80% of prostitution survivors at the WHISPER Oral History Project reported that their customers showed them pornography to illustrate the kinds of sexual activities in which they wanted to engage. 52% of the women stated that pornography played a significant role in teaching them what was expected of them as prostitutes. 30% reported that their pimps regularly exposed them to pornography in order to indoctrinate them into an acceptance of the practices depicted. (A facilitator’s guide to Prostitution: a matter of violence against women, 1990, WHISPER – Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt Minneapolis, MN)…
In a study of 475 people in prostitution (including women, men, and the transgendered) from five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia)…92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately.
From “Prostitution Facts” at rapeis.org
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…Evelina Giobbe [is] founder and director of education and public policy for WHISPER, an acronym for Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt. “We believe that pornography is directly connected to women’s social, sexual and economic subordination under patriarchy, and as that it is nothing more or less than part of women’s oppression and social colonization.”
Giobbe, a former prostitute turned activist who testified before the Meese Commission as a survivor of commercial exploitation, is active in anti-porn legislation. She says she comes at her beliefs “personally, politically and theoretically. (Pornography) is something that hurts women,” she says. “It hurts your dignity. It hurts your health. It hurts your mind, spirit and body. These premises came from the lived experiences of women like myself. These women aren’t finding this particularly empowering.”
From the Los Angeles Times Magazine, “Susie Bright Tells All Preaching a Doctrine of Adventure, Fantasy and Safety, the Feminist Bad Girl Brings Her Pro-Sex Message to the Masses”, 7/24/94
See also:
Feds: Girl, 12, trained to work as dominatrix (CNN, 5/13/08)
The indictment says Barkau began training the girl in 2000, when she was 12, and forced her to engage in sex acts with him and with other men. According to the indictment, he also had the girl watch pornography on the Internet as a teaching tool.
Barkau is accused of creating a business out of the couple’s Missouri home when the girl was 14 and marketing her as a 19- to 20-year-old dominatrix on the Internet for about two years…
Prosecutors will seek $80,000 the couple is accused of having made through sex trafficking, Wood [US Attorney John Wood] said.