S3:14 Alan Smyth, Author of "Men Fight for me" and Innocence Project Director talk human trafficking

Season 3, Episode 14. This episode we have Alan Smith, author of Men Fight for Me and director of the Innocence Project. This is an important podcast. This one is going to be about how dads have a massive impact on human trafficking and sex trafficking. Dads, listen to this. There's a lot of good information in there. Without further ado, Your host, Townsend Russell. This is the 100% Dad podcast, season 3, episode 14. Today we got Alan Smith. The Smith is not spelled the way you would expect. He is the author of Men Fight for Me, also the executive director of the Saving Innocence— Saving Innocence Project, or just Saving Innocence?

You could just say Saving Innocence, although some people do add a little word like project. It wouldn't be incorrect, but that's not what we go by.

Well, we want people to be able to search you and find you easily. So Saving Innocence, hit enter, and then we can find you.

There you go, savinginnocence.org, official website, and that'll tell you everything you need to know about what we're doing. There's videos to watch and things to poke around on, so we invite your listeners to go there whenever they get a minute.

Yeah, so you guys reached out, um, and I think you just had a basic paragraph telling me about what you did, and I think I immediately said, this is a conversation we definitely need to have. It's a conversation I don't think I put on this platform at all. Um, not because I don't want to or I don't care about it, it's just I genuinely don't know about it. Normally these podcasts and the information I put out is stuff I know about, and you know, it's a lot of my voice and me confirming what the other guests said or kind of sharing my own tangent or story on it. And this one, I am just not going to have a lot to say. Questions, surely, uh, because we're talking about human trafficking and it's something I think a lot of people know, you know, we know it exists but we kind of gloss over it. We've seen the movie Taken So we know, we know kind of the logistics and we know what we would do if we were the dad. We would just go hunt them down and make those Ukrainians or Siberians or whoever it is that took our daughter pay. But outside of that, it's kind of, it, I think for most of us, it just doesn't hit close enough to home. We just, we don't see it. It's not necessarily happening in our neighborhood, in our communities. It hasn't happened to a member of our family. So we we've really— it seems like it's almost a third world problem or a problem of an old world that maybe isn't so much anymore. Because I mean, the way I think about one of the questions I really want answered here is who the hell buys a little kid or some girl? Like, what depraved individual is out there buying a human in 2022, much less a young human or a little girl? And which I assume the purposes are for, you know, sex. And, you know, it's not even— it's, it's not like it's farm labor, like, you know, 100, 200 years ago. Um, it's not that type of slavery. It's just, it's sex trade, I think.

Well, you, you really touched on a number of really important topics in, in what you just said. There's a handful of things, and you're, you're very, uh, your, your, your level of, uh, current knowledge and understanding is very typical. And that's, that's the urgent message that I have, especially for men. I know this is a lot of men, a lot of dads on this podcast. That's great. I talk to men and dads all the time, and, and there's an urgent message. It's not an outdated crime, it's a current crime. Matter of fact, it's the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world right now. Fastest growing crime in the world.

So it's human trafficking. It's gaining in size. How do we, how do we know that? It's not like they're filing with the SEC.

No, they're not. A lot of it's in the shadows. There's a lot of organizations and agencies that the DOJ puts out stats, the FBI puts out stats. A lot of agencies that are working in the space are on the ground. Some 40 to 45 million slaves via human trafficking worldwide currently, says the International Justice Mission. You go to the Polaris Project, they're a national hotline. They have a lot of stats on there too. So we're talking about billions and billions of dollars changing hands. And one of the things you said earlier that— I mean, that was my understanding too until I, you know, got knee-deep in the work— is it's someplace else. It's Thailand where it's another thing. Well, I mean, it's probably no surprise that the United States of America is the largest producer and consumer of illicit sex content, porn, you know, movies, that I believe, all those things. So, um, the urgent message here— there's many urgent messages, and one is it is happening in your neighborhood. It's happening in all 50 states. Um, I don't know if I'd go so far to say every single zip code, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that it's happening. I know you're based outside of Houston. Houston is a major hub, and so I promise you, uh, it's happening not far away from major hub.

For what?

Trafficking, sex trafficking.

Let's dive deeper into that. So Houston, where, where I am currently, um, and am for another week. So, A, what demographics are actually being— I assume these are kidnappings, is that accurate?

No, that's a great question. There are some kidnappings. There are. So what you mentioned, the movie Taken, which wouldn't be thought of it to be particularly authentic or accurate as far as human trafficking goes. That's a glamorized Hollywood Rendition. I love the movie, don't get me wrong. And I love, you know, Liam Neeson going after and killing everybody that should be killed. I'm in. And so I, I love the relentless pursuit of the father after his daughter, but that's not really how it happens very often, a brazen kidnapping like that. What usually happens is there's a young girl, the average age of entry is about 12 years old, 12, 13. That's the average age of entry into being trafficking for sex. A lot of those kids have already experienced an early childhood abuse. They have already been thought of and acted upon in a sexually violent way by someone close to them, an uncle, a parent, a friend. They have been beaten down in that way. A lot of times then the child welfare system, foster program, DCFS in our neck of the woods, that is what it is called, Department of Children and Family Services. Would take that child out of the home, put them in some kind of a group home, some kind of a foster home to sort of protect them. So that particular child has never seen a healthy male in their life. They've never seen a healthy father figure or father who's loved them appropriately, protected them appropriately. And now when they get to be 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, they can't tell the difference when someone with bad intentions enters their life. And there's a— these are predators. Think about a National Geographic video that you've watched and the lion sneaking around in the shadows, in the dark, in the tall grass, downwind. There's a strategy to it. All the big, strong, confident animals run by. He waits for the, the young, weak one that's fallen behind the pack, and he pounces on that one.

