Sexual Slavery
One of the wars against women is the true pandemic of sexual slavery in this country and throughout the world. How else can the buying and selling of a human being, or parts thereof, be characterized? How else can the maintaining of human prisoners for sexual gratification be characterized?
On a regular basis the news media makes public the rescue of a woman or women being held against their will and used sexually. Sometimes the story is one of forced prostitution. Alternatively there are stories of enslaved women being held prisoner by a man for the sole purpose of his personal sexual gratification. It is often revealed that the enslavement lasted years. How can one even begin to measure the psychological damage done to women so victimized? Many women suffer PTSD from a single, time-limited violation, so the damage done to serially-violated women must be incalculable.
The focus of the crime is almost always on the “human trafficker” or “pimp”. However, as with all transactions, there would be no supply if there was no demand. I’m unable to comprehend the nature of men who seek an unwilling sexual partner. They obviously exist, or sexual slavery, rape (short-term sexual slavery), and prostitution (often in reality also sexual slavery) would not exist. At least a partial solution to the demand problem would be to charge every man who seeks these experiences with the highest legal category of rape. Such men deserve to be removed from society in order to protect that society. There should be public service announcements on television and websites warning men about the potential cost of seeking gratification under those circumstances. Too bad the US Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the death penalty for the rape of a woman, and in 2008 for the rape of a child, were unconstitutional.
Another partial solution would be to enlist “neighborhood watches” or form such organizations where they don’t exist, to look for signs of potential sexual slavery. Possible signs could include, but not be limited to: different men entering a building at various hours; the absence of a woman who was usually seen in the community; other, more subtle indications that a home or other building is being used in a way that is secretive or otherwise not conforming to the social logic of the community. I’d rather see innocent people occasionally harassed by the police than to allow women to continue to exist in nightmarish conditions. This would certainly be a case of “see something, say something”.