Minneapolis city officials heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn, those who consume porn and those who produce it at a hearing of the Minneapolis Government Operations Committee on December 13, 1983. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.175-176).
Testimony of Sue Santa
I work with a local nonprofit private organization in Minneapolis called Minneapolis Youth Division. My position there is outreach worker working exclusively with adolescent females involved in prostitution. Over the course of the years, six years that I have been there, I noticed a direct correlation between pornography and prostitution with my clients. I can says almost categorically never have I had a client who has not been exposed to prostitution through pornography in one way or the other. For some young women, that means that they are shown pornography–either films, videotapes, or pictures–as, this is how you do it, almost as a training manual in how to perform acts of prostitution.
[Chairman Van White:] Excuse me. You are saying they are pimps training them with those kinds of messages?
That is correct.
In addition, out on the street when a young woman is plying her trade, as it were, many of her tricks or customers will come up to her with little pieces of paper, pictures that were torn from a magazine and say: I want this. As one client put it, it is like a mail order catalogue of sex acts, and that is what she is expected to perform.
Another way that pornography plays a part in the lives of my clients is that as young women, very young women, some as young as eleven, they want the good things that they see on TV, and they see taking part in nude modeling, taking part in movies–pornographic movies–as a way to be a star, get to Hollywood. Now, this may seem foolish to those of you who are adults and say ha ha, we know that is wrong. We are talking about children who are very naive and are told that Marilyn Monroe made it this way, Brooke Shields made a movie about Pretty Baby. You have been there baby, you can do it.
Another aspect that plays a big part in my work with my clients is that, on many occasions, my clients are multi-, many-, rape victims. These rapes are often either taped or have photographs taken of the event. The young woman, when she tries to escape or leaves, is told that either she continues her involvement in prostitution or those pictures will be sent to her parents, will be sent to the juvenile court, will be used against her. And out of fear, she will continue her involvement in prostitution.
On several occasions, not many but on several occasions, these young women have found that later that their pictures have been published in pornographic magazines without their knowledge and consent. This is very traumatic, especially when I have been working hard with this young woman to make things in her life better. She is involved in the straight lifestyle and finds out there are published pictures of her engaged in various sex acts.
I would like to close with a comment of one of my clients who heard I was going to be here tonight who said, “It is about time that those folks figured out what is going on.” Thank you.
See also:
Testimony in Minneapolis: Prostitutes and Porn (explicit language)
“I was the main woman of a pimp who filmed sexual acts almost every night in our home. The dope man, who supplied us with cocaine for free in exchange for these arranged orgies, was a really freaky man who would do anything. They arranged to have women, who I assumed were forced to be there, have sex with dogs and filmed those acts. There were stacks of films all over the house, which my pimp used to blackmail people with.”
Testimony in Minneapolis: Likeness of TV Star “Rhoda” Misappropriated by Pornographers; Aspiring Actresses Vulnerable to Being Enticed into Porn
“As a young dancer-actress-singer in New York City, I experienced first-hand (and have heard countless accounts from many other women in these fields and modeling) continual attempts to convince, that pornography, photography, films, et cetera were a stepping stone to stardom. Young people and children are particularly vulnerable to this kind of enticement in New York City and Los Angeles as they are show business centers.”