That's his prey.

So in a human form, there's predators like that with a strategy, with a purpose. They're smart, they're not dumb, and they're waiting for the the, the small, slow, isolated one, if you will, sitting on social media, sitting in chat rooms, walking home from school. They can smell the vulnerability. They can see it. And they approach that child. All the while they have terrible intentions. But again, she can't tell the difference because she's never seen a good version of a male.

So great, great tie-in to the message that we pull in here of fathers being engaged and active in their house. I mean, we look at those statistics, not that specific statistic, but you look at poverty, crime rates, uh, you know, school education, abuse rates, teenage pregnancy, STD, like a million different stats. And they all from all sorts of different organizations— census data, prison data, uh, state, university, or individual private organizations. They all say the same thing: when there's a dad present in the home and involved in the home, right, I mean, you're going to make more money, the kids are going to make more money, there's going to be less crime in that neighborhood, there's going to be more— like, everything that's good goes up, everything that's bad Uh, it just, it's such, it's such an obvious trend. And obviously here it is well, when there's a good dad in the home, your kids are less likely to become a victim of trafficking. Now what I'm very curious is what specific methods are they— like you mentioned chat rooms. Chat rooms to me is something that happened, you know, in the early days of the internet. I remember you, you know, always stay off the chat rooms, don't talk to these strangers. I haven't heard the word chat rooms in a while. So what's— I guess what specific tools and methods are they using? Are they using like the PlayStation consoles? Are they using Instagram, the TikTok? What— I assume it's technology-based.

Quite a bit of it is all of the above, all of the different apps, the popular apps that everyone uses every day, Facebook and Instagram. And, you know, there's a million of WhatsApp, all these different Snapchat, a bunch of different apps that are currently being used all the time. The kind of video games that you can play interactively in real time with other people. Someone else in the world is talking to your in, in your, uh, in your ear, your son's or daughter's ear.

And I assume these are, these are predators, adults that have ill intentions pretending to be a child?

Correct. Yes. Yeah, they're, they're someone typically older and they've got a different picture and they're, they're saying different things.

How do we— friends, how do we as parents, uh, you know, besides having a good home, because that makes them less of a target and maybe more, uh, less gullible to these kind of tactics, uh, but how do we have— we as a parent kind of help prevent this from happening? Like, how do we stay on top of— if our kid's on a video game system engaging in— I don't, I don't, I don't do video games, I don't know a lot about this, but I, I know that they communicate somehow. It's almost like its own social network in itself. So like, how do we stay on top of that to make sure they're not interacting with these people? Or can we?

You can. Parents need to be vigilant in this regard. I can't say that strong enough. The FBI recently said 900,000 predators online at any given time. 900,000. And that's an older stat. I actually talked to a survivor recently and she went like this. She thought it was 2 or 3 million. That's just what she said. I don't know what her data was. But the point is, it's infested with predators. The social media platforms, the internet, the games, all of the above. Parents need to be vigilant. When our son was younger and he started wanting to play those games, the shoot 'em up games and and somebody else is talking to him, we're like, wait, what's happening? Like he knew it before we did. And I said, no, that's a hard no. Parents have to get used to saying no and feel comfortable about it. You're not going to play a game with people you don't know. Who's in that right now? They got a couple of his friends. Okay, that's fine. But we're not going to let strangers play. You're not going to play in an open game where anyone can join. It's going to be a closed game where only your friends, people that you know can go. The other thing, depending on how far along Dads are— dads and moms, but this is dad podcast. When it comes time, when you feel like it's the right age for your son or your daughter to have a smartphone, have a phone, get out ahead of it and just communicate a simple paradigm. Okay, little Johnny, Susie, this phone, we're going to give you this phone. Let's clarify something. We bought it. We're going to pay the monthly fee. It's actually our phone. That's how it works. When you buy something, the one who buys it owns it. So we're lending it to you. Aren't we nice? We're giving you this smartphone. And here are the rules about the smartphone. There are certain apps that you're not gonna be able to have on that, on that phone. And because it's our phone, we get to look at it anytime we want. We get to look at it, we get to look at the texting history that you have to be vigilant. And if they don't want to do that, then you say, okay, cool. Well, go ahead and get a phone when you get old enough to get a job and pay for it.

But a couple, a couple tangents there, the monitoring, the monitoring softwares and platforms that they have. They're good. I think they are useful. They are not foolproof. They have weaknesses. They have workarounds. Kids— do not underestimate kids, especially these generations, because they are technologically fluent, probably maybe even more so than mom and dad. I mean, we— our kids, we let them use phones for taking videos, using Facebook Messenger to talk to friends from home, and they have like Sonic games, things like that. They can't download anything. They can't really access anything. There's no internet. Well, there's internet, but there's, uh, they have no free-range access to internet. Like, everything's super strictly controlled. Um, I can see everything they do, all that jazz. I mean, they, you know, they don't have full possession of it. They get it for an hour or two every once in a while.

There you go.

