402 - How Pornography Fuels a Culture of Abuse w/ NCOSE VP of Research, Lisa Thompson

Foreign. Hello, good listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal, trauma and breaking free from compulsive sexual behavior. Today is episode 402, and here joining me as my co host for this series is Mrs. Ashley Jamison. Ashley, welcome back to the podcast.

Happy to be here. Happy to be unpacking these very intense topics with you.

Yes, unpacking. That was a very good pun that you threw in there. What most of our listeners won't know is between now and the last time you were a co host, you have moved like all the way across the country. So I don't know if you want to comment on that or we can just leave it there, but you're in a totally different location than you were last time.

I am. I mean, as most of our listeners know, we're making a company wide move to Nashville. We're very excited. I have landed. I can see boxes from my desk and I'm here.

Yeah, that's awesome. We are joking that, like now Ashley's front yard is the address for our Nashville office because she's the first employee there. She's forging the way for us. And yeah, thank you for being a part of today's conversation, which I thought was a really important one. So today is part two of three in a series that we're doing that we're calling the Other side of the Screen. And what we've been looking at is the impact that pornography use has on other people and really on our world at large. And I think today's conversation was great because we really got to interview an expert, truly an expert from the national center on Sexual Exploitation, one of their VPs, and it's Lisa Thompson, who's a part of their research division. And we had a great conversation with her just about the connection between pornography and all other forms of exploitation. So tell our listeners a little bit, Ashley, about what they might expect from today's conversation.

Well, I think, I think this is a blanket statement for this whole series, like trigger warning, take care of yourself. If you're a betrayed spouse, if you've been sexually exploited, if you're, if you're maybe new in your recovery or even not new in your recovery and find yourself feeling triggered, then, you know, think about what you need. Maybe you need to pause and not listen to this episode yet. Maybe you need to listen to it and then process what you're feeling with somebody. So, you know, just, just be mindful that our, our topics get to the point and they're very real. And so that's what I did appreciate about Lisa is she is not sugarcoating anything about the seriousness of pornography. And for some of us who have had struggles, there could be a level of shame even listening to how she's describing how bad pornography actually is. And she kind of emphasizes, you know, that it's not the lead into things, but it in itself is bad. And so I just appreciate it. Appreciated how candid she was and how honest she was and how she explains the connectedness of all the things sexual exploitation and trafficking. So give yourself grace, keep doing the work and if you're feeling any strong feelings, make sure you reach out to somebody after the episode.

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. That for some of us this is a hard conversation because we don't like to think about that maybe my porn use or my sexual addiction contributes to those kind of things. And it's like, that's the ugly, messy part of this. I want to look away, but part of that is what we need to pay attention to and say we want to look away from it because we don't like to acknowledge this reality. And I think that's what today's conversation is really about, is painting a picture of reality that pornography is not this victimless thing of just airbrushed models. It is a very insidious, dark, painful part of what's happening in our world. And in any degree, if we're participating in it, we need to have our eyes open to that reality. So if you're someone like me and like Ashley, that's been a part of being a struggler and in our lives inadvertently or unintentionally consuming pornography. We've been a part of this world and we want to name it for what it is and then be a part of creating health in our world and in our society. And so, listener, I think you're going to get a ton out of this conversation. Let me tell you a little bit more about Lysa Thompson before we jump in. Lisa serves as a Vice President for the national center on Sexual Exploitations Research Institute, where she oversees NCOZI's efforts to harness the power of data to create a world free from sexual abuse and exploitation. In her role, Lisa conducts analysis on a wide range of issues related to sexual abuse and exploitation, such as the impacts of sexual objectification, pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, image based sexual abuse, and consumer level demand for prostitution on individuals and Society. Founded in 1962, NCOZI is the leading national nonpartisan organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation, exploitation such as child abuse, child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking, and the public health harms of pornography. And so now here is our conversation with Lisa Thompson on unmasking how pornography fuels a culture of abuse. Lisa, welcome to the podcast. So great to have you with us today.

Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here.

We have really been looking forward to this conversation and helping our audience really connect the dots between things that happen in sexual addiction, people struggling with pornography, and what's going on in our world in the greater story of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. And you know, no one sits at the center of that more than you guys do at the national center on Sexual Exploitation or in Cozy as many of us call it. And so let's dive into that. Can you share a little bit about the connection between pornography and sexual exploitation? What do people often misunderstand about this link?

