A Little Help For Our Friends

Unveiling the Dark Side: Exploring Sex Trafficking, Power Imbalances, and Abuse in the Celebrity World

• Jacqueline Trumbull and Kibby McMahon • Season 5 • Episode 119

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How well do you really understand the grim reality of sex trafficking? We challenge some of the most deeply-held misconceptions, revealing its unsettling proximity to our everyday lives. We confront the recent allegations against music mogul Diddy, exploring how power and abuse intertwine in complex ways, reshaping our understanding of consent and control. We further illuminate the hidden signs of human trafficking and abusive relationships, drawing parallels to the pressures faced by young celebrities. Finally, we shine a light on reality TV's manipulative tactics, illustrating how these mirror broader societal issues of control and objectification. Empowering listeners with awareness, our discussion offers tools to recognize and confront these pervasive issues effectively.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back Little Helpers. For this episode. Kibbe and I dipped into the recent news about Diddy and decided to approach the god-awful topic of sex trafficking. This might seem like kind of a niche topic, but actually it's really relevant. It has themes of sexual assault, manipulation, coercion, power and control and it's a little bit more common than you might think. But before we continue with this topic, kibbe, can you? It's a little bit more common than you might think, but before we continue with this topic, kibi, can you tell us a little bit about the exciting things you are building for our listeners?

Speaker 2:

Yeah we are building in our company, kula Mind K-U-L-A-M-I-N-D. Kula is a Sanskrit word for community that comes together to practice. So we're building something really special for you guys different ways to support you if you have a loved one with mental illness. So we love you guys. We love every time you reach out to us with questions or stories, requests, and we really want to make this even more of an engaged community. We want you guys to be able to talk to each other and ask questions and interact with us directly or get individual support when you need it the most. So a lot of really cool stuff is coming up. But you can check out coolamindcom and stay tuned for future episodes to hear what we have in store for you. So some really nice stuff coming up for you.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Okay, so I found the definition of sex trafficking that the United States gives is that sex trafficking is a commercial sex act which is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age, or the recruitment, harboring, transportation provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. Do you have anything to add to that kind of conceptualization of sex trafficking? Givi?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's basically prostitution. It's basically taking people full genders, usually women, and forcing them to have sex for money.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I remember there was when Joe Millionaire came out.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you ever watched that reality show?

Speaker 1:

There was like yeah, there was a contestant who divulged that she had been a victim of sex trafficking and it just it was kind of an interesting experience for me because I realized how little I knew about sex trafficking and how it was something that I conceptualized as just like occurring in Cambodia and, like you know, women would be stolen from their homes and like sold into sex slavery for a long period of time.

Speaker 1:

But actually this was a white girl in the United States and she had responded to a modeling ad and was flown to Vegas or something, put up in a hotel and then trapped in a hotel room plied with alcohol and cocaine, made to sign some contract and she couldn't really get out of signing the contract.

Speaker 1:

It was like a million pages long first of all, so she couldn't read it and they were like blocking the doors or something, and then she was basically forced to have sex on camera, told that would only, you know, be shown in australia and like with like on a dvd, and instead it was not only posted on the internet in the united states but, uh, the traffickers purposely sent it to her contacts and and this was a me, I mean, this was like a major story these traffickers were, thank god, eventually arrested, but this happened to a lot of women, a lot of women, and so it was. I was like, oh, like, this is something that can happen here. It can happen one time with horrific consequences, and, um, it's not just this horrible thing that happens to people who aren't like me.

Speaker 2:

Would you consider porn sex trafficking by?