Um, and I mean, unintentionally, my oldest son found a workaround just because the weather app, the widget that you can put on there that is built into it uses a different browser than what that software will control. So it uses an in-app browser that just— it, it escapes the monitoring. So that was almost unrestricted access to the internet. Now, when we found out, he was, he was Googling Sonic characters, so it wasn't, it wasn't malicious at all. But I mean, that, that was us having super control, very restrictive, uh,, I guess, parental oversight and things like that. And still there was a very innocent workaround, but, uh, and that was an 11-year-old who really doesn't know technology that well. So there's definitely— like, you got to be careful. Don't just trust the technology that it's going to take care of everything for you. You need to be more involved in that. And then you went even further to say, uh, which I've gotten pushback for, about the privacy aspect. Like, hey, this is their phone. It's kind of the same thing with their room. Like, you know, you— we don't, we don't go into their room. That's their safe space. And I just, I strongly disagree. I, I, I kind of agree to the safe space to an extent, like they should have a place to go if they're frustrated, they're mad, they can have some alone time. But that doesn't mean it's exempt from mom and dad, uh, doing an inspection or just checking on things, making sure it's okay. It's not a violation of privacy to see if there's anything being hidden. In fact, that's good parenting. I think we're just validating the trust that we've established here. Uh, and I would almost— I, I think I would go as far as to say almost what you did is bad parenting to not be checking, not to be monitoring what's happening on the phone. It is just way too easy, just from not even a trafficking standpoint, from a pornography standpoint. I mean, it is just way too easy, way too tempting. That is a very strong pull. That is a very powerful force, um, that will have implications, big, big ones.

It's a different world., now than say 10, 15, 20 years ago. So I, in my mind, that's an outdated concept or someone who's not really tuned into the dangers of what's actually here. This is not overhype. It's actually here. And, you know, maybe 20 years ago or something when the, you know, maybe the Apple phone didn't exist. I forget when they brought that out, but, um, you know, there just wasn't as much craziness and, and now there's literally predators out there trying to lure your son or your daughter in. And so no, they don't get the cell phone. They don't get a computer in the room. They don't get the cell phone at night when they go to bed. They can't have the phone in there with them. Just some basic stuff. You know, in the spirit of it, it's not— I'm not proposing some kind of oppressive authority, you know, bang the hammer kind of a thing. What my message to dads is to engage, get involved, have a relationship with your child, sit on the couch and watch one one of their shows with them. Don't just turn on the TV and then you go do something on your computer. And you can't do it all the time, but be part of the conversation, the daily conversation. Talk about the why, not just the what. Okay, here's the what: we're going to look at the phone whenever we want, and here's why. Because this, you know, it's all age-appropriate, age-appropriate conversation, age-appropriate language. It's because there's people out there that we don't know who they are, and they're trying to cause problems. And they actually, again, if they want to say this, they actually would like to hurt you. And we want to protect you from that.

Yeah, so really bad people in the world.

There is. Yeah, so that's, that's critical, um, engaging with what's happening. And the current technology says people that you don't know are in your house or in your child's ear. They're showing up on their screens unintentionally. Your son accidentally found the open wide internet. Um, if, if we just start on day one with the open wide internet There's a lot of beautiful things and helpful things on the internet. I'm not anti-internet, but there's a lot of destruction and we're talking legitimate destruction. I mean, good kids from good homes with good parents will get lured down a certain path. And the last kid in the world you'd think, maybe a little girl, a young girl, 12, 13, 14, maybe her friend, her boyfriend that she has an internet relationship with, suddenly she sends a slightly suggestive picture because he's wanting her to do it. And this is a good kid from a good home and she might do that. Now he's got some kind of bribery against her. And if you don't, if you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, I'm gonna post this for everywhere and all of your parents can be embarrassed. And your dad is a pastor of a church, or your dad is a someone known, Little League coach, and all of a sudden I have a picture of you, your daughter, maybe exposing her top. And now she's, now she's in and she's going to have to do whatever he says. That kind of stuff happens on a regular daily basis. That we have to be engaged in.

Yeah, I mean, we've heard stories. I mean, just innocent things of kids, you know, looking up, uh, you know, jokes. Yeah, you know, trying to look funny stuff, you know, you know, and then they say the word butt or something and, or, or type it in, and then all of a sudden, you know, it's just their, their view of the world, their innocence, you know. We took— the organization's called Saving Innocence. I mean, just out the window, gone, completely changed.

The— they say the average age of first exposure pornography is about 8 years old. Oh yeah, think about an 8 or 9-year-old little kid. Their mind isn't in any way, shape, or form ready to take in that kind of image.

That's young.

It's rewiring their view of what sex is, of what it isn't. It's rewiring their view of how they're supposed to treat a little boy. How are you supposed to treat women? Because it's happening on the screen, so I guess that's what I'm supposed to do, right? It's rewiring the brain of little girls. I guess that's what, what I can expect. I guess that's how I'm going to be treated when I get a little bit older. And it's sending everybody down a path that they were never meant to go down. And that's where you need moms and dads, but dads, you guys got to get off the couch and get in the game and, uh, interpret, because we're talking about this in the terms of perspective, in a much macro perspective.

But it really comes down to you, the dad listening, just taking control of your home. There's not much— you know, it's kind of disempowering to talk about all these big statistics and kids being an average age of 8 years old, but you know We can't control our home much more. Um, and that's honestly, that's one of my biggest fears, is one of the reasons I'm glad we're not in a public school, is because like all of our exposure to like, I don't know, bad words and weird things have been from other kids because they've been exposed to it. It's either their normal or it was a shock to them, and so they start telling their friends about it. I'm like, so now they, you know, that, that one kid who got exposed and who is, let's call it innocence, is ripped apart or just his world has been awakened to this other aspect of the world, is now sharing it and kind of, you know, vicariously destroying it for every— all his little social circle. Like, man, and that can happen just, you know, you go to a playground in a park and, you know, two kids are starting to play together, you know, on a swing, going down slides, and, you know, then they start talking and just, you know, it happens. And that sucks. There's not much you can do to control that. It is a little disempowering.

