We’re going to be talking about porn quite a lot this weekend. I am going to be showing you a lot of healthy, consensual and ridiculously hot porn for your enjoyment, and showing you the “man behind the curtain” of porn myths while I’m at it. For that, we can thank The Church of Porn and Football (religion.blogs.cnn.com).
Porn and masturbation cure-for-profit organization “XXX Church” has gotten a tidy amount of press in the past week on mainstream news outlets for enlisting football athletes and allegedly over 300 conservative churches in tagging Super Bowl Sunday with the name “Porn Sunday.” This is in an effort to further their anti-porn (and staunch anti-masturbation) agenda by capitalizing on a big media event. And it’s working quite well: no one is questioning the theories, political agenda, or even the statements or data XXX Church is seeding on major media outlets.
The biggest rube in all this willingness to capitalize on fears about porn consumption (and masturbation) is – very surprisingly – NPR. On Friday, commenters tarred and feathered NPR for unquestionably running the story Religious Groups Tackle An X-Rated Secret, an item that appears to promote the XXX Church. NPR’s regulars – even those who identify as conservative and Christian – had really expected better of NPR and took them to task in a major way. Not only because NPR did not provide balance to the item (or fact check it), but because the voices of pro-porn Christians were not heard (they’re in the comments).
It was not unbiased. It was as if NPR ran an item where a pro-life organization campaigns to raise awareness about abortion and murder, with their own data proving that the morning after pill creates teen-aged baby murderers, and that the Super Bowl Sunday family event is an entirely appropriate platform with which to conduct this conversation.
Mostly, NPR’s loyal readers and listeners were shocked that NPR would make a bunch of anti-masturbation fanatics the centerpiece of a feature, and most conclusions in the hundreds of comments were overwhelmingly that: a) NPR got taken for a ride, and b) using porn responsibly and being Christian are not mutually exclusive.
I was pretty angry to have to add NPR to my list of mainstream media outlets that have been astroturfed by anti-porn extremists. WTF, NPR? And I think that to have NPR fall lock-step into using tropes like “X-Rated Secret” is really beneath them.
I was really surprised to see them get called out and nailed in their comments for it. Pushing this story and its agenda has made their reputation take a serious hit. I didn’t expect everyone to be so sane about it – and I’m so glad for it. Everyone is looking at what’s going on with porn and porn consumption, and the impact of porn on life, and making their own conclusions about it. And that’s a fundamentally good thing.
The real crime here though isn’t that XXX Church got validation from NPR, or that their myths about porn are being propagated without question all over mainstream media. We don’t expect much from CNN, MSNCB, and certainly not Fox.
Instead of making hay out of an organization that sells “cures” for self-manufactured porn illnesses, I wish we could see more about Superbowl Sunday’s real sex problem: the sex trafficking of minors for the event is similar to that with the Wold Cup. Selling children for sex is big business Superbowl weekend. If we were as crass as XXX Church, we would make a campaign and call it “Sex Trafficking Sunday.” Do you think if we did that, NPR would give it airtime?
But really: don’t you think 300 churches should be crafting Sunday sermons to stop this instead?
* American Football: Under-age sex trade booming at Super Bowl (independent.co.uk)
* A Trafficking Survivor’s Plea to Super Bowl Hosts and NFL (petition, news.change.org)
* The Super Bowl of Sex Trafficking (Newsweek)
* Airline Crews to Ground Sex Traffickers Heading to Super Bowl (aolnews.com)
{ 8 comments }
“The problem is that both major sporting events happened in places that are hubs for trafficking”
Well, that’s another assertion I find questionable. Every time an anti-trafficking group gets active in a particular city, they call it a “major hub for trafficking”. I’ve seen the same rhetoric about Portland and Las Vegas. And more importantly, I have yet to see an actual list of the cities that are “major trafficking hubs”.
Now as for the thing about the Superbowl, the fact that this is something that has been trotted out about every major sports event *internationally* for the last 5 years tells me this is just an old story being repeated rather than some new discovery.
Its not like this is trafficking denialism, either. GAATW, which is one of the links I provided, is an anti-trafficking group. Its just that if you’re going to target actual exploitation and forced labor, then of course evidence-based strategies are what’s called for, rather than chasing down what amounts to a rehashed urban legend.
But, anyway, good to see you’re keeping your blog well-rounded with reporting on trafficking, etc. One of your strengths is that it goes beyond “all porn all of the time”. And, BTW, I know somebody who actually works in the sex industry in the area you mentioned if you need another source for research on that topic.
Disagree, that’s cool. I’ve been researching and keeping up with journalists following the Texas-Mexico border sex trade and organized crime (since 2004), and I have my own conclusions.
BTW, I never step into sex trafficking discussions online (despite my personal and professional interests) because it brings out extremists from pro-sex-work and anti-sex-work sides – and they never have their facts straight because they are * believers* of one kind or another. To me, that’s always a red flag. (Your WSJ link highlights the inflation of estimates, but also the difficulty of getting them.) That Christians and anti-Christian pro-sex work peeps went ballistic with this is no surprise. I just think it muddies any chance of a realistic look at what’s going on.