Speaker 1:

our definition Only if they're coerced into it.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's really hard to say right, because all of the things that we're reading about sex trafficking it's. The victims might not even recognize that they're being coerced.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's, I think, something big we're going to go into.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, okay, so sex trafficking more common than we thought. I yeah, I've been following the P Diddy or Diddy I guess. The Diddy story it was just so. It was so shocking to me because I just had no idea and looking back I feel very silly, but I'm sure a lot of people feel very silly about this. He was such a especially for us millennials, like Diddy's, one of the most powerful people in the hip hop industry and like music industry in general, and I mean we've had so many Me Too moments where people who are very powerful, you know, you just discover that actually they have this horrible Ponzi scheme or a crime operation or are abusing women left and right. But it just this story was particularly shocking.

Speaker 2:

So, for people who haven't been following it, diddy had an ex-girlfriend, cassie Ventura, cassandra Ventura who filed a lawsuit against him. She accused him of abusing her and accused him of a lot of different things sex trafficking. That's about last, last fall, and what came out was a video of uh, p Diddy and um and Cassie at a hotel. I don't know if you've ever seen it a trigger warning in for this episode. In general, this is, you know, really hard topics, but I saw the video recently and it was just horrifying. It was like a security camera in the hallway. You see Diddy come out and Cassie trying to run away and you see him basically beating her up and dragging her into the room. It was not ambiguous at all. He grabbed this woman and just threw her to the ground and kicked her. It was awful.

Speaker 2:

And then when the indictment came out, diddy was accused of sex trafficking and you know all sorts of stuff like all different kinds of abuse, arson, bribery, kidnapping, obstruction of justice. And what is really shocking about this is that he used to run these parties that are called freak-offs, which were these elaborate parties where he would bring women or people I don't know, I think it might have been men and women who were either he was like dating or courting for, you know, to be the next star in his bad boy records. But he would bring them to these parties. Everyone would be drugged and he would hire sex workers to have sex with them for long periods of time, like essentially raping them on camera. He would film them without their knowledge and he'd, you know, enjoy watching that, and it was so physically exhausting that the victims had to have IV fluids at the end of it and he kept those videos and used them as blackmail.

Speaker 2:

So if anyone were to try to speak out against him, he'd say, well, I have these videos of you, right, and it seems like almost like something out of a movie. It seemed like unreal when I heard it. But then there's even clips of interviews with Diddy himself and other people like Justin Bieber and Usher, who were teens when they stayed over at Diddy's house and were taken under his mentorship. That really alluded to these parties right in public. And then they raided his house recently and then they found like a thousand bottles of lube and narcotics and I think some video footage that you know is in line with what the accusations were. So my first thought was how did something this egregious and terrible happen repeatedly? And I feel like I'm learning about this for the first time, right Like I'm like what I had no idea.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, it's clearly despicable. One question I have off the bat is the definition says it has to be used for commercial purposes and this doesn't seem like commercial purposes. It seems like private use and blackmail.

Speaker 2:

I'm guessing that well, we don't know, right Like I have, we have no idea what financial incentives were. Were mixed in right Like I have no idea speculation, if they said, hey, if you come to these parties and hang out with me and do these things like, you'll get a contract or you get to work with me. You know there's also, I wonder if it's considered sex trafficking, if it's promise of future, like professional development, like the Harvey Weinstein stuff. But there were sex workers who were the ones like in the videos as well. So even just the trafficking or the coercion or use of people, escorts, in these freak offs, that alone is sex trafficking.

Speaker 1:

So one of the arguments, I think the main argument that the defense team is going to use is that this was consensual. And I think this is kind of at the heart of sex trafficking. You know, the kind of example that I gave earlier, the naive example of like child is stolen from home and, you know, sold into sex slavery, like that's clear right. But in probably the majority of these cases it might look consensual on its face but it's really, really not.

Speaker 1:

And we'll talk about some of the ways that victims are chosen, the people who are more vulnerable, and kind of the tactics used to coerce people into these commercial sex acts that sometimes the victim will not realize as non-consensual and will prevent them from speaking out maybe ever yeah yeah, his defense team was like do most people have sex this way?

