In case you're reading this and you don't know me. Hello.
I'm 29, I have a gorgeous husband-man and we made a baby. Sex is involved in that.
Just sayin'. In case the rant that's coming up conjures images of neck high ankle low floral frocks and hair under headscarves and picketing funerals and shouting at people and hating everything and being terrified of anything secular because it's OF THE DEVIL and wanting everyone to be miserable like me.
That's not me.
I follow a God who is a lot more controversial, sexual, and imaginative than we will ever be.
Just sayin'.
So. My point is this. We can't dabble, people.
Just for a second, let's suspend our stupidity. Sex and the sex industry pretend to be two different things but they're not - 'i'm a good Christian man and i'd never pay for sex or watch porn but this movie is just good fun and those women may well linger at the back of my mind for days, to be owned and recalled when i'm in bed with my wife/ by myself...that's ok. I don't pay for sex. That's sinful.'
'And sex trafficking? The repeated rape and torture of women and children? That's terrible.
Oh, it's awful that these things happen in those countries with their barbaric cultures but it's so good that we're sorted over here in England, there's no need for feminism anymore over here. We know how to do family. We know how to do sex. I pity those countries in Eastern Europe with their terrible sex industry problems.'
Just to rewind a little bit, we sent our troops into Eastern Europe and they got bored of watching people slaughter each other so they required entertainment. Brothels. Sex is comforting, and that's legitimate and i'm sure that our guys saw some horrific things and i'm sure that warm arms and a fuzzy beer filter helped. In the short term. Momentarily took away the pain of being amongst so much pain (100 people killed everyday in Sarajevo, for months and months, FYI) so the sex industry boomed. Where do you get enough girls to satisfy and please that many men?
You think little girls who have been loved and cherished grow up thinking 'when i'm big I want to spend my days and nights gyrating for drunk, faceless, often cruel men? I want HIV please, and oh if i'm lucky I could get pregnant and have a forced abortion. And I want to give all the money I earn with my body to yet another man. It would be really great if he could be violent as well. That's the dream'.
Not a lot of girls want that. And yet girls are fast becoming the number one biggest, and most lucrative, criminal export ahead of weapons and drugs. So where do you get the girls? Easy. You steal them.
So we sent our bored men to eastern Europe and they paid for sex with stolen girls and then the brothels stayed, and the demand is still there but it's on our soil so the cargo gets posted here. And our men are still up for paying for it, and our women are up for facilitating this trade, and our media sells sex so really are they going to do anything about it?
It's not like this is happening to our daughters.
They were daughters in Ukraine. But to us they're flesh. Naked.
Nobody chases a 13 year old orphan girl across the world to claim her back. Not the orphanage who took the bribe. Not the police who visit the brothels. Not Liam Neeson. Another Hollywood lie, thanks for that.
Sorry. She's giving herself over and over and over until she's useless and dead.
So maybe it's not their culture that's to blame. Maybe our culture isn't innocent in this.
Maybe all our 'no big deals' tumble and spin and accumulate and then we don't see when it is suddenly a huge deal.
Maybe we're the problem.
Maybe when our churches sit by and say NOTHING to the media when they imply that only slutty women get raped and it's their fault anyway because they were wearing provocative clothing.
Maybe it's when we take our church traditions from theologians who believed women weren't made in the image of God ('oh but he had such a revelation of Grace').
Maybe its when we judge women for not being beautiful enough -too fat too thin - and then slap her into the dirt if she decides to celebrate her beauty in a dress that shows a little leg. We cannot seem to stop contradicting ourselves.
Maybe it's because we tolerate everything apart from intolerance and so nobody stands up and starts screaming in the streets when a van carrying Chinese children to their next brothel in Crowborough gets into an accident and the confused, bemused, police find 11 year old sex workers inside.
Maybe we're so busy lining our nests with cool prints and big tellies and good food that honestly, fighting rape isn't a priority for us.
Maybe we are the ones that are sick.
We are the market. We're the culture that buys the sex. We've gone wrong somewhere.
So yeah, I stopped watching the movie when it started making prostitution look glamorous. Because to me that's just one more no big deal that is actually, definitely, a big deal.
Just to rewind a little bit, we sent our troops into Eastern Europe and they got bored of watching people slaughter each other so they required entertainment. Brothels. Sex is comforting, and that's legitimate and i'm sure that our guys saw some horrific things and i'm sure that warm arms and a fuzzy beer filter helped. In the short term. Momentarily took away the pain of being amongst so much pain (100 people killed everyday in Sarajevo, for months and months, FYI) so the sex industry boomed. Where do you get enough girls to satisfy and please that many men?
You think little girls who have been loved and cherished grow up thinking 'when i'm big I want to spend my days and nights gyrating for drunk, faceless, often cruel men? I want HIV please, and oh if i'm lucky I could get pregnant and have a forced abortion. And I want to give all the money I earn with my body to yet another man. It would be really great if he could be violent as well. That's the dream'.
Not a lot of girls want that. And yet girls are fast becoming the number one biggest, and most lucrative, criminal export ahead of weapons and drugs. So where do you get the girls? Easy. You steal them.
So we sent our bored men to eastern Europe and they paid for sex with stolen girls and then the brothels stayed, and the demand is still there but it's on our soil so the cargo gets posted here. And our men are still up for paying for it, and our women are up for facilitating this trade, and our media sells sex so really are they going to do anything about it?
It's not like this is happening to our daughters.
They were daughters in Ukraine. But to us they're flesh. Naked.
Nobody chases a 13 year old orphan girl across the world to claim her back. Not the orphanage who took the bribe. Not the police who visit the brothels. Not Liam Neeson. Another Hollywood lie, thanks for that.
Sorry. She's giving herself over and over and over until she's useless and dead.
So maybe it's not their culture that's to blame. Maybe our culture isn't innocent in this.
Maybe all our 'no big deals' tumble and spin and accumulate and then we don't see when it is suddenly a huge deal.
Maybe we're the problem.
Maybe when our churches sit by and say NOTHING to the media when they imply that only slutty women get raped and it's their fault anyway because they were wearing provocative clothing.
Maybe it's when we take our church traditions from theologians who believed women weren't made in the image of God ('oh but he had such a revelation of Grace').
Maybe its when we judge women for not being beautiful enough -too fat too thin - and then slap her into the dirt if she decides to celebrate her beauty in a dress that shows a little leg. We cannot seem to stop contradicting ourselves.
Maybe it's because we tolerate everything apart from intolerance and so nobody stands up and starts screaming in the streets when a van carrying Chinese children to their next brothel in Crowborough gets into an accident and the confused, bemused, police find 11 year old sex workers inside.
Maybe we're so busy lining our nests with cool prints and big tellies and good food that honestly, fighting rape isn't a priority for us.
Maybe we are the ones that are sick.
We are the market. We're the culture that buys the sex. We've gone wrong somewhere.
So yeah, I stopped watching the movie when it started making prostitution look glamorous. Because to me that's just one more no big deal that is actually, definitely, a big deal.
I mentioned this to my young friend in that boarding school about an hour from you....and he set me straight! He says plenty of boys sell their bodies too, some before actually moving on from the internat. So sad, so tragic. In the US about 70% of the sex trafficked kids came out of foster homes. We aren't doing any better....and some people think it is just a valid way to make money (and ignore the life expectancy statistics for prostitutes).
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