You can't you can't prevent the darkness and the broken people in this world from influencing your kids, the schools they go to, your families, whatever. But you can, you can grow a healthy, strong young woman or strong young man able to take that in, interpret it. You're interpreting it, processing it with her and him, giving them the strength. Let them know what is expected in your home. You can't, you don't, can't control the neighbor's home. But in our home, here's what we're going to do. We're not going to look at these, these kinds of things. I'm going to know if you did it. We're going to talk about it. And that'll go a long way right there of protecting children if there's some expectations and, and inspections, if you will.

And that goes into, you know, we put a lot on this platform of having that type of relationship. That's, that's why we are so aggressive on pushing the message of dads, be involved when your kids are young. Be involved when they're an infant. Create that bonding time. I know it's not always fun. You know, some guys, they just really struggle with the fact that, you know, this thing's kind of a blob and just sits there. But, um, it is a solid investment to play with that kid, to make noises at that kid. Like, that is a real genuine bonding experience, even at the infant ages through the toddler ages. Um, and then to be able to have that type of communication. So if your kid gets exposed to something like that, that they can come to you at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old and have that genuine conversation where they know Dad's not gonna laugh at him, or dad's just not going to ignore him, or, or, you know, be overly aggressive and tell them, hey, don't ever do that, and then end of conversation. Or you can have a real genuine conversation and dad can open up a little bit. And I think that, that is probably the best way to process through an accidental exposure.

Yeah, your, your little boys and your little girls both desperately need to see up close, live, in person an example of what a healthy, strong, appropriately affectionate male looks like. They need to see it because every other image is coming in on social media or the media in general or movies and TV is some typically some kind of a distorted, destructive version in a lot of ways. And so your, your little boys need to say, okay, oh, that's how it's done. So when your little boy sees you take your wife, his mom, out on a date, date night, and explain, here's what we're doing because we love each other, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go treat your mom like a queen. We're gonna go to dinner. She's been wanting to see this movie. They get a babysitter. This is why we're doing it. They need to see that. Your son needs to see how you talk to your wife, how you talk to the waitress at the restaurant, so that they can emulate it. You're the strongest and biggest classroom they'll ever be in. Your little girls, for the same reasons, need to see that same thing because they need to understand, okay, what should I expect out there from a future boyfriend down the road or an eventual husband? Someone who honors and respects and protects women. Yes, that's what I'm looking for. That's the standard. My dad's the gold standard.

So, um, we're tangential off here, uh, or we did. So we were talking about Houston. Houston is a major hub for sex trafficking. So is that like the physical hub where, like, this is where, you know, I don't know, a boat is being loaded and kids are being shipped off? Or is this like, you know, I guess where the, they, the predators live and they just are broadcasting from here? Like, what does it mean that, that Houston is one of the bigger hubs?

It means, uh, there's a lot of trafficking happening in greater Houston area. Um, okay, it's happening in all 50 states, all over the place. Up in North Dakota, in the plains, it's happening. But in the big urban centers, for sure, LA is one of the biggest ones because it's LA. We've had a number of girls be— been trafficked in from Houston, actually, and we've worked with the authorities to get that girl back home to her family because her trafficker, her third-party owner, her controller The trafficker owns his victims in every way you can imagine.

So do they live in the US? I just always assumed they were being shipped off to Europe or somewhere.

No, these are US-born American citizens. That, that's who's being trafficked— our kids from our communities. There certainly is a percentage that comes in, say, over the southern border right now, where it's kind of a disaster. It's happening, people are coming over, but the vast majority of trafficking victims are are kids from our communities. They're not—

and then they're staying in the US?

Yes, they stay right here. This is where all the money is. This is where all the broken men are. It's the largest consumer of the sex industry is right here. They don't have to go anywhere.

It's a—

okay, an environment that's ready to buy sex.

So that's, that's a shock to me because I, I genuinely expected that, you know, maybe the, you know, quote unquote— they're obviously not kidnappings, we just covered that. But those— I, I would have thought those things are happening here in the US. Little kids, you know, Mom's at Target, she's busy with 3 kids, you're able to distract her and grab 1 or 2 and take off. Um, I don't even know if that's a real thing that happens. It was just kind of the image I created in my head. And then you would be shipped off to another country where it's harder to find you. So Europe, uh, an Asia, uh, you know, Middle East or something like that, to, you know, some mega billionaire with a yacht or something. I don't— that's probably all just taken, uh, movie, uh, visuals that I'm taking.

That's Hollywood.

Yeah, so it's happening here.

There's no need to do that. It's happening right here every single day. 300,000 children are being trafficked right here in our country. U.S.-born American citizens, at least 300,000. That number is probably low. It's hard to count them all exactly, but all the best estimates, it's more than 300,000, but that's at least that.

So these girls being trafficked, do they disappear? Do they disappear for life? Is this something where, you know, they're kidnapped at that younger age, that 10, 11, 12, and then we never hear from them again? Or are used for a few years and then just released back to civilization?

