WILD GUESS

Take a good long look at the women in these successive mugshots.

Clearly these women are deteriorating physically, and presumably, in social and emotional ways, as well. Care to venture a guess as to the cause of such drastic negative changes in these women? The "source" of this photo says that these women are prostitutes and are victims of exploitation. Fair enough. But they fail to mention that the physical changes in these women's appearance is most likely caused by drugs as you can see in the following photo of a meth addict (I say "most likely caused by drugs" because I, like the people posting the above photo on facebook, don't know the specific history of these women and cannot make a definitive statement):

But such an oversight could be forgiven if it were not for the preceding statement linking the victimization of such women with the use of pornography:

"Pornography increases the demand for trafficked women and children.
"Look at these mugshots - look what the sex industry does to these women. No one deserves this. Help take a STAND FOR AND WITH these victims of exploitation." [emphasis added]

As you can imagine, the sheeple did not disappoint in condemning pornography based on the implied indirect effect it has had on these women. But amid the drivel of conforming busybodies, one commenter pointed out the GLARING FLAW in the poster's argument:

"where exactly did you find the data on the correlation between porn and human trafficking?"

I'll tell you where they got it. From the nether-most region of their own nether regions (read: "anus"). They made it up. Such misguided people always make it up. There is no correlation between viewing pornography and victimizing women in this way. None. In fact, I wrote a post some time ago in which I used BYU's own research department to put such fallacious arguments to rest. Not only is the claim not true, but the research shows the opposite to be true. Men who view pornography tend to have a more favorable view of women's rights in general.

So why do these well-intentioned people feed such bad information? To them, the ends justify the means. They sincerely believe pornography is dangerous and harmful. Therefore, cherry-picking data, embellishing results and making bald assertions are just tools in the cause of a greater purpose. What they are really doing is sensationalizing information to the point where it can only be classified as propaganda.

There may well be legitimate arguments against pornography, but the link between pornography and sex trafficking is not one of them.

Would you like to hear such an argument? Fine. Here is a website (adult content, be advised) which uses actual research on pornography to show how some who view it can have an unrealistic approach to sex for the first time. This is a real argument against certain aspects of the porn industry, but the researchers acknowledge that this does not mean that pornography is all bad and should, therefore, be banned.

This is like saying the NBA creates unrealistic expectations for young men before they actually play basketball for the first time. No one dunks the ball the first time they walk onto a court. This is not an argument to ban professional basketball, but a call for better and more accessible information to first-timers (OK, this analogy is losing its hold). The point is, thus far, all legitimate and demonstrable arguments against pornography can be remedied with better approaches to sex education. And the first step is removing "abstinence only" sex education programs from our education system.

Perhaps the greatest problem of propagating this kind of bad information is that it detracts from the actual cause of the problems of the women above. There is no doubt they need medical attention. But if we cannot accurately identify the source of the problem, how can we expect to help them? Accepting a wrong answer (even if it supports your totally awesome moral agenda) only impedes progress.