Right. Well, I guess the first thing I would start out with is the fact that pornography is exploitation. So it's not just about a link, it is itself a form of exploitation. Particularly when we think about, I think we need to kind of reframe how we conceptualize pornography. It's really a form of prostitution. Okay. We're talking about people who are engaging in sex acts for paying. That's what the majority of, you know, that's the majority of pornography that is out there. Obviously some of the pornography is made, you know, like with children. So that's a different kind of scenario. Maybe people pay for it, but the children themselves are being sexually abused in the production of that. But when we're talking about pornography that's featuring adults who are in the industry, it's a form of prostitution. And the thing about that, that makes it exploitive, one of the things is the fact that it's paid for. Because truly authentic wanted sex is not something you pay for. Right? So that payment for sex equals coercion. So you get that you've introduced coercion, an element of coercion into the sex act that makes it exploitive. So pornography itself is exploit, is sexual exploitation. Moreover, when you think about the sex that's happening within pornography, it's really missing like hallmark features that you would need to have for, for the sex acts to be non exploitive. So things like mutuality of pleasure or sexual responsibility towards the other person and actually just even meaningful consent. How can the consumer of pornography ever have really know that the person that they're consuming, that they're Seeing using on the screen is. Has really consented. You can't, you cannot know that unless you know that person. And then if you have a relationship with them and you've negotiated that yourself, you know, you've built a relationship and you. They have agreed to have sex with you. That's meaningful consent. You can't do that with the screen in between or with third parties who are brokering that relationship, who might be exploiting that person, and you don't know it. Or moreover, you don't know the background of that person. What are the factors that have led them to engage in the sex trade, to become part of the pornography industry? What kind of history is there? Is there a history of childhood sexual abuse? Is there a history of early childhood exposure to pornography? These are all things that can, you know, lead a person down a certain trajectory that then you. They. We have a culture, a culture that's really grooming people to take part in the sex trade. Um, it's like a super groomer. It's conditioning people to participate in pornography. So, I mean, I'm. I'm not saying that there is never any. That there aren't ever any people who do meaningfully consent to participate in pornography, but I am saying that it's highly exploitive and that as a consumer of pornography, you really can't know because you. You don't have a relationship with that individual. Anything that you do have would be brokered by, between huge Internet distances, third parties that you don't know. So that's the first thing I would say about your question. I don't know if you want to feedback on that before I go on to address it further.

I think you're making an important point that pornography is a form of exploitation. And I think that's also why this conversation is so important that we're having it. Because for many people that get sucked into pornography, there's a rationalization of what they're doing and a minimizing to say, well, at least it's not that. But I think if we have this awareness that says, well, I'm entering into the spectrum of sexual exploitation, and sure, there are varying degrees where it becomes more and more exploitive and illegal and harmful to individuals, but it's all still on the spectrum. And the question I think we ought to ask ourselves is, why would I allow myself to participate in a behavior that I know is a part of exploiting other human beings? And again, we don't like to think of it that way. We'd rather just say, well, this is just. I'm just looking at women online, but it's like, no, this is all. All a part of what you referred to as, like, this much larger issue that is happening in our world. And if, if we're aware of that, then I think we start to have some of the motivation to change and not just accept something to be a benign behavior that isn't hurting anyone because it is a form of exploitation.

Now, this is huge. There's so much. Over the last several decades, there have been. There's been such a normalization of pornography.

Yes.

As something that's just normal. Everybody does it. It' big deal. It's just fantasy. You can. There's a. There's a list of things that way people normal. Normalize it. But I think it's important when we reframe it, when we actually really look at it closely from all its facets and see it for what it is as a form of prostitution, it's just at a remove. Like, you know, in normal prostitution, I should. Maybe not normal, but sort of the wrong word. But like in. In prostitution, in the. In the typical physical world that most that we inhabit, you know, it's a personal exchange between people who are in the same space. But with pornography, it's able to be, you know, especially now with the Internet, it's at a remove. So there's a. There's an intermediary, but there's still this exchange. There's still sex acts. A sex act is being performed, and it's being performed for payment, even if you don't pay for it. Right. So the whole model that's been operating for quite some time now, this freemium pornography model, where. Where vast quantities of pornography are free, but that's all to entice the user to come in deeper, to engage in the paid material.

That's right.

So, you know, these people aren't doing it for free, they're doing it for money. And that money is coercive. Right. It's. It's a fact. Because, like, this person would ask yourself, would this person be having sex with you in person? Would this person only have sex with you if you paid for it? If that. The answer is yes. The only way they would ever have sex with you is because you paid them. Then that's. That's coercive. That's exploitation.

Yeah.

Ask yourself, what do you know about this human being? What do you know about them other than their porn name? Right. You might. You can see their physical appearance, but you don't know about their identity, their Their childhood, how they grew up, how they're feeling, what their birthday is, what their favorite col. Just like, really? Do you know them at all? No. And that's another, like, serious red flag, because engaging in sex should be an act of intimacy between people who at least have some level of caring between each other. You know, not complete strangers. That's impersonal sex. That is a major red flag. Something that is dangerous and. And harmful behavior both to yourself and to the person that you're engaging with that in. So it definitely, we have to rethink, you know, reframe the discussion around pornography from something that's harmless and a joke to something that's really serious and exploitive to the people who both use it and who are used in the production of it.