Um, tragically, uh, there's a stat that says the life expectancy once a child begins to being trafficked is 7 years unless they're pulled out. So, uh, we, we've had about 10 funerals in this last year, kids at Saving Innocence that we're serving that, uh, have been murdered or otherwise killed. Because of the violent environment that they've been thrust into. There's, there's, there's a manipulation and a brainwashing and a coercion by this trafficker that has convinced her that he loves her, that he's gonna— he's the only one's gonna ever take care of her. And by the way, if you ever leave, I'll kill you. So, so this child has this— not a physical chain, again, not Taken. Get the image, get the movie out. I love the movie, but get that, get that image out. There's not a physical chain around this child. They're not chained to a bed or a radiator or anything like that. There's an emotional chain. There's a chain around the brain, and there's a manipulation version that is causing her to stay. And at some point, law enforcement might be a sting operation will intervene. There's going to be an operation in an undisclosed part of Los Angeles tomorrow that we're going to be part of where there's been a tip from law enforcement. They're going to raid a brothel. And, um, and, you know, we're going to be there to help, help recover these victims. That, um, so, so what kind of environment—

what kind of environment is that? Is that a hotel? Is that a single-family home in like a decent neighborhood? Is that a mansion somewhere? Like a warehouse? Like where— like what type of physical location is that?

Uh, in this particular place, it's a, it's a home in a neighborhood that, uh they've taken over the home and, and, and created a brothel of sorts, and people are coming in. Um, there's a lot of victims that are forced to be working illicit massage parlors. So it's a storefront, it's a massage parlor, and, you know, the, the customer will go in and pay his money, and he's not getting just a massage, he's getting more than that. And, uh, she can't say no. She doesn't want to be there. She's forced to be there. That's her job. She has to do it. Her owner as making her do it. Um, there is a lot—

I'm so surprised those things— I'm so surprised those things exist, especially like after the whole Robert Kraft thing where he got caught. You just think it'd be so easy, you know, every local law enforcement just go to every single massage parlor and, you know, have a secret camera of some sorts and just— you'd figure it out pretty daggum quick. And then as a customer, like, how do you go to it and not think it's a sting operation? I mean, I just— it shocks me that these things exist.

There's, there's a lot of broken men mostly that, uh, are addicted. You know how it is with an addiction, you start getting riskier and riskier, whatever the addiction is. You need more to get the same high, whether it's a substance, in this case a sexual addiction. And, um, you start getting careless and you start showing up places that you shouldn't be. And yeah, then you get arrested, possibly. I went on a sting operation one time and here's all these guys one after the other getting pulled off and getting put in a kind of a holding tank. This glass I'm looking at, they're just kind of dejected, just sitting there like, what are you guys doing? You know, they're on their way home. They didn't know we were going to be there. They were just on their way home. We happened to be there and they pulled over as soon as they saw the decoy on the street, someone that looked like was selling sex. Oh yeah, let's do that. And next thing you know, you know, the cops are converging on them. You said something earlier, who in the world's buying sex? Uh, I can tell you, you know people that are buying sex. That have bought sex. It's, it's the guy next door, it's the pastor of the church, it's the cop, it's the dentist, it's a Little League coach. It's people you wouldn't expect are buying sex in one way, shape, or another. Now, maybe not a child, that's another level, um, but there's a lot of children out there being sold for sex.

Well, so, so we see I guess I do see the demand because like even where we're from in St. Augustine, Florida, they do a lot of stings in Florida, um, where they basically, they'll rent a house for like a month or two, like in a nice neighborhood, you know, upper middle class type of neighborhood, and they'll just set up online stings and they'll basically get guys to come in and the guys will travel to meet this 13, 14, 15, whoever it is, um, a fake per— a fake kid that, uh, it's been a cop. And then these guys, I mean, because I've had friends on that force, well, they'll, you know, it'll just be 10 cops inside the house, guy knocks on the door, after arranging the meet, they opened the door, yanked the guy, you know. Yeah, I think a little—

you've seen it on TV, they do it. It's like ridiculous. And then the same guy will get released and come back the next day where he just got arrested. What are you talking about? I mean, are you seriously that far gone? Um, you know, I think it's important also to enlarge the boundaries of what it means to be a sex buyer. We're talking about the most extreme, furthest down the, the runway of physically showing up on a street in a motel room. But the urgent message I have to men is that you're a sex buyer if you're participating in the commercial sex industry. So a lot of guys will go to a strip club on a Friday night, or any night. They're not actually having sex per se, they're paying money. A lot of these girls are forced to be there stripping. They're performing a, a sexual kind of a thing. You're paying money. You're buying sex. You, you're, you're participating in this, in the commercial sex industry. And then the big one, brace yourself guys, if you're casually or, uh, regularly or in any way, shape, or form viewing pornography, you're participating in the sex industry. In this book that we wrote, Men Fight for Me, We talk a little bit about pornography in a minute in one of the chapters. And what we know is that human trafficking victims, like the kind that we're talking about, that are owned, they're somebody's slave, oftentimes are forced into a motel room or some kind of a movie set or something. They have no choice. They're forced. If they try to run, they're gonna get killed. And then men come in and rape her. One at a time or 20 at a time. That's filmed and uploaded onto a porn site. Now the problem is, fellas, there's no banner on the bottom, consensual sex, highly vetted, this next video you're going to watch, she wants to do this. There's no way to know who's there on their own free will, which is a very small percentage. That might be a newsflash. Most of the women that are in pornography are somehow coerced in some way, somehow forced in some way, somehow manipulated in some way. I know there's some that would say, we want to be there, this is how I'm making my money, I'm an adult. Some will say that, but the majority would not say that. So now, guys, we're sitting in front of the computer or the smartphone after hours, maybe our wife's gone to bed, and we're watching. Maybe we're not even paying, we're some kind of just watching it free. They're monetizing the clicks and the eyeballs of you. You're actually funding this dark beast, and you're literally One of our survivors— it's quoted in the book— one of our survivors says, every time someone's watching that video, they're watching me being raped. And there's millions of views on this particular video that she was in. And that's— it's infested. The porn industry is infested with those kinds of stories, one after the other.

