Pornography and It’s Impact On Sexual Exploitation

Over time, Human trafficking has grown to include various forms of exploitation, with some growing to become more popular than others. One of the forms of sexual exploitation that has increased with the rise of the internet is pornography. Pornography can be a sensitive topic because it is often viewed as a personal choice that doesn’t harm others. The truth is pornography has a distinct impact on sexual exploitation due to its accessibility and deception. These factors cause problems for both consumers of pornography and the people who are at-risk of being trafficked for its creation.

Defining Pornography

Definitions of pornography tend to vary, but a basic definition is needed to understand its impact on sexual exploitation and human trafficking. A good basic definition of pornography is any material that depicts nudity or sexual acts for sexual stimulation. Pornography can include photographs, videos, written material, audio recordings, animations, or any sexual content in the form of media. Pornographic films and magazines were the most popular mediums of consumption in the 20th century until the introduction of the world wide web in the 1990s. Since then, pornographic material has increased in volume and accessibility to people of all ages leading to the pornography industry becoming extremely profitable. Annual profit estimates are hard to settle on since pornography is an underground industry with varying definitions. Most global estimates of yearly revenue in the pornography industry range from $12 billion to $97 billion.

Pornography’s Relation To Human Trafficking

The most challenging aspect of understanding the connection between trafficking and pornography is that it is impossible to identify which people are trafficked in videos. The presence of coercion is hard to see, even in scenes that would look like a trafficking situation. Victims are often forced to appear to enjoy even the most violent sexual activities. One study has shown that as many as 95% of female targets of violent sexual activity have a neutral or enjoyable reaction¹. This leads people to believe that sexual violence is not an issue if they appear to enjoy it.

Consent is another factor that is hard to identify in videos. Stories recounted by former performers frequently include instances where they tried to back out of the scene or even the industry altogether and were threatened with legal action. Other stories include threats from industry agents for performers to do scenes that were not agreed upon beforehand.

Do these patterns sound familiar? That’s because victims in the pornography industry encounter the same patterns of exploitation as all other forms of trafficking: coercion, force, and fraud. Data from the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline correlates with this reality: the second most common call they receive is for trafficking incidents related to pornography.

While it’s impossible to know how many people are trafficking victims, survivor stories and research is telling us that trafficking has become more prevalent in the porn industry. This is causing pornography and trafficking to begin to interplay, where one side affects the other. There is another aspect to this interplay, however, as porn affects the people who watch it.

Pornography’s Problematic Impact On The Brain and Worldview

Countless studies over the past few decades have shown how pornography has a detrimental effect on the brain of consumers. Biologists have found that the brain’s built-in, normative reaction to external stimuli can be overridden with enough exposure. This impact is known as “supernormal stimuli,” where the brain’s normal response can be artificially changed through exposure to extreme levels of stimulation. A person’s expectation of what is normative can change through exposure to extremes. This expectation change can happen in the brains of people who watch pornography, where sexual violence is typical.

Pornography can act as supernormal stimuli that completely changes the expectation of sex from a healthy view to an extreme and violent one. Research estimates that nearly one in three pornographic videos contains violent physical aggression. Among research on the most famous scenes in pornography, 88.2% contained physical violence or aggression, while 48.7% contained verbal aggression ². In these displays of sexual violence, 97% of subjects responded as neutral or positive when the subjects were women. A change like this in the brain of someone consuming pornography can undoubtedly impact the well-being of others.

Research suggests that pornography consumers are more likely to sexually objectify others and more likely to commit acts of sexual violence ^3,4,5. In 76% of the scenes analyzed with violent physical aggression, men are the perpetrators of women. Pornography promotes sexual violence and the dehumanization of others. This harmful perspective affects victims of trafficking as their abuse becomes normalized as a regular treatment of women in sexual activity. The consumption of pornography correlates with a higher likelihood of buying sex, impacting the demand for trafficking victims ⁶. This impact on consumers has created a vicious cycle that influences trafficking.

Stopping The Demand

The growth of pornography and its effect on the minds of consumers has resulted in a demand for the exploitation of people. Before the internet, the pornography industry’s profit primarily relied on people buying tickets to pornographic films or purchasing magazines; later, it benefited from the introduction of pay-per-view video and adult video stores. Today, profit and demand are driven through clicks and views. Although paid subscriptions to pornographic sites are a substantial source of revenue, a mass amount of free content helps the industry thrive. Through sites that utilize a video-sharing platform, videos can be uploaded by anyone and watched by anyone for free. Clicks and views create revenue, resulting in demand for more content – meaning more people to traffic.

The demand must be stopped. Taking action at the most superficial level means avoiding the consumption of pornography. Becoming educated on the other ways it can affect mental health and relationships can help give perspective on reasons to avoid pornography. If help is needed to break an addiction, you can find trusted help online.

If you are a parent, have proactive conversations with your children about the harmful impact pornography can have on them and others. Although the legal age for consumption is 18, there are still very few – and weak – measures in place online that keep children and teens from accessing pornography. An estimated 1 in 4 children have stumbled upon unwanted pornographic material online. The fact that exposure can happen unintentionally is why proactive conversations about the negative impact of pornography can help keep them safe and help stop the demand.

The reality is that the people in pornographic videos are real people. Very few people who watch pornography consider that they very well may come across a trafficking victim in every few videos, watching their exploitation. Pornography impacts sexual exploitation in how it affects the minds of consumers and creates a demand that drives trafficking. Stopping the demand through action and education is a choice everyone can make.