I think you're making a really, really good point about pornography itself being exploitive. And so you kind of touched on, like, okay, so when we think of people being exploited, we think of sex trafficking, prostitution, those kinds of things. It's all exploitive. But how does pornography contribute and fuel those riskier, more violent, more known ways that we think of sex trafficking? How does it connect and how does it fuel that?

Yeah, I guess the one thing I would. I would make a little caveat right there. I. I wouldn't say that it's. That's. That those other forms of exploitation are necessarily risky or next are necessarily absolutely worse. I mean, there's a lot of horrible exploitation and sex trafficking that even goes on within the pornography production industry. Okay. So we. I don't want to create like a tier of, you know, one is worse than the other. But I think to get to your point, Ashley, about how they intersect and interconnect, you can kind of behind me that there's a graphic that, that the national center on Sexual Exploitation, we worked a long time on kind of. We wanted to create a visual that gave people an idea of the. What we call the web of sexual abuse and exploitation, to show how one form of sexual exploitation can connect, to, fuel, feed into other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation. And, you know, pornography is really the. The. I would say the touchstone of so forms. It's. It's like the foundation where so many other. The webs, you know, legs on the spider come out, whether it's for something like child sexual abuse being pornography being used to groom children by. By predators who want to sexually use children, and they show them pornography in order to disinhibit them, to expose them to what sex is and to help them to. To know what they expect them to do as in like, oh, isn't, see these people doing this in this picture? Isn't this, doesn't this look great? Let's do this. So pornography is a very powerful tool for perpetrators who want to groom children. And in fact, I mean really, the sad reality is today that our society has become so pornified that the job of predators has become much easier because the, the, there's so much pornography out there that children can see themselves as children stumbling onto it online. Then they start emulating those behaviors, right. They start self sexualizing themselves and they start self generating pornography and they start sharing it. I mean this is a child sexual perpetrator's dream. And then the children share it, right? They share it. They might because one kid, one minor sends it to another minor and then one minor thinks, oh well, how funny, I'm going to send this to the other kids. So it gets, it gets distributed among other children and then somebody gets it, some adult sees it and it gets uploaded to major pornography sites. So today the irony is that a lot of the child predators don't actually have to produce a lot of the content that is on like dark websites because it's self produced material. The Internet Watch foundation has reported on that repeatedly how huge quantities of self produced material that children have created of themselves and shared with others has ended up on these child pornography platforms. Child, I should say child sexual abuse material platforms online.

And I would imagine much of that without a parent's awareness. Things that are happening behind their backs that then lead to these incredible horrific problems.

Yeah. And I guess for clarifying a clarifying question, I am a true crime podcaster and video, you know, like watch all that. And so what I was wondering too, just since this is your world that you live in. Almost every case I've seen and what I mean by, what I mean by riskier and more violent, not necessarily that porn isn't risky and violent, especially dark web stuff and how, how terrible that is. But in almost every case I've read about or seen or article where somebody was abducted or, or raped violently or something, most the time you were able to see that the perpetrator was viewing pornography and at some point then stepped out of viewing pornography and acted out with her, just like you were saying with the kids that they can use it as a grooming tool to say, hey, let's try this. But then also people are consuming violent porn and saying, I want that now. I want the, I want the real thing. I don't want to watch anymore. I Want to go do it.

Right.

So that kind of connection you've, you've.

Touched on a very interesting topic, which is the, the escalation that can happen in pornography consuming behaviors. So if we roll back, you know, a couple decades, maybe three decades, and people are consuming pornography at the, you know, begin at the beginning of the Internet, you know, a lot of that stuff was still images. We had slow dial up connections. Right. It wasn't as graphic as it is now. Like now everything is so vivid. It's so real. It's, and it's incredibly powerful visual stimulus that we're, that people who are looking at this stuff get. It's, it's a very powerful visual stimulus. And I really think we should start thinking about pornography as, as a, as a consumable. Just like as if you would be eating your dinner and you're, you know, having your, I don't know, your cheeseburger. Whatever it is you're having for dinner, you've consumed, you know, you've taken it into yourself by eating it. You're consuming pornography visually and you're, it's a diet, It's a, it's a diet that you can put into yourself. And as you put in more and more and more, you get tired. Right. I mean we all, we all don't want to eat the same thing every day, do we? We get tired of eat, you know, nobody's going to want to eat, I don't know, trying to think of something that you wouldn't want to eat. Asparagus every day.

Anything. Anything every day. Yeah.

Most of us want variety in our, in our diet. And so the, the same kind happens with pornography. You consume whatever you started out with and. Okay, yeah, that's, it's not having the same reward.

Yeah.