So, so I've always wondered, like, who's— so you talk about the monetization of it. So, and obviously we know, you know, on websites, on online media, clicks equal dollars, because the more traction you have, the more you can sell your ad base for. But then I'm sitting there thinking, like, who, who's possibly advertising on these things? Like, Dove shampoo, or if they even make shampoo, like, is not— I, I couldn't imagine that they're advertising. You know, Hilton Hotels is not advertised, Ford's not advertising. So, like, I just don't know what kind of company is even advertising on these sites to where they can make money. It's— I would just think it's like another porn site, but then, like, if it's all just porn sites, then how are they making any money? Unless people are like genuinely subscribing and they actually pay, and that's big money that way. Yeah, I just don't know.

Yeah, you know, I'm not deep in that world on purpose. I don't know their business model exactly. I just know by us watching porn in any way, shape, or form, the majority of them— many, many, many, many— and you have no idea knowing which one, are they're literally being raped or literally they're against their will, and that's called pornography. Yeah, so, so guys, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of great guys watching this podcast right now and you're following, and I'm sure there's a lot of them that are dabbling in porn, if not down a road.

Number one, uh, number one addiction in America, and I think it's fastest growing as well. If last article I read, it was probably about 3, 4 years old.

Well, that, you know, the wonderful technology that we talked about already has made porn so accessible. You know, in the old days you have to sneak up and pull up and find a magazine under your dad's bed or something. Now it's 24/7. Screaming at you at any age. And a lot of these people in the films, honestly, most of them are there in some way, shape, or form against their will. So guys, we got to be better than that. We literally are— we're going to sit and find some kind of enjoyment or some kind of satisfaction watching somebody get raped?

Sure. So, so the, uh, the data that I've read— it wasn't even that, I think it was tactics. I mean, I follow a couple, um, I don't know what you would call them, maybe like anti-porn crusaders or whatever, uh, right, uh, just on Instagram. But the trends that tend to happen there are, it starts off innocent enough, it starts off just exploring, um, you know, trying to take your relationship to the next level, trying to, you know, use as an education tool, whatever it is, or just self-gratification. But you're going to have, I think you mentioned earlier, you know, it takes more and more to get that high, to get that excitement, that, that immense dopamine release in your brain from the enjoyment of it, it's going to be harder and harder to replicate that. It's very similar to drugs, you know, you try heroin and oh my gosh, it feels so good, like this is right. And then it, you know, years down the road, it's just, you're pumping so much into your vein just to try and replicate that first high that you'll never get again. It's just, it's impossible. It's such a massive release and reception of dopamine. And I think it's dopamine, I might be misspeaking there. Um, but so then the, the trend of the pornography you're watching, because, you know, the innocent stuff or the educational stuff you were watching is no longer effective for you, so it eventually goes down this, uh, I don't know, this path of like more aggressive. And then you are, you know, years later you end up watching the rape stuff and that's how you're getting off, that's how you're enjoying, that's how you're getting a dopamine release. And just it gets worse and worse. So then you become one of those guys. So great reason not to even start or to cut yourself off. Um, yep. And there are organizations out there, I think, that will help combat it. And then I think the next thing I read in the similar space is that because of that same theory of it's hard, it's such an overstimulation to your brain, an overstimulation of the, you know, the dopamine receptors and the actual chemical release, that your performance in the real act of sex, right, then becomes greatly affected to where you almost eventually will get to a point to where you cannot perform without medication, um, or without, you know, a more aggressive form of pornography in the future, which is, I would think, the last thing any guy wants, right?

Yeah, no, that's pretty soon. Like, you're exactly right. Pretty soon down that path, you, you eventually can't even get an erection yourself because it doesn't match what you've— because your brain has become conditioned to. And, um, They know that studies would say that as someone goes down that addiction, what it means is they start going to younger and more violent sites and videos. Younger and more violent. Uh, the, the word with the most searches within the porn websites and world is teen. People are looking for teenagers, but more than anything else, younger and more violent. And again, whether you're addicted or you're just looking at it once in a while, what I'm here to say is that you're most likely looking at non-consensual sex. And that's called rape. And, um, we got to be better than that. We got to protect our kids. We got— I mean, we got to build a fortress around the porn world of your 8, 9, and town hall— you said 11-year-old son, I think what you said. Maybe you said that. You got to build a fortress and be a vigilant dad. This is worth it because the benefit of neuroscience now in today's medicine and technology, there's literally a rewiring of the brain when someone goes down that path and and changes the way you think and perceive things. And it's a battle worth fighting for sure.

Yeah, 100%, I agree, uh, for who you, who you want your kid to become. Because I think, I assume there's a segment of the population, because, you know, I've worked in some rough fields, you know, if you're in the construction trades, it's just some of the guys that work construction are just a different breed. I mean, rough crowd, um, Some guys are great, uh, just there are a lot of almost scummy type people that are in that labor force, um, and I wouldn't want my kid to end up like them. And I feel like those kind of people wouldn't maybe mind their kids being exposed so much because, so what, it's just sex, you know, who cares, um, you know, I do it, it doesn't affect you, uh, or it's good or whatever it is.

I—

so early, I, I feel like it even goes beyond innocence to you're really impacting the kind of man they can be for their wife, for their kids. Uh, and I, I just, I don't know how to put that in words. I can kind of have this visual in my head of like, you know, what I want for them, and, and this, that is not it. And I, I don't know how to verbalize that here.

