
He recalled the story of an interaction with a young man: “I can remember speaking to a twelve year-old boy, a football player, and I asked him ‘How would it make you feel if in front of all the other players your coach told you that you played like a girl?’ … The boy said to me ‘It would destroy me.’ I thought to myself, ‘Wow, if it would destroy him to be called a girl, what are we then teaching him about girls?’”
Apparently men today are embracing the lie that girls are objects and can be treated as such. Like Porter said, they “have less value,” they are “inferior.” Where does that come from? How in the world does someone distort gender paradigm in such a way that girls can be reduced to nothing—to the point where a pimp would beat a teenager mercilessly, enslave her, and sell her to a world of men willing to pay to have sex with her, one after another?
Here is a snapshot of what this looks like in the real world. Fair warning: this quote is graphic. I read it two days ago online in The Commercial Appeal, a Memphis newspaper, in an article about a man named Terrence Yarbrough. He is currently facing fourteen charges related to sex trafficking. The following statement summarizes a portion of his actions.
“The alleged pimp branded four victims with his nickname, “T-Rex,” knocked out a teen’s front teeth and chopped her hair off with a knife, poured bleach on a woman before burning her with an iron and beating her with a padlock, and smashed another woman’s head into a car before stripping skin off of her back, according to the federal charges against him.”
…seriously? People, this is happening.
This from a credible source, and there are many more cases like this that fail to make headline news. Statistics show that there are an estimated 27 million people in slavery today—more than any other point in the history of this world. Victims are literally enslaved by pimps like Yarbrough who seize ownership by beating their “subjects” horrifically. Their identification is stolen, they are threatened, and quickly forced to believe that they are under the complete control of their pimp. He provides them food, shelter, and oftentimes gets them addicted to drugs. Each of these factors instills psychological trauma in the victims and secures the pimp’s ownership over them. Something is present that is bigger than the surface-level crime—the objectification of women.
It takes an unusual person to enslave these victims, but the scary fact is the harmless appearance of many of the people buying sex (known as “johns”). Did you know that, in Atlanta, 42% of the demand for sex from this criminal industry comes from north of the I-285 perimeter road? Suburban Atlanta. Middle class, white collar. In fact, all social classes, races, ethnicities and areas of town are involved in this in our city. That’s sickening.
Objectifying women is horrible. Period. Regardless of fortune or fame, at the core of it all, humans are equal. As the old saying goes, everyone “puts their pants on one leg at a time.” What gives someone the right to treat another human being with zero respect or dignity in any way shape or form, let alone purchase him or her for sex?
Society as a whole is completely losing a sense of what true manhood is—and the booming sex trafficking industry is a clear-cut supporting example. It should embarrass every man in the world that people can look at the issue and say that arguably the biggest problem in the fight against sex-trafficking is that the demand (people willing to buy sex) is endless… Sounds a lot like true manhood, eh?
If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms that you would like to share in regards to this issue, please do post below, email the blog or info@meetjustice.org. What’s your definition of true manhood? Are you striving for it? What would it look like if a new generation of men rose up in this world that were willing to put their foot down against injustice, live what they know to be true, and value the life of every single human being?
Men—let’s make it happen.
Tony Porter’s Talk at TEDWomen, “A Call to Men”
Article, Yarbrough indicted for pimping teen girls