In our brains it's not giving us the same level of satisfaction. So we start venturing out to try new other things. So whether it's, you know, we're eating food or we're consuming pornography, so the pornography consumer begins exploring. And plus today there really is, there's, there's so few margins. I mean, like what do. I mean, there's there so these, so many niches and fetishes are all feeding into mainstream forms of pornography. That's very easy for a consumer to start going down this trail that leads into harder, more extreme material in very little time. And so even today, like children, like for instance, there was a survey, I can't remember if it was 2023, I think it was in 2023, of like over 1300 kids. It wasn't a nationally representative study, but it was a survey of a, you know, a large group of kids and more than 73% of them had seen pornography. And these kids were 13 to 17 year olds. Okay. More than 73% had seen pornography. But what was, I think one of the more startling things was that more than 50% of them had seen forms of violent pronouns, like something that was violent, somebody being choked, somebody that, somebody that seemed like they were in pain, or even something that seems like it was depicting rape. Yeah, 53% of the group that had seen pornography said they had seen something like that. So of course that's going to be conditioning them to think that that's normal sex.

Yeah.

So, I mean, there's just so many problems here because it's, it's conditioning these children to, it's changing their whole sexual template about what's attractive, what's normal. It's, it's a sexual socialization when you consume this stuff. This is the way that society, it's, the message that they're getting is, oh, this is how we have sexual relations in our world. This is what it's supposed to look like. And then of course they, they're going to emulate that with each other when they do, you know, have relationships with each other. And that's really sad because, I mean, can you, I can't imagine if that, if I, if I, I try to think back to my childhood and if, if the situation was like, I mean, it just blow, blows my mind was, I know what kids are seeing and I can't imagine how hard it is to grow up in this environment and to navigate, you know, boy girl relationships or intimate relationships when you've got this type of stuff circulating around you.

Yeah, I think this topic of escalation is such an important one because as I look at the graphic behind you, and by the way, a good shout out, if you aren't watching our YouTube video channel and seeing it there, you'll have to go and check it out. So you know what we've been referring to. But on that graphic, I think the reality is that everybody has drawn a line somewhere where they've said, well, I'm comfortable with this level. Maybe it's objectification. Maybe they've allowed provocative images on social media into their life or they're into pornography or into more progressive pornography or wherever it is. I think people say, well, up to this line, I'm not that concerned about. But then what happens in the work we see as we work with People in addiction and who come into our groups, every single one of them at some point ends up saying, I crossed a line I never thought I'd cross. And that doesn't mean they've all ended up in extreme form of something illegal. But I just think there's something in our human nature, and you're describing it, that in escalation, what we've been viewing isn't creating the same hit or the same dopamine payoff. And we go further and deeper, and that's the nature of this battle. And so if we recognize it and say, oh, there is a place I'm comfortable with, but it leads to the next place that I'm not comfortable with, then I need to take some really proactive steps to get off of this spectrum. To say, I'm not okay with objectification. I'm not okay with exploitation at any level, because I know where it goes and that's where it pulls people. And whether I think I'm ever going to end up there personally or not, I've got to have enough awareness and enough wisdom to look at what's happening in our world and say, this is what happens to people. And if I want to avoid going to those other places, then wherever I'm at currently, I need to deal with that here and not wait for it to cross the line. Because like I said, I then in groups have the people saying, I never thought I'd be here, but I crossed that line. And it's simply their brain craving the next hit or the next thing that will make them feel what they felt at some other point. And to just name that and call it what it is, I think is incredibly helpful.

Wow, that's such a great observation. And I guess too, I would think so there is that. There's the escalation in terms of what they consume online, but then kind of what you were getting at too, Ashley, There is a certain segment of those people who like. Like what Nick was saying, will cross over a line into other types of behaviors. And so for some, that will be in becoming a sex buyer, engaging and, you know, purchasing somebody in person for sex. And that, of course, fuels sex trafficking. Right? Because the whole. I mean, we need prostitution. There's basically, there's It's a system and there's different market ways that that system. It's a system for delivering sex for people who want to buy it. And there's different places that you can intersect with that marketplace. It can be online through pornography. It can be in person at a massage parlor. That's you know, really a sex establishment, a prostitution place. It could be a strip club, it could be on the street corner someplace. So it's an organized system of sexual exploitation that has these fronts that exist all throughout our society. And sadly, the biggest front is our computer screen where, where we're consuming the part where people consume pornography. But in terms of the engaging in online, in re real world, physical purchase of another person. Yeah, for sure. We've, there's research that, that shows that pornography can create as much as a three times. If you're a consumer of pornography, you're three times more likely to buy sex. Now the issue is when you're buying sex in that world world, in the physical world marketplace, there's not enough people to ever meet the demand. Right. So there's this big demand that exists and now it's a gigantic demand because we have such a huge cons, you know, so many people consuming pornography that even if a small percentage of those end up escalating to the point of purchasing somebody, a person in real numbers, it's a giant, it would be a gigantic number because of how many people globally are consuming pornography. So then you have pornography as this accelerant. So it's, it escalates you personally within what you consume online. It sticks. Then it also fuels, it accelerates the demand for people to consume through prostitution. And then to meet that demand, you're going to have people trafficked into the sex trade to fill that demand. That's how it works. Because a lot of people, a lot of people do not want to get into that. Right. If, if they did, there wouldn't be any need for coercion. There wouldn't be need to go snatch people, force them, compel them for, you know, coercive through a variety of means to engage in prostitution. But because it's something that we recognize, a lot of people have no interest in making themselves, you know, basically available for serial sex over and over and over. They. It's dependent upon traffickers to fill the demand.