Well, yeah, I mean, do you want your son to grow up and become an abuser of other people? Because that's what's happening, or facilitating abuse, or witnessing the abuse. We want our sons to be strong men who stand in the way of those that need protection, stand in the way. We're going to be disruptors of abuse, not facilitators of abuse. That's who you want your sons to be. That's who we want to be. We want to be that, and we want our sons to be that. And now, Turner, you have a little girl. I know there's boys and girls involved in every angle of everything we're talking about, but most of these victims are young little girls. And if you have a daughter, do you want your daughter— of course you don't— but do you want your daughter to grow up in a world where other little boys are growing up and, and they've been conditioned to abuse little girls as they get older? No, this is not anything that we want. It's not how it should be, and it's not who, who we should be. And dad's presence is critical in the family unit.

Yeah, there's so much to tangent off here because I was just giving this some thought the other day of like, okay, so like, you know, obviously I am more of the the rigid classic Christian conservative values, those kind of things. And I was trying to think of like a way to explain that because, you know, a lot of my following is not— they just, they, they don't mind it. They, they were raised differently, they were exposed to different things earlier. And yeah, I haven't quite clarified what that speech looks like yet, but it's going to be something along the lines of like, surely as a guy, as a man You know, part of me says it would be a lot easier and more— in a small, not accurate extent— more satisfying to not stay in this marriage, to not really care about my kids as much, to not be a, you know, a quote-unquote good man in this way. It might be more fun short-term, uh, to just go out and have as much sex as possible with as many women as possible, to indulge in porn to an excessive extent, or even just a little bit of an extent. Like, it's almost the trend that the world's going is almost works in the favor of men at their maybe a raw natural pool, because sex is such a powerful force. And so yeah, maybe there's some enjoyment to that, you know, screw the marriage, divorce, you know, or never get married in the first place and go out and hook up with as many chicks as possible, you know. So I'm I haven't frameworked that speech yet of why I believe so wholeheartedly of what we're doing is right to stay in a marriage, to push through the hard times, to be the father that stays engaged with his kids and his family and raises them with these same values. Because it is more challenging at times. It's almost— it'd almost be easier to get divorced. It'd be easier just to go out and jump on Tinder and hook up with people. It'd almost be easier to not raise your kids and just go live your own life however the way you want, bouncing between bars and drinking and hanging out and chilling and you know, we'll survive, we'll figure it out. It's almost easier to live that way, but it creates a much better world, a better society. And at a very real level, it is way more satisfying to have gone through the harder path and how we live life. So I haven't quite framework that speech yet, but I was just thinking about it the other day on how to process it. But, you know, because it's almost the path of a whole lot more resistance and the more difficult path, and you have to almost convince people to go that way. Um, but it is genuinely a better path in my world. I don't know if you wanted to speak into that at all.

Well, 100%, you're talking about being countercultural. There's a, there's a tidal wave of a culture in our country, in the world, but our country, that is promoting all the things you just talked about, uh, the, the negative path. And now we're, we need as men to step up and swim against that current and teach the men in our life challenge the men in our community to join us in that swim. And then those, the children that we have responsibility for, show them this is the direction we're going. We know that the people over there across the street or in your school or wherever else, they're not going that way. This is how we're going. And a present dad doing it, leading by example, is going to make all the difference. You know, in our book we talk about, which by the way, it's at fightforme.net, is a little website. Invite all your listeners to go check it out. Um, partnered with a bunch of survivors of trafficking and they're bringing it to life. And I'm talking to men Uh, but we're talking about authentic masculinity and some of what you just said, um, reminded me of that. We've identified 4 pillars. I did this with my son when he was young and some buddies and sons the same age. And we said, there's no definition. Like, what does it mean to be a man? No one knows. There's no agreed-upon definition. Um, is it a certain age? Does that make you a man? Is it you had sex the first time? That's a man. The most person, you know, whatever. So we came up with our definition and we taught our young boys. And number 1, the number 1 pillar is He accepts responsibility. So yeah, it would be easier to pull out of your marriage. It would be easier to let your kids flounder. It would be easier to have you go bounce around to strip clubs and porn and do whatever. But we're going to accept responsibility as a husband and a father. Number one, we're going to accept those responsibilities. We're not going to run from them. Two, he leads courageously. We're gonna need courageous leaders to step up. Lead in your family, lead in your neighborhood, lead in your city. Step into leadership going in the right direction. 3, he lives a life of service. He serves those around him. It starts in his home, starts with his wife and his kids and his family, his neighbors. And then 4, he understands that who he is internally— character, integrity, honesty, follow-through, all the stuff inside— is more important than the outward. More important. Choose whatever job you want to choose, do whatever you want to do out in the world, make your way. Great, we're going to cheer you on. But just know that inside, who you are as a man is more important than whatever it is that you choose to do.. And we celebrated those 4 things when we saw them. We, we, we corrected when we didn't. We got together and watched movies that reinforced them. Maybe, um, if we can get a bunch of men— like, we get across a tipping point to be accepting responsibilities, all of them, to lead courageously. It's going to take courageous leadership to tell your buddies they should stop watching porn. It's going to take courageous leadership to do all those things, to serve your community. Serve your family, and then to be laser-focused that the interior is more important than the outside. And that's a world I want to live in. There's no room for trafficking in that world. There's no room for abuse, otherwise kinds of abuse in that world. We have enough men living that way. And that's part of the urgent message from this book. And anytime I can have a platform and a voice like you're lending us today, thank you, um, that I'm trying to challenge men to wake up, look in the mirror. Spoiler alert, it starts with you, men. You want to change the world? Start in your own home and, uh, change your marriage and your family, and you'll be well on the way.