Speaker 1:

no, but everyone wanted to be there. It's like okay, I think we've got a few clues. Diddy is incredibly powerful. He has a lot of money, a of prestige, a lot of people protecting him because he's responsible for a lot of people's careers and a lot of people's livelihoods. He has the ability to give hope to young women that there will one day be stars. And he is telling will one day be stars. And he is telling many, many women to pour inordinate amounts of lube and oil over their bodies and have sex with male prostitutes. I mean, it's kind of it is more inconceivable to think of this as truly consensual than to see the clear signs of coercion.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's when we talk about sexual abuse. The imbalance of power makes choice really confusing, right? So if, like you, I mean this is how a lot of sex trafficking works, is this imbalance of power? Usually it's young women. I mean, I'm talking about a lot of minors, right? Women, I mean I'm talking about a lot of minors, right?

Speaker 2:

Young girls who ran away from home, who have substance abuse issues, who come from poor backgrounds. You know people who have just no power. And then you have someone a pimp or P Diddy who is there offering a home, offering protection, offering love and a father figure, caretaking, mentorship, whatever you want, like something that they really need on a very basic human level, and not only that, but they are probably offering like riches and opportunities and all things that they, you know, on their own they won't be able to get. So when you have that much of an imbalance of power, if you know your pimp or diddy says, hey, we're going to do a party and you're going to do a lot of drugs. You know you're my special girl. Like you know, you're going to have fun Is that person really in a position of power and control to say no, thank you?

Speaker 1:

Right. I think what can be confusing is that, theoretically, diddy can date whoever he wants and he can. It's not. It's not illegal to be kinky. It's not illegal to query your partner about whether they might be willing to do something kinky, um and so like, at what point can we say? I mean, there's a natural power imbalance. Oh, unless diddy is dating like beyonce, you know, there's a natural power imbalance.

Speaker 1:

We can't just say Diddy is not allowed to date a normal person because there would be an automatic power imbalance and I think that that does make this difficult. It's helpful that I mean, first of all, he was clearly abusive. We have it on videotape with Cassie coming out and detailing this and saying, no, it was not fully consensual, um, but it's complicated and it makes me worry a little bit about, like, whether he will get charged or or how this will go down because a lot of women are gonna want gifts. They're gonna want the attention of a huge celebrity um but this is you know.

Speaker 1:

I mean, if we lay out how sex trafficking can occur, it's going to sound like a lot of just abusive relationships. Like this is how abusive relationships work. They target women, who are, I mean, or men, but women seem to be a little bit more vulnerable to sex trafficking, trafficking or a lot more. They target women who, as you said, come from often broken homes, child abuse situations where basically their entire worldview is that you get hit or abused by the people who you love or who love you.

Speaker 1:

So then when someone comes riding in on a stallion and gives you a gift for the first time, it's like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm someone like me, with very low self-esteem, who thinks that I deserve to be hit by the person who loves me or the people who love me, who has never been shown a secure attachment, who has never had her feelings necessarily taken seriously and has instead been met with physical, sexual, emotional abuse. Now you have somebody coming in who's giving me a gift, who's paying me special attention, who's saying that my feelings matter, and then, when that person inevitably abuses them, it just goes right back into how they viewed life already. So it's very easy to set that person up. But you also can't say that Diddy is only allowed to date women with secure attachments who come from good childhoods.

Speaker 1:

And so you know, I mean, it might be very difficult to make this power imbalance argument, even though it's definitely relevant.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, it could get really, really nuanced and a big gray area, and I think that when we first started talking about sex trafficking as a topic for this, I thought, wow, yeah, as you said, like this is pretty niche, like this is almost the extreme. I can't even imagine I'm so sheltered that I haven't had any personal experience of this, or even imagine I'm so sheltered that I haven't had any personal experience of this, or, but I it really doesn't it? The? The lines are very blurry when it comes to sex trafficking versus like porn or abusive relationships in general.

