I Watched Sound of Freedom, Now What Can I Do? End Porn Use!

The Sound of Freedom movie has gone viral - it’s the first movie ever to see double-digit growth from the first weekend to the second, and it’s plain to see why this non-Hollywood movie about a sex trafficking rescue is smashing box office expectations.

You can’t watch it without God moving your heart to “proclaim liberty to the captives.” And for many of us, that means telling everyone we know to go watch this movie.

Last week I received a mass email from a big corporate executive who said "I watched Sound of Freedom yesterday, and it was so moving/disturbing that I feel more people need to see this movie and be aware of how rampant human trafficking is...as individuals I think we should increase our awareness and think about what else we can do to end this awful practice."

My goal is to answer the question he asked, and the question on everyone’s minds after watching Sound of Freedom: what can I do to stop human trafficking?

The simple answer? End porn use.

Once you understand what trafficking is, it becomes clear that trafficking and porn are tightly linked. But you can break the chain by working to end porn use for yourself or others - read on to find out why and how.

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What Is Trafficking?

The US Department of Homeland Security defines trafficking as “modern-day slavery involv[ing] the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex.” The FBI says it even more simply: "Human trafficking is the illegal exploitation of a person.” No matter how you define it, trafficking involves the strong preying on the weak for their own gain, especially sexual pleasure, which is the motive for much of the trafficking industry.

Trafficking is on clear display in the Sound of Freedom movie, where two children are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery, and homeland security agent Tim Ballard risks his life to attempt to rescue them. It’s terrifying to think of those children in chains, repeatedly forced to perform sex acts, and realize that this isn’t a made-up nightmare — it’s a lived experience across the globe. The International Labour Organization estimates that 27.6 million people were trafficked into labor in 2021 around the world, sexual and otherwise.

Unfortunately, human trafficking is not just a dark phenomenon in impoverished economies — it happens right here in the United States. 16,554 American victims were reported to the National Human Trafficking hotline in 2021, and far more likely remain unreported. The US and other developed nations are typically “destination countries” for trafficking, where kidnapped children and adults are smuggled in, while many poorer regions are “source countries”.

Both these statistics and the raw emotion from seeing trafficked children on the screen in Sound of Freedom cause many of us to wonder: how could someone ever be so evil, so depraved, as to buy children and force them into sex slavery?

No one is born with an innate desire to traffic children. It's likely that some of us have consumed media made with trafficked persons without even knowing it. It all comes down to pornography.

Correlation Between Trafficking and Porn

In modern society, the narrative around porn has shifted from a taboo, secretive subject to an openly praised, “healthy” way for kids and adults to learn about sex and fulfill their sexual needs. In a large and representative 2020 study reported in the National Library of Medicine, 91.5% of men and 60.2% of women reported having consumed pornography in the past month. But what society doesn’t talk about is the dark side of porn: its connection to trafficking.

Benji Nolot, a filmmaker who has dedicated his life to exposing sex trafficking, is an on-the-ground sleuth who has definitively proved the connection between pornography and trafficking. On a recent podcast interview, he explained four ways that porn and trafficking are interlinked:

1. All sex buyers start with pornography. Trafficking organization Exodus Cry secretly interviewed 13 random sex buyers, and all of them began with porn. There is an extremely wide funnel for sex trafficking demand, which proceeds as follows:

- Regular, average porn users (most people) are right at the top of the funnel

- To seek a higher dopamine hit, some people fall into “hardcore porn”, replete with violence, rape, incest, and other heinous acts

- A percentage of those people seek out interactive pay-for-sex options like online chat rooms or real-life strip clubs and prostitutes

- A small proportion of those people then get so deep that they buy children or other trafficked victims as sex slaves

2. Many trafficked people are featured in porn. Because of the user upload model, most porn sites don’t control the sources of their content, and perpetrators of sex trafficking upload videos of their crimes, which further stimulates demand for trafficking. Even if viewers don’t personally watch criminal porn, by supporting the sites that do, they become complicit.

3. Pimps, brothel owners, and traffickers use porn as advertisements for trafficked prostitutes. Trafficked victims are also forced to create porn to help sell themselves, and it works because porn is the fuel behind the desire.

4. Pornographers lure performers into bait-and-switch scenarios. Even non-trafficked performers get coerced into sex acts they didn’t sign up for on a regular basis; Fight the New Drug performed in-depth research on this phenomenon, summing it up by saying “there’s virtually no guarantee which [porn] is [consensual].”

To sum it all up, porn and the porn industry feed the demand for sex trafficking. as the availability of porn ha

You Can Help Stop Trafficking

This is all pretty overwhelming - after watching the movie and then seeing the statistics, it can feel like there is no end to the evil in the world. But there is a fire of abolition and freedom catching right now, and you can be a part of it!

No matter who or where you are, there are two key things you can do to fight trafficking and #stopthedemand: 1) End your own porn use, and/or 2) Help a loved one or friend end their porn use

1. End your own porn use

- If you struggle in silence with a chronic pornography habit, know you’re not alone. The things you’ve read and seen here might cause feelings of guilt to rise, but don’t let it turn into shame; you aren’t a terrible person — you just have an opportunity now to help save the world by repenting and finding freedom.

- Even if it’s not a regular occurrence for you, if you can slowly reduce your indulgence to zero, you will have a major impact on yourself and others. You’ll find more light in your life, better relationships with others, and a better relationship with God.

- Read on below to find out how to find freedom for yourself, and in so doing, free others.

2. Help a loved one or friend end their porn use

- You may have watched as someone you care about has fallen prey to the trap of pornography. It may have deeply affected your relationship, and you might still be unsure how to address the topic or deal with the aftermath.

- If they’ve opened up to you about this, they need your help more than you know, but it’s really hard for them to ask. Help them break their chains, and as you help them, you’ll make an impact on the industry at large, saving both the person you care about and others who might have been affected by the downstream results of their pornography use.

You don’t have to be like Tim Ballard and rush into a dangerous Columbian jungle in disguise. You can take action today by starting the process to help yourself or someone else slowly overcome porn use.

How to End Porn Use

It’s easier said than done - porn is a trap that often won’t let go, creating urges and compulsions to come back again and again. But it can be done, by the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ, who offers true Freedom to all of us.

As you turn to Him, it’s critical that you take additional steps to make change — and the most important thing you can do is to help the person struggling with porn (including you, if that’s you), to find a strong support system.

• Porn use thrives in isolation, and it creates a cycle of shame that drives people to continue cutting themselves off from God and others around them
• To end the cycle, you have to cut it out at the root of isolation, and develop strong connections to help overcome porn

People who struggle with porn often find it difficult to connect, though, because of that shame. To counteract that, it’s crucial to join with others who understand the struggle — people who relate and won’t judge, but rather will listen and provide support and accountability.

Therapists in the space always say it is crucial that people working through porn use rely on peers, rather than a spouse or other family member.

It’s often hard to find peers in the struggle, but there are a few great places to go. For in-person help, Sexaholics Anonymous can be really valuable, as well as local church groups. For virtual or online help (which is often a great first step, since it’s not easy to go out and talk about this), a Christian porn recovery support group app like Relay can make a strong impact, along with text groups with friends or other accountability partners.

Conclusion

Take advantage of these resources for yourself or others, and you’ll find that God magnifies your efforts. He is a God of Freedom, and as you work to release yourself and others from the trap of pornography and the terrible industry of trafficking that it feeds, He will help you break chains.

God inspired millions to watch Sound of Freedom and feel a divine fire stoked inside them to free people imprisoned by trafficking, and He will inspire you to do what you can in your life to be a force for righteousness and liberty.

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