Guest Post by William Payne The title of this post is a bit controversial. There are many who would react to it with a strong “no.” Porn, they claim, is just an expression of free speech. It doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s just a bit of “adult” fun. They argue that the suggestion that porn production and sex trafficking are one and the same is nothing more than a distraction from the problem of sexual slavery. But do those positions stand up to scrutiny? Is the production of pornography just a business like any other? That is, of course, what the pornography industry would like us to believe for the sake of its own financial interests – a belief pornographers have spent millions of dollar s to foster over the past decades. Is it rational to subscribe to that belief? The word “pornography” derives from the Greek pornographos , which means “writing about prostitutes.” Pornography is inherently tied to prostitution. In fact, it is prostitution. Former FBI agent Roger Young said , “What happened to common sense? The fact that there is a camera filming the prostitution doesn’t change the fact of the prostitution.” What also doesn’t make much of a difference is whether prostituted women are being paid by a morally-deficient man or a pornography production studio (though you’ll find plenty of the former in the latter). It’s still payment for a commercial sex act, and therefore still prostitution, which is why porn production is illegal in most of the country outside of California. But porn production isn’t just prostitution. Just take a look at the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which is a federal law first signed by President Clinton in 2000 and reauthorized by President Bush in 2003, 2005, and 2008

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