Speaker 2:

Relationships in general sometimes do have a transactional nature. Right, like you know, you might be living off of your partner's. You know finances, right, like that's you know, I imagine, like the money's handed over, and then you know, like this very stereotypical look of what prostitution looks like, but it could look like many different ways, right? So I don't know. I think that, um, I'm gonna guess that the ish. There's many issues with the um diddy situation, but, um, the threat of violence or threat of safety is probably the thing that would make it like, oh, he just has girlfriends who just like these kinky, like sex adventures.

Speaker 2:

I do know that he's known to have like bodyguards or his posse like carry weapons around you know, they're like big, you know big threatening dudes.

Speaker 2:

And then I think the video of the abuse, the video of him like literally chasing and beating up cassie, was like oh okay, even if she said yes and consented to some of the things that he was offering or told her to do, there is an element of violence there, there's a threat of violence. He's capable of that. So how much is this woman saying yes to things because she's afraid for her own safety, right?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, the. I mean it's fucked up to say, but I'm almost like glad that there was that, just so that this guy can be put away forever. I mean I, I don't really know.

Speaker 2:

He paid the hotel fifty thousand dollars at the time to hide it in 2016 and then it came out it was subpoenaed for this lawsuit. So you know, yeah, he's a massive piece of shit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, r kelly can go have fun and breathe together um so one thing that's really interesting here and we're we're touching upon, is this idea of trauma bonding, that the victims of sex trafficking can actually love their trafficker, and this also makes it very difficult to, uh, make an arrest or a conviction, um, sometimes. So what can happen is, you know, we've already kind of given the setup for how this happens, but there are some theories of why the trauma bond may occur, and I just want to make a note about trauma bond. People have been using this word incorrectly for a while now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, don't believe what you read on social media, unless it's from a psychologist or from a paper or something. There's a lot of terms being thrown around loosely. But yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

And I understand. I think the way people are taking it actually makes more sense given the term, but people believe that trauma bonding means that two people who have been traumatized separately bond over having been traumatized.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But the actual, you know like operationalized definition in psychology is that somebody who is being traumatized bonds with their perpetrator. It's kind of like Stockholm Syndrome.

Speaker 2:

Wait, can they not? Can people not be traumatized with this under the same, like two people who have gone through a know natural disaster and are bonded, or like are together as victims of that?

Speaker 1:

that's not trauma, bonding no, that's how people have been using the term. Okay, okay, but trauma bonding is something closer to stockholm got it, yeah, okay, so.

Speaker 1:

so there's a couple of theories about why this might happen, and one of them is just like kind of like an evolutionary or biology theory, which is just that it's the safest thing to do. If your freedom has been taken away, your agency has been taken away and you're under threat, then the safest thing that's available to you is probably to adopt a submissive stance and basically give the perpetrator what they want. The way to make that easier is to actually believe that you should be giving them what they want, that you're happy to give them what they want. Whatever the case may be, right, like if you are, if you are in a dangerous situation with somebody who could hurt you, biologically speaking, probably the fastest path to survival is not to try to fight them all the time or resist them all the time, but to appease them. And then you're being horribly traumatized, but you're still alive, and this behavior has been seen in primates um.

Speaker 1:

And then you know another theory is just that we as a social species have an absolute need for connection, and if the only person you can connect with is your perpetrator, then a connection is better than no connection. So you know, a connection with somebody who is hurting you is at least better than being completely isolated and alone and not able to connect with anybody. It's so sad, yeah. The third theory is it's a psychosocial theory and it's basically that trauma bonding occurs through the same psychological mechanisms as in attachment. It kind of parallels the anxious, avoidant pattern of attachment where you have the perpetrator giving intermittent rewards of attachment, and we know that intermittent reinforcement is the strongest reinforcement. So basically they are unpredictably and occasionally offering tidbits or tidbits of like love, affection, gifts, whatever, sometimes grand gestures. So the victim doesn't really know what to expect and they're just kind of hanging on for that next gift of love or whatever, especially when, as we've talked about, the victims are most likely to be the kind of anxious, low self-esteem, never having had a secure attachment type.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I just the more we talk about it or the more we delved into the literature, it really the words are trafficker and victim, but it could easily be two people in an abusive relationship, right? So the trauma bonding article that we read talked about how the features of these kind of relationships it's like sex traffic, trauma, trauma bond, it's like this imbalance of power and, as you're saying, these kind of alternating positive and negative interactions. Yeah, like you said, like gifts, love especially, especially communications, that this, that this relationship is intimate, and this the victim is special, right, there's like it was shocking to read that there's all these different ways that they would make that person feel special.

