I have been wondering why I am no longer able to download pornographic videos from PornHub and similar sites. It seems that I have found the answer. It's all to do with an American called Nick Kristof, who I came across a while ago in the context of trafficking and brothel raids in countries like Cambodia. Kristof's credibility took a big hit a while ago when Cambodian woman Somaly Mam was exposed as a liar. She fabricated a lot of lurid details about her and other women's involvement in prostitution.
There used to be a site called Backpage where sex workers could advertise. That was closed down by federal law enforcement. In 2012 Kristof wrote an article for the New York Times accusing Backpage of enabling trafficking.
SESTA/FOSTA is a law passed in 2018. It stands for Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. It was supported by Kristof. It makes life more difficult for sex workers to advertize. It could make blogs like mine illegal if it is seen to 'promote or facilitate the prostitution of another person'.
The Survivors of Human Trafficking Fight Back Act was passed in 2020. It, like SESTA/FOSTA, allows people to persue legal action against platforms including PornHub. Kristof called for this.
Kristof wrote another article in 2020 for the New York Times called 'The Children of PornHub'. Pornhub announced new policies to restrict users’ ability to upload videos without registering - and bar downloading videos altogether. Even with their restructuring, MasterCard, Visa, and Discover banned payments to PornHub’s parent company, MindGeek.
I don't feel sorry for PorhHub. Porn stars don't like it because their videos can be pirated on PornHub. It has become something of a monopoly where lower wages, less control and fear of speaking out become increasingly common for performers. Kristof doesn't care about that though. One of Kristof's primary sources for the anti-PornHub article was Laila Mickelwait, the Director of Abolition for a non-profit organisation called Exodus Cry who seek the complete abolition of the legal sex industry, including sex work, pornography, and strip clubs.
The founder of Exodus Cry is Benjamin Nolot. It is associated with IHOP aka IHOPKC (International House of Prayer Kansas City) which is led by pastor Mike Bickle. Both Nolot and Bickle are Evangelical Christians who oppose gay marriage and abortion. Bickle seems to be antisemitic too. The public don't realise that behind the 'anti-trafficking' campaigning are nasty religious bigots. We can all be against non-consensual sex, but this is a puritanical crusade against consensual sex work, pornography and erotic dancing.
As Kelsy Burke writes on slate.com
"When anti-porn groups use language about “trafficking,” they hope to attract broad support, since all of us can agree that no person should be forced into labor or servitude, sexual or otherwise. Yet groups like NCOSE and others led by conservative Christians use “trafficking” as an umbrella term for all sex work, including that which is legal and consensual. According to NCOSE’s guiding values, “the commodification of sex acts is inherently exploitative.”"
As Melissa Gira Grant writes in The New Republic
"As a result of their years spent building influence, “fighting trafficking” as defined by these groups has also led to policies to defund AIDS programs that worked with sex workers and instead support programs mandating abstinence over condoms. Catholic groups used fighting trafficking to block funding to anti-trafficking programs that offered referrals for birth control and abortion. Women’s rights groups teamed up with religious right groups to shut down Craigslist’s and Backpage’s ads for sex work. All this was accomplished by religious right groups marketing themselves as anti-trafficking groups who were invested in protecting women and children from abuse. Meanwhile, their approach led to police abuse of sex workers under the guise of anti-trafficking raids and “rescues,” while also dismantling sex workers’ efforts to work independently and protect themselves. This isn’t fighting human trafficking: In some senses, it has increased the likelihood of exploitation and violence."
The campaign against PornHub was co-sponsored by NCOSE (National Center on Sexual Exploitation). NCOSE was approved for a loan of between $150,000 and $300,000 under Trump’s coronavirus bailout program. There are associations with Trump and with Q-Anon. Now NCOSE is going after OnlyFans.
In December I published a post about webcams. I had found a number of images on my laptop. I thought they derived from OnlyFans but in fact they came from Chaturbate. I said that webcams can be a useful way of getting an income for students or young mothers. OnlyFans have been in the news recently. They banned sexually explicit content but then changed their minds. NCOSE have been putting pressure on MasterCard to ban payments to OnlyFans.
NCOSE lobbying led to Walmart withdrawing Cosmopolitan magazine from display. NCOSE has used the language of feminism to try to portray Cosmopolitan as part of our hypersexualised society where women are expected to satisfy men's urges. However, the magazine has helped women to find their own sexual satisfaction.
NCOSE has benefited from alliances with anti-porn feminists concerned about women’s exploitation, including Gail Dines and Julie Bindel. This is yet another example of where Radical Feminists have teamed up with religious bigots. Catharine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin worked against pornography with the mayor of Indianapolis William H Hudnut. He was a Christian pastor. Laura Lederer helped bring feminist groups such as Equality Now together with Christian groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals and The Salvation Army. This coalition helped bring about the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
The TVPA has caused problems around the world, it has enabled the American government and the State Department to put pressure on countries to allow or conduct brothel raids which have harmed sex workers. This happens in poor countries like Cambodia but in Japan tens of thousands of women from the Philippines were denied entry even though most of them were not sex workers. It could be the reason why brothels were closed down in large numbers in Britain from 2005 onwards.
I have put a lot more information about trafficking here.