Yeah, yeah. What I hear you saying, Lisa, is that it's all a part of the same system. And if we don't like where it leads, then we need to work to dismantle the system. And that's so much. I think what Incozi is doing and why we wanted to hear from you today is to really think through all these things. And it's again, for some of our listeners, not very pleasant to think about and not very frustrating, comfortable. If we have engaged in any degree in the system it's like, oh, I don't like thinking about where it leads. But that's why we need to, because this is what's happening in our world. And the more we name it and call it what it is, the more proactive we can be about creating change. And so you've already mentioned this a little bit, Lisa, but let's talk a little bit. In your work as a researcher there, what are some of the psychological, relational and societal effects that you all are seeing of widespread pornography use? You know, you talked about more are consuming than ever before, and we know that's true. What effect is that having on us as a people?

Right. Well, there's, there's really mountains of research now about the harms of pornography out there. And we have spent recently, we just spent a lot of a significant amount of time reviewing some of that research in relation to a brief that we helped submit that our law center submitted to in a Supreme Court case dealing with the age verification laws that that Texas was. Has put forward. And it's been, there's been litigation brought against it by the Free Speech Coalition. And so a bunch of groups are responding to that. So I've definitely had the opportunity lately to spend some time in this space. But the, the harm, it just, it's so upsetting. There's so many harms and things that you know that are behavioral or attitudinal. So things like permissive sexual attitudes that you're going to just become, you're going to have less barriers, less natural inhibitions towards engaging with sex. You're going to have early or there's earlier sexual debut, so a younger age. And now that's important because the younger you engage in sexual activity, the more likely you are to have some adverse outcomes, you know, like unintended pregnancies. And if you have an unattended pregnancy, then you know that that can really impact your career trajectories and your ability to earn livelihood and so forth. So there's, there's definite repercussions from these things. There's also, well, casual and impersonal sex. You're at your acceptance of that increases. Condomless sex is, is associated with pornography use, greater lifetime number of sex partners. That's really dangerous as I think we could all just immediately intuit the danger of having lots of sex partners, greater likelihood of engraved engaging in group sex. And a really big one that we've spent a lot of time talking about at Nicozi is child on child harmful sexual behavior. So the problem that we're seeing is you have children exposed to pornography. And of course children, they, they learn by seeing and emulating copying behaviors that they see. Right. You know, a lot of us remember growing up and playing doctor, right. Or, or playing school, right where we're emulating what we saw the classroom. Somebody's a teacher, somebody's sitting and you're okay. So we're, we. Children learn by em. So they see pornography and what are they going to do? They're going to try to emulate that with the children around them and they're just have. There's so many cases. I really think that this is a hidden epidemic across the country. There's signs of it within schools. Like for instance there was a, a major series of articles, investigative stories that the Associated Press did. It's been few years. I can't remember precisely if like if it was 2020 or, or somewhere around in there. But a series of articles that they did looking at sexual violence in schools. And the, the majority of it was perpetrated by children, not by adults. So the, the mindset that we have as adults is that oh it's, we gotta, you know, it's the coach, it's the teacher where you got to make sure that they're not harming the children. It's the other children who are perpetrating the vast majority of the abuse against children in schools. So child on child harmful sexual behavior is a huge one. And I, I know people that it's. That in their families that has happened is. It's just heartbreaking because you know the children are really, they're innocent. It's not. I. I should say the small children, right. They're, they're not doing it with, with an intent to harm. But this can. The older that occurs, let's say it's a teen, a teen child and that child, that teenager starts manipulating a 9 year old or a 10 year old, right. So then you start getting these power imbalances that can happen between children and it becomes exploitive and it, and it can, it can turn abuse, you know like really intentionally attempting to hurt these, the other child. So there's a, there's again a spectrum here within the world of child on child harmful sexual behavior. Some of it is truly innocent. And I wouldn't want to say that every child behavior is. Sexual behavior is wrong. Some of it's, it's just a part of development, right. Learning about their bodies and maybe touching something. But it's not. That's. That can all. There's an age develop an appropriate spectrum of Sexual learning, that happens as you grow. But when it's, when it starts developing into actual sex acts between small children, that is way off the age appropriate scale. And that's because pornography, they've seen pornography and they start emulating it on others. So that's a big one. And there's some others, like things maybe people hadn't thought of, like reduced academic performance. There's not a huge amount of research in that area yet, but there, and there's been some mixed studies, but there are some that indicate that, that learning performance is impacted. And that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Sexist attitudes. And then as you, as, as, as adults, we're definitely seeing, there's a lot of studies that indicate depression among adult users of pornography. And I think that's such a huge concern considering just the mental health of our society writ large. Like, why would we want to be participating in something that's going to worsen your mental health?

