It’s very strange to me that lately there’s been all this stuff to raise awareness of human trafficking. It hadn’t really hit my consciousness until a couple months ago when I came across a project. People are knitting scarves that look like chains and selling them to raise funds to benefit a human trafficking prevention program. Apparently, trafficking’s been happening not only in third world countries, but right here in the U.S.
Being ever of a diagnostic mindset, I have ideas about the underlying reasons. I think that primarily the cause has been the idealization of youthful partners for sex, that some who suffer from immaturity have been going after kids because of mental and societal illness.
I wonder if we stop having so much sexually-laced context in our media that will help? And/or at least show sexiness as something that can include wrinkles and gray hair and stop characterizing it as something primarily youthful? And stop having sex as a primary goal for human beings, but rather, the full smörgåsbord of relationships?
I used to think it was OK to have strip clubs & pornography. Really am not sure now. I can’t condemn someone for stripping & doing porn. But I am not sure that it is a healthy thing in general. Nude statues are OK and certainly sex education is desired, and certainly art that explores the human form and burlesque are very valid and desirable. But I don’t think the prevalence of less artistically redeemable forms of pornography is mentally healthy for us.
Some of us have abused men in this culture, not only women, and this could be a root of the problem. Many have seen the whole sex as an oppressor class, and perhaps some men have therefore felt that it has been expected of them to have immature desires. What if we focus more often on the capacity of men to be nurturers, sensitive, and mature? What if we raise up good role models in the media more frequently? Let’s let men have drum circles and gatherings, and women have drum circles and gatherings, and men and women have drum circles and gatherings. Let’s drum this good stuff up.
The use of the words “mature” and “adult” is interesting to me as well, considering that in contemporary shorthand context, it tends to refer to content that contains pornography. I would like for us to see these words employed more in the traditional context, where these words mean something quite different in an asexual way–they mean “responsible,” “aged,” and “experienced.”
Unicef project to end human trafficking…
~ Lady