100%. Uh, and dads— a dad being home and involved, uh, you know, that's the key ingredient on— we talked about earlier— on every statistical, um, survey that's ever been done. And I'm just looking at some notes here that I have, uh, on one of my speeches. And it's, you know, the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, the CDC, uh, National Center for Educational Statistics, Department of Corrections, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, you know, a ton of different states and university studies. National Fathers Initiative does a great job collecting that kind of data. And a dad being home and involved in his family, uh, statistically on a very macro level and dramatic improvements, will reduce crime in the— in, in that community, reduces poverty in that community by more than half, reduces the burden on the welfare system. You have huge reductions in suicide rates and mental health issues, behavior issues, substance abuse, huge reductions in obesity, STDs, infant mortality, teenage pregnancy. We can, you know, when dads are involved, it increases the number of volunteers and charitable giving in the community. You know, the average income in the neighborhood in that community improves. It improves school grades and improves school attendance, graduation rates. More kids go to college. Home values and community engagement. I mean, taxes go down in those communities because the police and the jails and the prisons are not as overburdened. Burdened. Welfare programs are less needed. Healthcare systems are less burdened. I mean, yeah, that, that is real hard data done over decades and decades, repeatedly, repeatedly, same message— dads being involved. And now we can add to that list, and I'm definitely going to— human trafficking. 100%. They can't try— the kids from good homes with fathers are not being trafficked. So that means your home You're, you know, we're talking to dads right now. So your friends, the buddies you hang out with at work, your social circle, the guys you can have an influence on, holding those dads accountable to be involved, to stay in the homes, to not leave, not abandon them, and to represent a good man as Allen just described what a good man should be. I thought those were 4 great pillars to manhood. So it's a discussion we've had many times on, you know, what is a man, you know, and that definition is completely up in the air. Same thing with masculinity.

Um, well, and just let me add to what you just said, Townsend, is that, um, uh, when a dad isn't present, not only is the, a young child susceptible being the victim, this is where the young traffickers and the young predators are born out of. They got a typically a little boy— there's a girl involved too— the little boys, now he's looking for his cues. What does it mean to be a man? And they're coming from a place where they need stuff. I need to survive. I've heard that. I sat down in the book, I sat down with a former trafficker. So tell me your story. He's like, and he told me about, didn't know where his dad was, wasn't present. Mom was addicted to something. They were homeless, sleeping in a car. He's all, I needed to survive. And this is the path that was around him was selling girls. That's how he started making a lot of money. Now, not excusing him in any way, but there is You can back all that up. If he had a dad in his life providing some accountability and some leadership, some structure, I bet he wouldn't have gone down that path.

Dads can change the world. I mean, so literally, dads can change the world. And it starts with the dad listening to this one, him being involved, one dad at a time, and then going beyond that and making sure you're still so good— your brothers, your, your— the guys that work, the guys in your neighborhood, and not just, you know, I think dads are kind of that, that population where we're a little bit more quieter. We're not, we're not going to be as outspoken to the dad that's not being involved with this. It gets— it's kind of doing the wrong thing, and that probably needs to change. I think we need to talk up being a good masculine father and a present father and make that the new high standard, set the bar high and almost peer pressure our male peers to achieve that and not let it be a scapegoat, not let them get away with not doing it.

Yeah. Well, and it's almost taboo or politically incorrect to even say masculine. It's the sort of the winds of the society out there are attaching toxic masculinity and you almost, it's almost, you almost can't be a strong man anymore without getting a bunch of heat.

You can. That shift is happening, um, even the last couple years. It's happening in the fatherhood space as well, but it's a small shift, but it's gaining steam.

Yeah.

Um, and we are combating against that type of mentality, which definitely was out there and still is out there. And we get that every once in a while. Our comment section will come under, uh, attack by, right, by those kind of thinkers. Okay, well, listen, that was a great one. We pushed past a little bit past the 45-minute mark. We're trying to hold these podcasts down to. Otherwise, I enjoy these conversations so much, they end up being 2 hours and nobody wants to listen to them. So, uh, Alan, I, I think you already had a great wrap-up there, uh, uh, in a summary, but let's go ahead and tell people on how they can support you, obviously buying the book and, and going to the savinginnocence.org, I believe it is. So tell them how to reach you the accurate way, not just what I said, and then how they can support you.

Savinginnocence.org is the agency I lead. We're based in Los Angeles. We train and consult around the country. Go there, poke around, watch the videos, learn about trafficking. We learned a lot today if you listened, but there's more there. Fight4me.net, which by the way, the words of survivors said, I needed someone to fight for me. I could no longer fight for myself. I needed someone to fight for me. And so my challenge to men is to get in the fight. Go to fight4me.net, buy the book, proceeds go to survivors of trafficking. So buy a case, everyone. It's for sale on Amazon. You can buy it at the website or go straight to Amazon. Buy one for all the men in your life and have a book club. Meet once a week, talk each chapter, talk it through. Get your boys involved depending on how old they are. And you can contact me through that website, fightforme.net. There's a contact button and an email will come directly to me. I'd love to have a conversation, a dialogue with anybody who had further questions. But those are the two places I send you to go. Uh, this is a winnable battle. We just need more men to step up and get in it.

Beautiful. Alan Smith, the author of the book Men Fight for Me and Saving Innocence. Thanks for coming on. This is a 100 Dad production. You must visit our website at 100dad.com, 100dad.com. Find us on TikTok and Instagram at 100 Dad, @100dad. And as always, email Townsend at 100dad.com. Now hit that subscribe button.