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you heard, Lisa. We did some research with the Barna group last year and that was some of the questions we asked, was asking about people's mental health, both positive aspects of, you know, I feel fulfillment, I feel connected, I feel joy in life. And then also asked about the negative aspects of things like depression, anxiety, even thoughts of harm towards self. And there is just, if you look at the research, there is a direct line of correlation between the more pornography someone watches or reported watching, the more unhealthy they report their mental health being. And it just is so clear when you look at, it's like, wow, it's stark to see the more porn someone views, the higher they rank things like anxiety, fear and thoughts of depression and self harm. And so, yeah, I think you're underscoring in so many ways the massive, massive impact this has on our society.

Yeah. And I know it feels to some of us, and I'm curious of your take because this is again your world. But you know, for us moms, I, I have some adult sons and some teenage kids and it just like you said, it's so different than how I experienced exposure to pornography when I was a kid. So now what legal gaps exist in, in regulating pornography in the pornography industry? And what do you think is needed as far as policy changes in order to address exploitation? Right.

Well, I thought, I think I'll start with just explaining a little bit about the legal landscape on pornography because there's a huge blind spot most people have. The fact is that the United States at the federal level has Laws that prohibit distribution of what's called obscenity. So obscenity, it's. It's. It's pornography, but it's basically adjudicated. It's something that the. A court has to. A jury has to look at the material, or at least some of the material, and say, you know what? This defies our community standards. And the United States has this long legal history of saying that obscenity is not protected speech. And I think most of us. I know Adi grew up pretty clueless about that, because you wouldn't know that from what you see around us. Right. And that's because there's not been meaningful enforcement of our obscenity laws for over a decade. It's getting close to two. It's been a long time since there's been meaningful enforcement of our obscenity laws. It's complicated. It's not easy work, but it is. But it can be done. In fact, the. The man who formerly was the president of the national center on Sexual Exploitation, Patrick Truman, he headed the Department of Justice's office. On what I'm trying to remember, it was the child Exploitation and Obscenity section at the Department of Justice. And this was back in the 80s under President Reagan. And there was this really concerted effort that they were going to go after the distributors of hardcore pornography. Not just child material, not just child sexual abuse material, but even material that featured people who were adults, and they were going to prosecute the distributors of obscenity. It was massively successful, incredibly successful. So many pornographers went to jail. And they. I try, and I wish I knew the exact number of how many, but dozens and dozens of cases that they were successful in prosecuting distributors or pornography. So there is not a right to distribute pornography in United States, not through the mail, not through cable television, and not through the Internet. And I should say. I mean, I think just then I said, as I said pornography, but I should say there's not a right to distribute obscenity. Right. And the problem is that, that we can't just declare that all the pornography out there is obscene. It has to be a prosecutor, a US Prosecutor, or even at a state, a state that has obscenity laws. A state prosecutor could do this as well. They have to do an investigation, confiscate material, call a jury, look at the material, and, you know, make a case, present a case, and then they decide, is this material? Is it obscene? And so then the individual who's distributing that material could be prosecuted. So my point in telling you all this is that the, one of the biggest problems that we've had is the epic failure, the willful failure to prosecute obscenity in the United States. And that is, I would say more than anything while why we're sitting here having this conversation. Because if those people who are distributing this material, this obscenity were prosecuted, we wouldn't have the oceans, literally oceans of pornography that exist on the Internet if those, if, if the distributors were being meaningfully prosecuted for distribute, distribution of obscenity. So the, that is the number one factor. So that doesn't require a legal fix. The law is there. It just requires the will of the people to insist that law enforcement entities, prosecutors, both at the federal and the state level, for the states that have obscenity laws bring obscenity cases.

Wow.

