Anne Blythe, founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery, talks to Samantha, a human trafficking survivor, about the ugly truth about pornography. One of the offensive and dangerous societally accepted belief is that trafficked workers have chosen and want to be exploited. In fact, the average age of a trafficking victim is only thirteen years old.
The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group has multiple live sessions daily. Join today and receive the support, validation, and compassion that you deserve as you begin your journey to healing.

Handlers exploit, abuse, and often torture victims into compliance. They rarely pay victims, which is appalling. With the booming market, the pornography and trafficking industry earns more annual revenue than the annual revenue of NFL + NBA + MLB. Samantha’s abusers didn’t allow her the freedom and respect to buy her own food.
Handlers abuse workers, whether on a pornographic film set or in the bedroom of a predator. Men literally pay for abusing women when they view pornography. A predator is anyone who financially and morally supports the trade and pornography industry. Some pornography users justify exploiting women by claiming they aren’t hurting anyone. Every time a man views pornographic material, he is a predator.
Predators Find Gratification In the Abuse Of Women
As Samantha explains, predators cause devastating harm to victims. Some states and countries legalize exploitation. They pave the way for more women and children’s abuse. Legalizing exploitation, including pornography, harms women. It’s simple.
One of the most disturbing components of the pornography industry is that men find gratification in the abuse of women. Pornography users rationalize its use when they believe trafficking workers actually enjoy being exploited. But Samantha explains that this is an illusion.

Whether they made money or not, their intent was to receive something in exchange for exploiting you and that makes it trafficking. It’s important for women to understand that men are completely accountable for their behaviors.
At BTR, we understand the sad truth that an alarming number of women are victims of coercion, assault, and even human trafficking – and may not know it. Every victim of betrayal and abuse deserves a safe place to share their stories, process trauma, ask questions, and make connections with other victims.
The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group has multiple live sessions daily. Join today and receive the support, validation, and compassion that you deserve as you begin your journey to healing.

Transcript: The Ugly Truth About Pornography
Anne: On today’s episode, a trafficking survivor is going to share her story. We’ll call her Samantha. Welcome.
Samantha: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve greatly benefitted from your podcast, your website, and other victims of betrayal trauma. And I’m grateful to share my story and hopefully help some people.
Anne: You found this podcast because you’re also a betrayal trauma victim. Additionally, someone trafficked you for a year in your youth. I want our listeners to know that you understand this issue on so many levels. And before we started recording, you talked about how words can make trafficking seem different than it is.
Samantha: People throw out the word pimp a lot of the time. And that’s kind of a cartoonish name for what is a slave master, a trafficker, a person who owns other people.
You’ll hear a buyer called a John, sometimes as a trick, and that makes it seem like they were tricked. They’re just the average John, the average guy, when really this is a person who is purchasing another human being. They were purchasing possibly children. So we refer to them as predators to recognize that that’s what’s happening. Also, a lot of the times you’ll hear prostitute and a prostitute is usually a human trafficking victim or slave.
Anne: I think this is really important to talk about, because we do not want to villainize other victims. As victims ourselves, compassion for other victims, rather than blaming them or giving them responsibility for our husband’s abuse, is not helpful to anybody. I wanted to have this conversation, and that’s one of the reasons.
The Tragic Lie That Hides The Ugly Truth about Pornography
Anne: Let’s start with just basic definitions. What is trafficking?
Society normalizes trafficking. So much so that when I say prostitute, the picture that comes to mind is an adult on the side of the road, luring innocent men. A trafficking victim, on the other hand, is usually imagined as a foreigner. Maybe they’re chained to a bed, possibly injected with drugs. Illusion is the key ingredient in the pornography industry. And the belief that those depicted in pornography are somehow aroused and choosing this.
The truth is that the average age of a trafficking victim is 13 years old. It’s not the willing adult presented in the fantasy. 85 percent of trafficking victims identified in the United States are U.S. citizens. These are our own children.

In 2018, the United States became one of the top three sources for trafficking victims. Trafficking jumped 13 percent in the United States between 20 16 and 2017 and is the fastest growing crime. Americans were the number one consumers worldwide. The annual revenue from the trafficking industry in the United States is more than the NFL, NBA and MLB combined.
Women in pornography exemplify the highest funded trafficking victims in the United States. All of which we are desensitized to.