Speaker 2:

Like you and I have. You know we only only I know how special you are. You. We've been through such you know difficult things together. Only I really know you and you're my girl, you're my special, whatever.

Speaker 2:

But then also alternating with you know different kind of violence and abuse and, um, uh, even emotional abuse, so it's it. And then you're like, why would anyone put up with that? But it's interesting to hear that the victims will internalize the abusive. They internalize the view of what this looks like in terms of what they feel about themselves. So they blame themselves for the negative interactions oh, it's my fault, I didn't do something right, I deserve it and gratitude and probably idealization for the positive stuff, like, oh gosh, my, you know, diddy is so amazing, he's giving me all these things, he's, you know, the only one who really gets me and loves me. He's my friend. Yeah, so I imagine it's just. It's just so sad when someone has, like come from a background of shame, so their core belief is I am bad and so all the bad things that happened to them are just like. This is part of who I am and the good things are something that the trafficker or the perpetrator has and you have to go, reach and get right.

Speaker 1:

I think the I think the easiest route to this is a woman who has been abused all her life and not treated specially and then not treated as special, and then suddenly she's now being abused but also treated as special, and so it's like okay, I'll take this. But I also just think that maybe, especially women, are often reluctant to just blame another person or to say you know, if somebody says I'm doing this bad thing to you because you deserve it, because you hurt me, I think any woman, maybe any person, there's a high likelihood that they will try to see if there's legitimacy in that and even invent it. If they can't find it. You know like, oh, maybe it is my fault, like, maybe that thing I did was fucked up or hurtful or wrong. And a lot of these victims are very young and so they've maybe never been in a romantic relationship before.

Speaker 1:

I mean, this was me in my previous relationships. You know, if they would tell me that they were berating me or abandoning me in the middle of New York at 2am, then it would be like okay, well, a, the only way to get back to safety right, like to get in the cab with Eric and go home and not be abandoned was to agree with his perspective. And go home and not be abandoned was to agree with his perspective. To stop being berated was to agree with that person's perspective. And it's like, okay, well, that's the safe, that's the quickest route to safety. So that brings us back to that kind of biological theory. But also I just think we're we're kind of trained, I mean as women, to be like agreeable and to really think about what our responsibility is in something. And then when that person is powerful and revered by many, then it's very easy to have to be like oh okay, I guess maybe this was about me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, true to form, about the power imbalance. I mean, like, if you've listened to this podcast, you've heard many, many times where Jacqueline has talked about a difficult and often a really abusive boyfriend. And now I see this guy's face in taxi cabs all over New York City advertising his new company.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, well, and that was the thing you know, I mean he, he definitely gave intermittent rewards. I mean I am just want to say in no way comparing my situation to sex trafficking, other than to say that these same dynamics that exist at that egregious level of sex trafficking exist in many of our kind of everyday relationships. I mean he was rich and successful and he was my boss and you know I went after him. I mean it wasn't hard, um, but yeah, I mean like I had many, many incentives to be in his good graces and again, like I think that's difficult, you know, would never want it actually kind of pisses me off.

Speaker 1:

When then people try to like outlaw power dynamic relationships because I was attracted to the power dynamic and I don't regret the relationship when it turns into something very dark, then the complication is that all these power dynamics are part of what made it happen and so it's just very, very, it's just very complicated yeah, I could see a world where, if you are desperate to break into the music industry so desperate and you somehow get into the good graces of diddy and his posse and the bad boys records, man, that's like, that's like the ultimate breakthrough, that's the ultimate um route to success in in that world.

