I Am a Human Being

This is not a personal blog so my desire is that it be semi-professional, devastatingly informative, and not too chatty.  But sometimes my heart gets so wound up into the issue that I just want to burst.  Right now is one of those times.

I am a woman.  And I am sick to my core of women being viewed as objects, as lesser than, as easy prey.  I am a human being.   I have thoughts in my head, desires in my heart, skills in my hands.  I have the intrinsic right to protect my body, as far as I am able, from disease and abuse.  No one - no one, no one, NO ONE - has the intrinsic right to take that from me.  Anyone who desires to use me, manipulate me, physically hurt me, or willingly and unfeelingly subject me to emotional or physical harm or disease for his or her own benefit is acting outside the bounds of his or her rights.  

I am a human being.
It is not okay to use human beings.
It is not okay to misuse human beings.
It is not okay to abuse human beings.
The attitude of these men toward human beings is not okay.
It is not okay,
it is not okay,
it is not okay.

We throw around the word objectification a lot, but that's exactly what people who rape and traffick or knowingly use those who might be trafficked have done.  They have taken a human life - this bottle of experience and creativity and emotion and potential and life - and reduced it to any common object found lying around the house.  And less, even, because I bet every single one of the men interviewed in the article above has a smart phone or a laptop or a car or a favorite beer mug on which he places higher value than he has placed on the prostitute he's shagging.   

How can this be?  
How is it possible to think this way?

Oh God, change the heartbeat of the world, please.

Changing Our Minds: The Problem with Blacks and Whores

Blacks are not fully evolved, and thus, not fully human.

Blacks are lazy and need someone to keep after them or they won't work.

Blacks are like lost children without their masters; they need to be taken care of.

Blacks are from the line of Cain and biblically deserve to be enslaved.

Blacks aren't smart enough to read...hold a job...be free. 

Blacks exist for whites.

Blacks like being slaves. 

I shudder as I type these sentences, as you probably do reading them.  Yet this was once the mentality of thousands of people throughout the United States.  These were all lies people told themselves to feel better about their greed and oppressive actions. And the whites who believed these lies so many years ago really believed them - to their core. I wanted to use the "N" word in those sentences, to make them powerful and punch you in the face while you read this post, but 150 years of fighting for the dignity and equality of a once dehumanized portion of our population has been bred into my bones until it is impossible for me to use such an offense word.  Because I really believe Blacks are fully human, they are not intrinsically lazy, they are not biblically mandated to be slaves, and they are equal in intelligence, skill, and worth.  For me, a 21st century white person, it is incomprehensible that people once saw the world differently.  The fight has been worth it.*

But now we face a new foe (or, rather, an old that has yet to be conquered).  That of The Whore.

Whores are dirty girls who like sex and deserve what they get.

Whores don't mind being used by 50 men a day - hell, they're whores.

Whores (as women) biblically must submit to men in all things, including sex.

Whores (as women) are like emotional children who need to be led by a non-emotional man.

Whores aren't smart enough to hold a job other than whoring. 

Whores are the problem; they tempted the men in the first place.

Whores (as women) exist for men.

Whores like prostituting.

If you don't believe that the above-listed mentalities exist - and strongly - then we're not gonna get far in this fight against sex trafficking.  Trafficking begins as a mentality.  A girl is a whore before she is ever forced into prostitution.  She's a whore in the eyes of the mother who blames her when her dad rapes her.   She's a whore in the eyes of her classmates when she becomes promiscuous at school.  She's a whore in the eyes of the woman whose husband chooses to look at her...hit on her...sleep with her.  It is my strong belief that any girl roped into trafficking (not kidnapped and physically forced as some are, but rather coerced and manipulated) has some extreme brokenness in her past.  Rape by an older brother.  Rape by a neighbor.  Physical abuse by her parents.  There is something disconnecting in her that allows her to stay in a place where she's used 50 times a day - because no healthy woman wants to have sex 50 times a day with potentially disease-ridden, often physically abusive men.