The Ugly Truth About Pornography & Inhumane Treatment Process of Trafficking
Anne: Yeah. It’s jaw-dropping to think about all the different places this shows up in our society, and how many people participate in it in one form or another. In order for it to stop, the demand needs to dry up. If there were no demand, there would be no exploitation. If everyone in the world never clicked on or paid for pornography again, it would make a huge dent in the ugly truth about pornography. Will you talk to us about the realities of a victim since you were trafficked?
Samantha: So just like each betrayal trauma story is different, each trafficking survivor story is also unique. There’s a typical process traffickers use to secure victims, dating, grooming, breaking, and then turning out. The slave master may not take all those steps, depending on their typology. But breaking and turning out will always be present. Which is just the breaking of the person’s spirit and resistance, and then the turning out means forcing them to participate.

Masters betray, deceive, defraud, and coerce at a minimum. It can happen without us even realizing it’s happening. A trafficker has a specific end result in mind, and they will extend their abuse to complete compliance. Each slave has a quota that they must meet each day. Not meeting that quota can mean a wide variety of consequences, including death.
If a victim comes to the car window of a predator lurking to purchase, and cries, they might die that night. If they don’t get a thousand dollars, they won’t get any help. The predator will simply drive away, dismiss it in their mind as rare, a scam, and that most trafficked workers are like Pretty Woman. But younger and going to college.
What Is A “Predator”? Role of Predators
Samantha: The victim will be no closer to having the money they need. The only option they are given, by design, is to service the predators, the term we prefer rather than Johns, buyers or tricks. After a full shift of abuse. A slave master collects the slave from the venue. Sometimes they will work 24 hours. And then they take the slave to a new venue and dropped off again.
They are at the whims of the masters and predators who spend the money. The slave master takes control of all the money paid to the slave. This is one ugly truth about pornography.
I wasn’t allowed to buy food or drinks, even water. I would be given those things if my slave master felt I had earned them. My traffickers had multiple girls ranging from 13 to 17, all United States citizens. We slept on the floor in an apartment where mold was on the walls. There was nothing in the apartment besides one bed with no bedding. And it was for the master when he was there, not for us.
We each had one or two outfits chosen for us, and that was the extent of our worldly possessions. And only had contact with the people who pay to use us. We couldn’t engage with, or make eye contact with, anyone else. We suffer greatly at the hands of our masters, but we suffer far worse with the predators who purchase us for services. They abuse us all day, every day. We don’t want to engage them. We cannot ask them for help. They are not safe. We have nobody to help us.
Are You A Victim Of Human Trafficking? The Ugly Truth About Pornography
Anne: I am so sorry. That is a living nightmare that you are describing. And, it’s horrific to think that some women listening to this podcast, perhaps including my ex husband, I don’t know, have been involved in this type of abuse. Women find out that their husband also abuses women in the way you’ve described. It is just a nightmare.
So from your perspective, as a woman who has experienced both betrayal trauma, abuse, and exploitation in the form of being trafficked. Through the ugly truth about pornography. What would you like both the betrayed and the abusers listening to know?
Samantha: I occasionally had a betrayed wife ask about some activities within their own marriages that they now question. So I would like to say to the betrayed if your partner has ever forced you to participate in videos with another partner. Or in a field of trafficking, work for their financial gain or for bartering under the fraud of a trusting marriage.
Unfortunately, you may be a human trafficking survivor. Even if they didn’t make money, their poor business skills are not your problem. If the intent was to receive something from your exploitation, please contact a human trafficking resource center. Unfortunately, if we have betrayal trauma and abuse in our homes, we have to become educated on all forms of human trafficking.
The “Consent” Myth & The Ugly Truth About Pornography
Samantha: For any abuser listening, if you have looked at pornography, you have seen trafficking victims. If you have been to a strip club, you have paid trafficking victims. If you have purchased physical touch, you have paid for slave labor and assault. There is no sugarcoating the statistics. You can’t have so many non willing participants statistically, yet somehow magically have everyone in your own histories within those same venues be happy to be there.
It was a lie that only existed because you asked for lies. If you participate in the exploitation of a fellow human being, you are not an ally. Someone exploits a child every two minutes in the industry. You cannot prop up that system and also be a friend. You are painting targets on your own children with your choices.