Speaker 2:

And if he goes, yeah, this is what, this is what we do, this is like what it's like as a famous musician like we, we have these parties and we, we go nuts, we. This is like the way we do. It. Is it coercion? If you say yes, I mean yes because of the power dynamic, but I imagine in that position, oh, my god, I mean like. This is just like opening the gates to all of your dreams. If you just party, quote, quote, right, and it's just it. I'm, I'm really curious. I see a lot of stuff online about justin bieber and usher. I don't know what's real or what's rumors, but there's all these interviews with them surfacing that alluded to this. And Bieber has mentioned a bunch of times. He was like I was too young and I saw things I shouldn't have. Things were really weird in Diddy's house and when Billie Eilish was getting famous, he was like I really want to talk to her because she's young and I don't want the same thing to happen to her as what happened to me.

Speaker 2:

And then you see all this, like you know, like we laughed about him having, like you know, like he was a mess for a while, right, he was just I don't know there was. You know he was like in and out of rehab and stuff, and just think it's just. This whole picture is like oh my god, like this, this is happening. This, this kind of like persistent trauma is happening right under her nose yeah well, not right under her nose, but yeah it's like also I'll.

Speaker 2:

I'll say the balance of the on the other side is that I do know that you know becoming a mom and talking to other moms, like there's some parents who are who are terrified of having their young daughters, or you know their kids wandering around the streets alone, or you know they're 13, or going out, you know whatever. And there's that story that you just told of an ad for a modeling agency. And there's that story that you just told of an ad for a modeling agency. And so when we talk about how it's much more common than we think, I mean to be fair. In the US it's estimated in 2001. So I don't know what what it is now, but it's estimated.

Speaker 2:

In the US are 50,000 to 100,000 women and girls are trafficked each year into the United States. Most of them are illegal immigrants right, most of them are. They're coming in from other countries, despite what politicians may say too. These kind of crimes are more likely to be done by Americans and not illegal immigrants. So they're more victims than they are perpetrators of these terrible crimes. It is, it does seem.

Speaker 2:

Looking at the literature, it does seem pretty rare that you know a kid from a good home and with you know cell phone and a family like wandering around.

Speaker 2:

They might encounter other dangers, but being kidnapped and and sold into sex trafficking seems relatively rare compared to the other routes there. So it's not like the liam neeson uh movies of taken will let you believe that when girls go on vacation they're like just taken into, they're instilled in sex slavery like every time they go to Europe, but it's more often in these situations where it's like a young child from a legal immigrant family and they are sold to different forms of prostitution. There's some that are, you know, gang trafficking or they are. There's a lot of brothels that are legal in Nevada, you know. There's like Asian massage parlors, like those are the kind of prison right and forced marriages. Those are the kind of routes that sex trafficking happens in the US. But I want to just say to all the people that I've talked to recently who are like my kid wanders late at night with their friends out in the movie theater, I'm like the chance of your kids getting kidnapped into sex trafficking is relatively low getting kidnapped into sex trafficking is relatively low.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do just anyway want to kind of give some safety planning information. So some potential red flags for human trafficking situations, because, right, it might not be this sold into sex slavery thing, but maybe it is seeing an ad for modeling. Some red flags are, for instance, if the person's intimate partner or employer comes on very strongly and promises things that seem too good to be true. So for instance, like promising extremely high wages for easy work, expects that you'll agree to the employment or relationship on the spot and threatens that otherwise the opportunity will be lost. So you can see some of these playing out in the story that I gave. You know, this girl responded to a modeling ad that was like we'll pay you lots of money and fly you out to a bikini shoot, but you have to like decide right now and you have to sign this contract right now.