If I have not convinced you that our collective prejudice against "The Whore" is one of the bonds holding her in captivity, then why is a girl picked up by the cops 100 times and her pimp not once?  Because she's the problem.  She's the one giving her body to the john.  Forget the father who raped her, the trafficker who addicted her to drugs, or the pimp who threatens her with death if she tries to escape.  Or why when I went to an anti-trafficking fundraising dinner did they only raise $7,000 for a recovery home, when I've been to pro-life dinners that have raised $20,000?  Because we're still not sure these girls are worth saving...after all, they got themselves into this in the first place, right? **

Need more of an argument?  I went to a signature-gathering training this weekend for an initiative strengthening laws against traffickers.  Someone raised the question of why the initiative would only strengthen laws against traffickers and not against the johns.  Our speaker said she'd fought to have something written in about johns, but all of her legal counsel told her not to.  Why?  "Because as a society we're still not ready for that.  The john is still not seen as a bad guy and the girl is still seen as a whore.  Were we to write harsher laws for johns into our initiative, it would not be passed."  Whoa. Yes, in a way most of the U.S. doesn't understand, our problem is The Whore.  Earlier I said I couldn't even type the "N" word, because it is so offensive. Yet 150 years ago people would have thought that impossible.  My hope - my sometimes shy, wavering, timid hope - is that 150 years from now, "whore" will be an equally offensive word because of how it once meant the dehumanization of half our population.  Let's start changing our minds.  Let's start seeing "The Whore "as the victimized girl she really is and get her the proper aid she needs to live a healthy and fulfilled life.  Let's erase "whore" from our vocabulary and our mindset and start treating all people with respect and dignity.

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*This is not negating that racism still exists in our world.  It does.  Yet how far we've come from those days!

**Why, if we're going to turn our backs on them 13 years down the road, bother being pro-life when we know many of the children "saved" are going to be born into potentially abusive situations that will make them vulnerable to trafficking in the first place?  Why are we so shortsighted? At the risk of making all my conservative friends angry, if we are unwilling to change our minds about "The Whore" then I would almost rather see the poor things killed in the womb before they are later rejected by us noble folk who've worked so hard to give them a chance at "life". If we're going to be pro-life, we need to be willing to go all the way.

Preparation: Examine Yourself

Examining yourself is a big issue.  We all have false motivators that we need to work through in order to be healthy people.  Our actions may unwittingly be driven by a need to feel important and loved, motivators that will only hurt us and those around us in the end.  My suggestion is that before you jump into abolition work you take some time - a week, a month, half a year, whatever it takes - to examine yourself.  Journal.  Be real with yourself about your addictions and motivators.  Ask trusted love ones the hard questions like, how do I handle criticism? What are my strengths?  What are my weaknesses?, and be willing to hear the answers. Get a therapist.  Get a mentor.  Get a spiritual director.  You can't successfully go into this type of work unless you've already dealt with the crap in your own heart.  This is a life-long process, but we can find a lot of freedom and healing even if we're not perfect.  Here's a few things you may want to consider while examining yourself:

The Messiah Complex

I'm speaking from experience on this one.  I tend to be the vigilante-save-the-world-leap-first-look-later type.  I want everything to be right, I want everything to be healthy, I want everyone to be happy.  But there are a few things you need to know going into it: you can't save everyone.  Today a child caught in sex trafficking died.  You and I will never know the child's name.  You and I will never know the child's story.  This is the reality.  We're fighting a battle that is not yet won and there will be a lot more casualties before it's over.   So pray about it, do some journaling, tell yourself that you can't save everyone and that's okay, and try to live in the reality that doing your part is enough.  I've come to have peace about this.  You may or may not be religious, but for me it really helps to know that God knows.  God knows.  It's also helpful to look at your motivators: why do you need to save everything?  In trying to save the world, what are you trying to save in yourself?

Sex Addiction

What is it?  Porn?  Constant masturbation?  A string of significant others used for your own sexual gratification?  We live in an era that doesn't consider this type of behavior wrong.  But the truth is, an addiction is an addiction.  It doesn't matter if it's drugs, anime, or alcohol - if you're being driven to it as some form of escapism, chances are it owns you.  Do a simple Google search on "addiction" and you'll find that addictive behavior alters your brain pathways.  That is, when you start turning to something as a stress reliever it begins to alter the pleasure pathways of your brain, habituating you to that action and creating a need.  When you try to break the addiction - whether it's a substance or a habit - you become irritable, restless, and absent-minded, thinking almost constantly of the thing you can't have.  In my mind one of the big issues about a sex addiction in particular, as opposed to alcohol or something, is that it begins wearing down your respect for humanity.  If you're engaging in porn or using people for your own sexual pleasure you're objectifying them.  This, in fact, is the very thing traffickers do to their victims, objectify them.  So if you want to get involved in the fight but yourself are a sex addict, you have some mindshifting of your own to do first.   Get help.   It's imperative before you get involved in anti-trafficking work, because the temptations are everywhere.   You don't want to become a john while you're trying to stop them.