I mean it would be, it'd be practically like falling off a log. There's so much obscene obscenity out there. Like, I don't think there's any shortage of effort to find it. Right. Right now the hard part might be figuring out where, because the people who distribute it now, you know, there's a lot of that, that's a little bit more complicated, but in terms of finding the obscene material, it's there in plain sight. So anyway, that, that's one issue I would raise. And then the other is what's called Section 230, the Communications Decency Act. I, I think more than any, any particular piece of legislation or law that's out there, this has been an impediment to preventing sexual exploitation in many fronts. Both sex trafficking online, but also any kind of going after a distributors of this, of this material online. This is why like for instance, websites, social media sites are now able to hide behind section 230 of the Communications Decency act and use it basically as a shield to say that they are never, never culpable for anything that third parties post on their site. No matter what it is, and whether or not they knew about it or not, or how long they knew about it, it's, it's never their fault. They're never responsible. And this has been a massive problem because that's what fueled the whole phenomenon of like Backpage, which was a basically a prostitution advertising website, that metastasizing became gigantic and that was fueling sex trafficking all over the country. But now because of CDA230, we've seen this massive migration of pornography, even child sexual abuse material onto platforms like Reddit. And the courts are saying there's, that they, that's fine, that they can. That they can host that material because they claim that sec. The section 230 of the Communications Decency act shields the companies from any. Any kind of liability or culpability from hosting the material. So we have a serious problem on our hands with section 230. And it's so big, we even put that on our Dirty Dozen list. I don't know if you know about that, Nick. Our Dirty Dozen list?

Yeah, we see that come out every year. We try to make our fans and people that follow us aware just to call out what's happening in our world. Because that's what I hear you saying, Lisa, is that by and large, as a society, we have chosen to turn a blind eye towards. Towards a lot of things that previous generations have taken a stand to say, no, we're not okay with this. We've created laws around it, and if we would simply enact or enforce the laws we currently exist, and we all were adamant about what we allow as decency in our culture, we wouldn't be where we are. And so part of it is that broadly we have, as a society, just decided, you know what, we're not that concerned about it. Which leads you, I want to make sure we get to, in the last parts of this podcast here, some ideas you'd present about what can we do? Because I think there's a temptation for us to all feel like, man, this is just so big, it's so out of control, it's so beyond what any of us can do. And we just kind of throw our hands up and say, well, I guess it is what it is. And part of what I was thinking about as you were sharing all that, I recall a story, and I believe it's in regards to someone asking a question to Mother Teresa about all the evil in the world and what do we do about it? And her response was to say something like, go home and love your spouse and family. Well, if you want to see love in the world, start in your own home. Love them well. And I think in terms of our listeners, as we look at the massive size of this problem, it's like, what do we do? Part of it is look into your own heart and your own relationships. How can you stand against objectification and exploitation? How can you determine that I'm not going to be a part of this anymore. I'm going to proactively work against these behaviors in my life. That is for sure a starting place for all of us. But how would you answer that question, Lisa? What can we do if someone hears you talking and maybe they're even for the first time, really learning about and cozy. What could they do to get involved and be a part of seeing positive change in our world?

Well, that's a great question. And I just, as in the last comments, was mentioning the Dirty Dozen list. And I'll just explain it briefly, as you say, in case anybody's new.

Yes, yes, please do.

So the Dirty Dozen list is something that the national center on Sexual Exploitation puts out each year, where we name mainstream Corp. Mostly corporate contributors to the phenomenon of sexual abuse and exploitation. A lot of times these are corporations that are in some way profiting, facilitating fueling sexual abuse and exploitation, either through really bad corporate policy inefficiency or, you know, maybe occasionally it's, oh, we didn't realize that. But we're at the point now where everybody knows and it's, it's, they know that they have these problems and it's a matter of they're not doing enough to address them. So the Dirty Dozen list has been, it's just coming out consistently, naming groups, all kinds of corporations. So for instance, in the past year, we had groups like Apple, Cash, App, Cloudflare, Discord, LinkedIn, Meta, GitHub, Reddit, Roblox, Spotify, and Telegram. These are all really huge companies that we put on the Dirty Dozen list. But we also had on there the section 230 of the CDA, which is, was really about trying to help educate people about the harm that this particular provision of a law that ironically was intended to protect children and how it's been twisted by the courts and now turned into a shield that allows for their exploitation. I mean, you couldn't make up a crazier story if you tried. So anyway, that's the Dirty Dozen list. And the reason I bring it up is because when it comes out each year, there is, there are opportunities that we create for people to take action where you can send a petition or, you know, sign an email that goes to a corporate executive or sometimes maybe send an email to your representatives or something asking for a particular legislative, you know, fix or something. So that's something that people can do is just keep up, follow the Dirty Dozen list, take the actions that are presented there. But I, I guess in my heart of hearts, I kind of go to the Mother Teresa answer that you, you brought up, Nick, because I do feel like so much of this begins in our own home, with our own selves and with our own homes and families and those around us, our own sphere of influence. And for anybody who has children. I mean, I would be. I would literally beg them to delay, delay, delay giving them the device or just don't give it to them because it's pretty much inevitable that that's going to get them exposure to this content. Now, of course, there's the issues about their playmates and what's going on at school, and maybe that will happen that way. But if you give a kid a phone, you're basically handing them porn. I mean, that. There was actually, I think it was a kid who said that, you know, that. That there's. It's there. It's so easy to get to. It does. You can do all kinds of work to try to block it. But let's face it, most people don't do that, right? They're either. They, maybe they make some efforts, but even those aren't enough to keep children safe from all the stuff that's out there and accessible to them or others accessing them online. So I think, you know, really reassessing the level of, of just capitulation to devices and handing those to our children would be a big appeal. I would make for everybody to really take a harder stance on that and maybe form some pocket communities of resistance, like join with your friends, because it's hard when you're going as a family alone, but if you can get. Get a couple other families to join with you and then your child has some playmates where it's the same kind of ethos. Right, that. That could be helpful.

