The recent article “Man accused in sex trafficking” (The Columbian, May 20) regarding Dominique Terrel Gonzales of Vancouver should spark a crucial conversation. Our blind eye to the reality of the relationship between pornography and sex trafficking affects the lives of millions of women and children a year. Most participants are being forced to have intercourse and their performance is incentivized by traffickers by withholding basic necessities, just as Gonzales did with his victims.
Journalist John-Henry Westen says, “As long as America’s men are being trained to think that violent, disturbing pornography is sexually acceptable, an enormous clientele for sex traffickers is being created every day in homes across the country.” While passing laws and regulations around trafficking and pornography is a good thing and moves us in the right direction, if the real root causes — between sexual repression in schools and porn access — go unattacked, the trafficking industry’s heartbeat will remain alive and well, primed for more and more people to go missing each year.
We as customers, children, educators and parents must make informed decisions about the effects of our consumption of services that aid human trafficking. Our “pleasure” enables the psychological and physical pain of women and children locally and internationally.
