I've seen a lot of reports of women being attacked, but what struck me was how the reports repeat over and over regarding specific industries or scenarios. I notice patterns and what I saw tweaked me, so I started looking for why these patterns existed.
I have a friend who works in the real estate industry and there is a deep concern about agent safety over the last few years. There are plenty of news reports that highlight these concerns. Specifically, female real estate agents are facing an increased risk of sexual assault, especially when showing empty homes by themselves. I've also seen reports about women being sexually assaulted by cab drivers, an occupation that I historically felt was a safe means of transportation for women. It does not seem to matter if the cab driver is from a chain or a part of ride shares like Uber. The risks also goes both ways as drivers are experiencing these situations as well. There are reports of doctors being charged with sexual assault too.
Why are specific professions involved in sexual assault cases, whether they be the perpetrator or victim? I decided to head into my old stomping grounds to see if I could find some correlation. I've been very open and blunt about my past addictions. Yes, one of those addictions was pornography and some of these scenarios reminded me of some of the videos that I used to watch. So I went digging and found something very disturbing.
There is a genre within the porn industry called 'reality pornography'. Within this genre, there are porn producers making films under the guise of 'fake taxi', 'fake hospital', 'fake driving school', 'fake hostel', 'fake agent', 'fake cop', 'fake casting', public pickups, public sex, real estate agents (property sex), run away teens, etc. What that means is that these reality pornography films actually depict real life scenarios like a taxi driver having sex with his / her fair, a doctor having sex with a patient, people having sex with real estate agents in vacant homes, cops detaining people and having sex with them or people offering random women on the street money for sex.
For me, I could not escape the realization and possibility that there are people in this world who are watching these films and they are not capable of separating the images they see with the reality of life. The producers work hard to make these films mimic real life and I suspect that their audience then goes out into the world in an attempt to reproduce those scenarios for themselves. Pornography addiction is really tough to heal from and I'm convinced that viewers are indeed trying to duplicate what the film producers are making in their films. As a result, people are being assaulted and I suspect that the reporting of these assaults is low, much like the national average of 3%.
This puts women in danger as now they are at risk when performing regular day-to-day activities. I suspect it has always been dangerous for women, but now the porn industry is making it exceedingly dangerous. The porn industry is now portraying real life scenarios where guys can have easy pickup sex with women. People who struggle with sexual addictions, low self esteem, mental illness or other types of trauma think they can go out into the real world and do the same thing. This is an extremely dangerous scenario for all involved and the porn industry is not taking any responsibility in this regard.
In fact, I'll go one step further to suggest that the porn industry is doing this on purpose. I've written in the past about my views of pornography, specifically how we engage in violence against another when we fantasize about them in our minds.
That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. - Matthew 5:28
I've also written a post about six months ago explaining a revelation I had regarding my realization that there is a HUGE difference between emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy. Pornography was one of the hardest addictions for me to kick. Pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, work, computers, TV and violence were tough, but sex and pornography were by far the toughest for me. Figuring out that I looked to sex in order to gain intimacy was a huge mistake and the root of that addiction. Now that I've figure out that I can actually work on emotional intimacy while detaching it from sex, makes life a whole lot easier.
I don't think many men have figured that out yet, so when they watch these films, what they are really looking for is emotional intimacy, but because they associate sex to intimacy, the only way to get it is to have sex. But even when we fantasize about it, we are doing spiritual harm, and when we act out, we then do physical, emotional and mental harm. These multiple levels of violence is what Matthew 5:28 is talking about. While this topic is embarrassing to me, I will admit to my addictions and speak freely about them in the hopes that others will reflect upon theirs.
If we want to find peace in our lives, each and every single one of us must find that peace within first. Until then, I bring this topic up as I suspect many people, especially women, are unaware of the risks. Here are some statistics according to Webroot, Smarter Cybersecurity:
- About 200,000 Americans are classified as “porn addicts.”
- 40 million American people regularly visit porn sites.
- 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography.
- 34% of internet users have experienced unwanted exposure to pornographic content through ads, pop up ads, misdirected links or emails.
- One-third of porn viewers are women.
Is it any wonder that we continue to have issues with people sexually assaulting others? In my experience through recovery, I needed to do a lot of healing first before I could start to tackle my addictions. It took time, but I'm confident that I have a good grasp of it now. But if you do watch porn, please know that it is not as innocent as what the industry makes it out to be. People do get hurt and it has a profound impact and cost to the lives of others as well. Pornography is a violent, abusive, brutal industry. Don't believe me, how about reading the testimony of women who got out of the industry and shared their experiences.
Still don't believe me, how about doing some research in the news and seeing how many sexual assaults line up with the genre's that I outlined above. This shit is real and I ask women and men alike to be aware of these risks. Only by confronting these behaviours head on will we be able to start healing and finding peace within our lives. In self defense, awareness is by far the biggest strategy to keep yourself safe. So I share this in the hopes that this awareness helps prevent violence for those willing to see this post for what it is.
I love you all.