Yeah. How about for you, Ashley, as you reflect on where we're at and what we're talking about today, what kind of encouragement would you give to listeners on. On taking next steps or, or getting more involved in this area?

Oh, gosh. I mean, I think the Mother Teresa thing was perfect for me because I also feel like, you know, having children right in the thick of it and so many devices and devices required for everything. I mean, now it's like, hey, do you have somebody for H vac repair? Which is something I recently, you know, asked my realtor. And everything is through Facebook and some people don't even have websites anymore because you can just put a, you know, a your company on Facebook. And so even for me as a parent with, with, with schooling and clubs, it's, it's. It's unavoidable to have devices and even with our kids in this day. And so it can become completely overwhelming. And I, I really just say, you know, to echo what both of you said, but also just try to remember that we're not going to be able to avoid everything. You know, we. We strongly believe that that relationship is the most important thing. And so with my kids and my family being able to say, I'm always here to talk. When you stumble across something, when you are exposed to something, I'm here. I remember the first time I got exposed to pornography, and I felt curiosity and. And shame and fear at the same time. And so as much as we try to avoid it, really just make sure that you're a safe place and your house is a culture where your kids can feel safe to say, oh, this popped up. Mom, can, you know, can you help me here?

Oh, I'm so glad you said that, Ashley. I actually had that written down. Like, take advantage of every opportunity to discuss the harms of pornography. Yeah, that's. I'm so glad because I was, like, totally blanking, but that's perfect.

Yeah, you were looking for it, and I found it, and here we are.

Well, Lisa, I know the national center on Exploits sexual exploitation is a way that people can get involved. So would you tell us briefly about what INCOZI does and how could someone connect with you all if they'd like to learn more or engage with what's happening there at Incozi?

Sure. The organization has been around since 1962. And, yeah, we started as a very small grassroots movement working to oppose, you know, prevent children's exposure to pornography. And it really took off and became a national movement and eventually became known as morality and Media. And then in 2015, the organization, we. We realized, you know, we. Because of, like, what we've been discussing today, the web of sexual abuse and exploitation, we realized how important it was that we broaden our mission beyond the issue of pornography, to talk about other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation and to show the interconnections. So we rebranded as the national center on Sexual Exploitation. We've broadened the scope of our issues that we work on, and the work we do takes different forms. I mentioned previously our law center, so that's one of the big areas of our work right now is litigation against some of the companies that I mentioned for their role in fueling sexual abuse and exploitation and representing survivors of that type of abuse. And so we're. We're. Our law center is very active and doing some really heroic work. Then another area where we do a lot of work is around policy at the. Both at the federal and state level, working to, you know, create laws and working with legislators, policymakers to pass legislation that will help protect, you know, everybody online. So there's particular pieces of legislation that we work on through our policy shop. And then we have a. We've had a very concerted corporate advocacy arm where we. Through the Dirty Dozen list where we're engaging with these corporations. And through that work, we've gotten corporations to. Literally. There have been dozens of changes at corporations across the country. Country because of the pressure that we bring to bear on them. So that's there. And then like in my, My work at the research institute, we're sort of like under the radar, but we're trying to provide the superstructure, the support underneath to help those other departments flourish and be able to do their work with excellence.

Yeah, I, we, we love what you all do. We're big fans. Give us the website if people want to go and learn more.

Where can they go in sexual exploitation.org.

And sexual exploitation.org Like I said, we're big fans. Go check it out. And I know of no other group. If, if this conversation, if this topic compels you to like, man, I want to, I want to be involved. I want to. I want to stand against what's happening. I think in Cozy is leading the way. And they've got so many great resources on their website and. Yeah, just really grateful for your time today, Lisa, and thank you for having this conversation to help us understand what's happening in our world and why we should all stand against exploitation in all of its forms. Whether we're someone who's struggled personally or been personally impacted by this, we can all take a stand and make a difference. And so thank you, Lisa, for the conversation today. And we loved having you on the podcast.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you.

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