Anne: It’s very scary, especially for those who are divorced. We send our children to our abuser, who continues to abuse us through lies and manipulation. Who is looking, for all intents and purposes, like an upstanding member of society. And we don’t know what’s going on.
And even if the only thing that’s going on is he just uses pornography and doesn’t realize the ugly truth about pornography, they’re still in the vicinity of someone willing to abuse someone else. I would like to mention to our listeners, because I am religious and talk about God and my own experience, that our guest today is an atheist. Just in case you want to feel validated. I love having all points of view here.
Mainstream Media & The Ugly Truth Of Pornography
Anne: As a trafficking survivor, can you help me understand your perspective on mainstream television shows that include the ugly truth of pornography like Game of Thrones, for example, or any shows like that. Would you say we also need to boycott that?
Samantha: Absolutely. Every click on pornography is to pay for this to happen. It’s paying for the perpetuation of this industry. I remember speaking to my mother about it, because she had recommended it. And I said, Mom, I can’t watch this. It’s too gratuitous, and she’s like, Oh yeah, I wish it wasn’t like that. I’m like, don’t watch, stop watching. That’s how it stops being like that.
Anne: I’d like to know what everybody thinks. So please comment on this episode. The point of saying this is that even if you hate abuse like I, I hate abuse. It’s difficult to live in our society when it’s so rampant. It’s on mainstream television.
Trafficking Minors Is Insidious & Predators Can Be Prosecuted
Anne: Let’s talk about the legalization of “work.” I don’t call it that, because we know it’s abuse. But in our society, there is this normalization of the industry, with some groups even pushing for legalization. As someone who has been in this situation in real life, what is your view on this?
Samantha: First and foremost, for those struggling with, is it okay to say no to pornography? Which a lot of women still struggle with. It feels very controlling, and we don’t want to be controlling. It is absolutely okay to say no to pornography. And it is not prudish to not want children enslaved and abused. There is an ugly truth about pornography.
This isn’t sexy because it isn’t real intimacy. It’s abuse of people who have already been abused. It is absolutely healthy to say no to all industries of exploitation and still be pro intimacy. These are not conflicting realities. We are really in a fight for our lives right now. Knowing firsthand what this industry has done to us and to our families. We know what it’s done to vulnerable children and the disenfranchised. It’s insidious.
Right now, we have laws popping up to help recognize victims and stop arresting children for being purchased by an adult, to prosecute buyers and end the demand. There are multiple states where, even if the buyer says they did not know the human trafficking victim is a minor, it is a felony.
They will go to prison, and they will need to register as a sex-offender. There is so much information out there to educate ourselves. That ignorance is no excuse for the ugly truth about pornography anymore.
The Ugly Truth About Pornography, Exploitation & “Legalized” Trafficking
Samantha: Statistically, it’s a child being bought, and it should not be worth the gamble. That person doing the buying is a risk to our society. At the same time, there are bills to fully decriminalize this kind of work. They are presented with the lie that this will somehow decrease trafficking and provide services for trafficked workers, but they have no resources of any kind provided within the bills.
We know from Las Vegas that trafficking rakes in 50 to 70 times as much money as the legal brothels. In the 48 years since, this kind of work was legalized in parts of Nevada. They now have 63 percent higher rates of trafficking than any other state in the country. And rank in the top 10 states for exploited youth. Less than 10 percent of all prostitution happening in Nevada is legal. We cannot let this hurt any more families and children.
Anne: As women who understand the serious ramifications and abuses that happen with people involved with pornography, we also need to recognize that we have also been victims of this in our own homes.
I know several women who have been filmed by their husband, and then the husband put that online for pornography. And they did it without their consent, and they did it without their knowledge. And so they are victims of exploitation and another ugly truth about pornography. What would you recommend for listeners if they suspect they might be victims of exploitation or wonder if they have been?
Resources For Survivors Of Trafficking
Samantha: A great place to start is a book called Trafficking Prevention by Savannah J. Sanders. It will not only help understand the basics, but also help protect children with trauma. There are national agencies to get information and support, Polaris, is one that is fantastic. The Rebecca Bender initiative does some incredible work with survivors. They’ve personally been amazing to me.