Other Addictions
As stated above, research shows that addictive behaviors can create pleasure pathways in the brain, developing in us a need to continue that particular behavior.  When trying to break a habit or addiction a person often becomes irritable, irrational, and reactive.  Addiction just isn't good for you.  My belief is that the worst part about addiction is that it's reactionary: you are turning toward something for a reason.  Addiction is a form of escapism: I feel better about myself if I drink, when I'm full of self-hatred eating makes me feel better, etc.  If you're living out of addiction, you're not healthy.  I think every person is looking for peace, but continuing in your addiction is not going to produce it.  So as you examine yourself look for places where you might have unwittingly developed an addiction.  Work through it.  Get a counselor, talk to a trusted friend.  It may feel like a long road sometimes, but you can overcome.

Prior Responsibilities
Don't go divorcing your husband and leaving your 3 children at home so you can move to Thailand to work with trafficked girls.  Look realistically at your life stage.  Are you finishing college?  Are you over your head in debt?  Do you have kids at home that need tending to?  As I hope you find out on this blog, there are many ways to get involved in anti-trafficking work and not all of them require that you sell your firstborn child to do so.  Something as simple as mentoring a child through Big Brothers, Big Sisters is a substantial contribution to the cause, and it doesn't ask that much of your time or financial investment.  So look at your life, be honest about what you can take on at this stage knowing that it may change down the road, and move forward in it.

Prevention: Equality Training

The simple truth: end demand, end supply.  The one and only reason that sex-trafficking exists is because some men like the idea of having sex with a prostitute or with a young child.  As long as this entitlement-based mentality is out there, there will be children who are victims of sexual abuse and potentially sex-trafficking.  While most men you know are probably not out looking for a 13-year-old to sleep with, there is still a rather too-prevalent idea that women are asking for it.  One friend of mine once commented about the Roman Polansky case that the 13-year-old girl Polansky molested had probably seduced him.  Say what?!  Women aren't "asking for it"!  If the "good" men around us are living in the mentality that an abused woman "wants" to be used sexually, what hope have we for the "bad" men?  Let's work on stopping this mentality here, now, with us and then take our message to the broader world:

1. CAASE: A Chicago-based organization that "offers a curriculum for high school boys to help them end sexual exploitation in their own lives."  Unhealthy gender stereotypes and abuse begin at an early age and need to be addressed at an early age. The classroom is an excellent place in which to do this.
2. A Call to Men: A male-led organization that "through seminars, workshops and other educational vehicles, A Call to Men  challenges men to reconsider their long held beliefs about women, in an effort to create a more just society. We achieve this by encouraging change in the behaviors of men through a re-education and training process that promotes healthy manhood."
3. Triple X Church: This organization seeks to help men and women out of their pornography addictions.  While we live in a generation that unabashedly defends porn, there is an undeniable link between porn and sexual violence.  Porn gives a person a sense of entitlement: "I deserve to get whatever I want sexually."  Porn distances us from healthy sexuality: "I get to use people for my own pleasure."  Porn keeps women in bondage: "A woman is an object that exists solely for the sexual satisfaction of men and should, therefore, do whatever is asked of her sexually." Let's educate ourselves on the realities of porn, stop using it, and help others out of their addictions also. 
4. The Pink Cross: another anti-pornography organization seeking to change our beliefs and attitudes toward the problem. 
5. Christians for Biblical Equality: even within the church men sexually abuse women.  They use pornography, they hire prostitutes, they molest their kids. The only reason a person feels okay abusing another human being like this is because of a mentality.  CBE seeks to change the unhealthy thought-system we have about women and restore their equality as image-bearers of God and co-heirs of our inheritance in Christ.  Only when we have done this will sexual violence against women and children end.