Reconnecting Pornography, Prostitution, and Trafficking

Pornography has been perceived as existing separate from prostitution and trafficking. We suggest that pornography, prostitution, and trafficking overlap conceptually and empirically. We discuss similarities between pornography and other arms of the sex trade such as escort, street, or massage prostitution via a review of survivor testimony and existing research. Women used in the production of pornography suffer the same adverse antecedents as those in other prostitution including poverty, childhood sexual abuse, racism, domestic violence, and the cultural mainstreaming of sexism. These factors groom and channel women into pornography, with pornographers using the same controlling tactics employed by other pimps. In pornography, women are subject to physical and psychological harms that are the same as those harms in other prostitution. We offer recommendations for holding those who perpetrate sex trade harms - pimps, traffickers, and sex buyers - legally accountable. We conclude that pornography should be legally and conceptually understood as one variant of prostitution and trafficking.