Also look locally. I am from a tiny farm town. This happens everywhere. So find your local agencies, support them, like their pages, share their articles you agree with, attend functions. If you’re brave enough, some even have weekly walks to help and find victims. To help expose the ugly truth about pornography.
There are many churches in my area that do these weekly walks to help free children. And that’s so sad, and it’s empowering simultaneously. Whatever feels comfortable. Recognizing our own limits and recognizing our need for safety right now is your biggest priority. You can contact politicians and demand enforcement of our laws, and be aware of what the laws are in your area.
If my child is kidnapped, it is a crime committed against them. If my child is sold, they are treated as a criminal. Make sure that that is not true for where you live, for your children, and your families.
How To Identify Trafficking Victims
Samantha: Last but not least, learn how to identify trafficking victims of the ugly truth about pornography. Teach your children if their friends have a secret boyfriend, a new random expensive gift. Or a new tattoo from a partner, which they think is a tattoo, but it’s a brand or offers for modeling jobs. They need to tell an adult, and that adult can reach out to either their local. or a national human trafficking agency to get assistance on how to proceed.
Victims Of Trafficking Suffer Trauma & Healing Through Compassion
Anne: I’d like to end with this question. Since you are also a betrayal trauma victim, you are currently in a relationship with a man who is abusive to you. And so you understand how all the listeners feel in that regard. How do you think that compassion for other victims can help heal betrayal trauma victims?
Samantha: I think just recognizing that if their partner chose a trafficked worker, they never had any animosity towards the family. They felt genuine compassion and sorrow. I know that I was very triggered in the beginning by any other woman. And I love all my sisters. And that was really hard for me to navigate and retrain my brain. That other women in general aren’t a threat. So I know it takes a lot of work.
Anne: Well, if a man is faithful and non-abusive, honest, transparent and accountable. He’s not gonna accidentally buy someone to have intercourse. He’s not just gonna see an attractive woman, and then suddenly accidentally end up in a hotel room with her.
Samantha: Yeah, I was trapped for roughly a year. And in that time, a John never once had to go to an ATM, meaning they were prepared. They knew what they needed, and they had it. They knew what they were looking for.
Anne: With your husband who betrayed you, how has your experience as a victim of the ugly truth about pornography informed your decisions about your marriage?
Samantha: Oh, it’s been extremely traumatic. The more trauma you have in your history, the more betrayal trauma intertwines is the way it’s been described to me. And so I’ve had to work to separate the two traumas.
Betrayal Trauma Recovery Supports Victims Of Betrayal & Abuse
Samantha: And also to try to remove my husband from my memories of my children, so I can enjoy them and that they’re not mingled in with the trauma.
It’s been a long process of trying to even feel comfortable to set boundaries, when I was unfortunately trained to not have any boundaries, and then I was not allowed to have boundaries. It’s been a lot of extra work, but the more growth I have, the more empowered I feel to grow even more.
Anne: My Living Free Workshop is all about boundaries. What sets Betrayal Trauma Recovery apart from most therapists, C-SATs or clergy is that we look at the ugly truth about pornography and abuse from a global perspective. Pornography is an abuse issue. And I appreciate every one of you who supports this podcast. By listening and sharing our articles on social media, commenting on our posts and tagging your friends. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.
And we appreciate your support. It helps other people get educated every time you comment. And helps other people get educated about this. It makes a huge difference and helps isolated women figure out what’s going on. Thank you so much. Samantha. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. with me today.
Samantha: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much, take care.
Informative and helpful! Great episode to share with anyone interested in ending human trafficking.
So many people don’t understand the links between exploitative material and human trafficking, also, that men who abuse women this way are abusive. Thanks for listening and sharing!
I felt the sincere truth of what Sam has shared. Your podcasts and dedication I am beyond grateful! Kids taken in broad daylight! Of course I know it’s been done before, but the powerful feeling that came when I heard her say that and even when you said the possibility of your own husband, testifies the massive desire of God to make the truth be known.
Thank you for sharing! Yes, when men participate in pornography, they participate in sex trafficking. Everyone needs to understand the links between the two.
I felt the sincere truth of what Sam has shared. Your podcasts and dedication I am beyond grateful! Kids taken in broad daylight! Of course I know it’s been done before, but the powerful feeling that came when I heard her say that and even when you said the possibility of your own husband, testifies the massive desire of God to make the truth be known.