“You ruined porn for me.” This was a text I received the morning of November 11th from a friend that attended the men-only event on November 10th. He then sent an additional text that said, “I mean that in a good way.”
This friend of mine joined roughly 30 other guys as Nate Anderson, Brooke Hennen and I put our efforts into laying out what exactly trafficking is, how women and girls wind up in “the game” and where guys right here in Chicago might come in contact with victims. We highlighted how the victims wind up as ads online, in spas, trapped in makeshift brothels, in strip clubs, and also online as “porn stars.” All three of us presenters knew going in that evening that the subject of porn was going to be the most controversial and the item most in need of highlighting. To attack this subject we chose to use a mix of stats about the porn industry (which are insane by the way) and some personal testimony about overcoming porn addiction (all three of us had something to say about this from experience and used pragmatic and biblical perspectives). Plenty of guys came up to us after the event and thanked us for our time; some even mentioned how they had shared their addiction with their wives. A couple of guys remained skeptical about the connection between porn and trafficking, no surprise there, we hope those few check out the resources we handed out.
My favorite feedback item had to be the text I received the next day…to which I replied “anytime =)”