I’m mostly miffed that the real topic of this XXX Church and NPR’s complicity in the sham got lost in everyone’s sex trafficking agendas here. Especially that some virulent commenters (unapproved) are calling the religious agenda “my” theory. Bizarre.
The problem is that both major sporting events happened in places that are hubs for trafficking – and I’m not sure any stats can be relied on. I just know what people I’ve worked with and talk to have seen for themselves. So I’m cool to disagree with you. And I appreciate the links. As always, I’m glad you’re a reader.
Roundup of sources debunking the moral panic on sports events and sex trafficking: http://tl.gd/8lm8pu.
Gotta disagree with you on this one, Violet. There is no “there” there when it comes to connecting sports events with human trafficking.
Ma’am,
I respectfully disagree with your assessment of at least my assumptions of you or my intention in sharing the information (I cannot speak to that of Icamcuriousblue).
I was very caught off guard seeing the mainstream media sensationalism of the trafficking hyperbole linked at the bottom of this post. To me, the majority of the media has been reveling in the cheap & easy thrills this story provides to the very same crowd that wants to cluck its tongue & be horrified by the supposed epidemic in porn consumption somehow sullying their otherwise decent neighbors & fellow congregants.
I simply assumed you may have not yet had the opportunity to see how misguided & agenda driven the Change.org/Trafficking911 campaign was.
I see nothing wrong with a Sex Trafficking Sunday. I actually am pretty sure we’ve had that out here, possibly even at our local mega-church, as we’ve got a couple who are all about saving child sex slaves from…Cambodia, I believe. Even got one of our movie houses to show their documentary for free admission (donations encouraged). And that’s all swell…except that many of those passionate about saving women & children from…whatever they may or may not need rescuing from, have a pretty disturbing worldview that shines through in the Change.org petition and follow up posts regarding the projected increase in trafficking of persons & child sex abuse inextricably linked to that drunken, nasty, testosterone-driven Superbowl.
I was not suggesting you are or should be a feminist, but noting that some feminists had allied with the anti-porn conservatives and that the current anti-trafficking campaigns are following a little too closely to that very mistaken alliance. I would imagine some of your readers do identify as feminists, even if you choose not to. If it were not for sex-positive feminism, I might not have identified as feminist myself.
None of this was meant as any kind of an attack, or tear-down of this blog or you, just an attempt at facilitating a balanced look at what may or may not really be going on this weekend in Dallas. I am sorry you may have felt otherwise. Or have felt that this is a thankless task…if I you weren’t one of my go-to sources for sane things to “share” about porn & sexuality generally, I really wouldn’t have bothered to say anything. If I wasn’t thankful that you’re here, why would I be reading in the first place?
And now you’ve got me curious as to what you meant by “The sex trafficking issue in this instance is not as black and white as everyone thinks.”
It’s like a couple of you forgot which side I’m on.
The sex trafficking issue in this instance is not as black and white as everyone thinks.
Also, I am not a feminist. I do not identify as a feminist, and I never have. I’ve stated that several times over the years.
Sorry for the broken links. Here are some working ones:
http://www.straight.com/article-232537/joyce-arthur-facts-and-fictions-about-sex-trafficking-and-vancouvers-2010-olympics
http://bccec.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/gaatw_2010olympics1.pdf
http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/projects/documents/World_Cup_2006_CT_Draft_Report.pdf
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/the-elusive-link-between-sex-trafficking-and-sporting-events-952/
http://www.ban-ying.de/downloads/Worldcup&Trafficking.pdf
Have you looked at their campaign partners? The last time feminists got in bed with the right like this was/is over porn. http://www.traffick911.com/page/campaign-partners
Below are links to various sources debunking sports related trafficking hysteria (fortunately this thing is finally getting some attention for what it is, hype). As I’ve been trying to tell my colleagues in the anti-violence field, our credibility is really damaged when we give into the temptation to use high-profile events to get attention & money directed at the intersecting causes that we all know get too little attention…but it’s just not worth playing on the shock & horror of imagining every man coming to the Superbowl (or the World Cup, or the Olympic Games) is just a hair’s breadth away from raping a child. It isn’t worth teaming up with those who despise sex & sex workers and are ready to “rescue” everyone from their sinful ways, by force, if necessary. There are better ways to work to end trafficking (of all persons for any type of labor), child abuse, run/throw-way youth, gender violence, etc…than to uncritically parrot unproven estimates recycled from campaigns preceding sporting events around the world (where the anticipated deluge of trafficked persons never materialized).
http://howtohavesexintexas.blogspot.com/2011/02/incoming-prostitute-army-not-coming.html
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-01-27/news/the-super-bowl-prostitute-myth-100-000-hookers-won-t-be-showing-up-in-dallas/
http://www.wfaa.com/home/Super-Bowl-prostitution-prediction-has-no-proof–114983179.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/don%E2%80%99t-buy-it/
http://www.sify.com/mobile/news/no-rise-in-prostitution-during-fifa-world-cup-2010-news-international-kkvx4medgah.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312853491596916.html
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/hidden-hordes-of-hookers/
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20110128-point-person-our-qa-with-bill-bernstein-on-the-human-trafficking-problem-in-north-texas.ece
I heard about this on NPR. It made me cringe with all the hypocrisy coming from the anti porn camp, and I agree about the lack of balance on NPR, for at least this segment.
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