Speaker 1:

If they're unclear about the terms of employment, location of employment or the company details or credentials, or if they deny access to information about your rights. This next one is I mean this is just part of abusive relationships generally but denies contact with friends or family or attempts to isolate you from your social network. That girl, I mean. Her phone was taken. She was literally locked in a hotel room so there was absolutely no way to contact anybody who could help her.

Speaker 1:

Someone who constantly checks on you and does not allow you access to your money that's also a big part of abuse. Asks you to do things outside of your comfort zone, such as performing sexual favors for friends, displays signs or characteristics of a dangerous person, including attempts to control movement and behavior, exhibits jealousy, lashes out or delivers punishment in response to noncompliance, or is verbally, emotionally or physically abusive, and uses threats or displays of violence to create a culture of fear. I mean it's it's. It's just like it's amazing how these things are just they exist in so many run-of-the-mill abusive relationships. You know, like exhibiting jealousy, um attempts to to control your movements, try to isolate you from friends and family. It's just like it's like the same formula applied over and over again same formula applied over and over again hot take, uh-huh.

Speaker 2:

How do you feel about this framework?

Speaker 1:

in regards to the bachelor. Oh yeah, I mean, let's go over them haha, but no, seriously I mean promises things that seem too good to be true and comes on very strongly. You could be famous.

Speaker 2:

You can be famous, but those things are true.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's not necessarily too good to be true.

Speaker 2:

They never promised you anything that was too good to be true. That was like oh, you can be a famous influencer. You could what you could be a famous influencer. You might be the Bachelorette one day, but all that's true. Yeah, maybe some of Diddy's conquests could also become, you know, signed by the record labels.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean expects that you will agree to the employment or relationship on the spot and threatens that otherwise the opportunity will be lost. I mean, that's sort of naturally true because filming is going to start at a certain point, but it's not like I felt like I only had a day to choose. Unclear about the terms of employment, location of employment and or company details or credentials. Well, they are unclear about the location of employment. It's also not employment technically. Unclear about the terms. I mean they gave me a very scary contract that laid out like everything they could possibly do to me. So I don't know. Um, I don't think we were denied access to information about our right. Denies contact with friends or families, that is true, attempted. I saw you from your social network, that's true constantly checks on you and does not allow you access to your money. Did I have access to my money? I can't.

Speaker 1:

There was nothing to pay for except on certain days, but I don't think they ever took away my credit card. Ask you to do things outside of your comfort zone, yes, such as performing sexual favors for friends. No, I mean, I guess, making out with the bachelor, but only if you want to and you can leave at any time. Attempts to control yes, movements, behaviors. Attempts to control movement, that's true, exhibits jealousy. No, lashes out or delivers punishment in response to non-compliance.

Speaker 2:

Probably some people would say, yes, is that one producer said do you want to be on the right side of history when you disagreed with something that they wanted you to say?

Speaker 1:

yes, uses threats or displays of violence to create a culture of fear. I mean, there's always the threat of a bad edit, so I don't know, but it was completely consensual guys well, yeah, think about it.

Speaker 2:

The bad edit is a is a could be a light form of the blackmail, right? Because, like, if diddy, hey, I will show this video to every one of you doing these unspeakable acts. And is that different than saying, hey, we're gonna make America hate you by making you the villain?

Speaker 1:

I think this is. I mean, I don't think we should seriously be saying that the Bachelor shouldn't exist, I mean. But yeah, I mean I was very fucked up from the show afterward, not really from filming, but from the aftermath. It's tough when people, I mean, I wanted the rewards of the Bachelor badly enough that I was willing to sign a contract that basically said we can make you look any way that you want and you can't speak up about it. Is that consent? I don't know. I that I'm still glad I did it and that doesn't necessarily make the difference.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I imagine like, look, luckily that you come from a great family and you're, um, not in the position that the victims that we were talking about someone with who you know ran away from home and substance abuse issues like is, you know, lost or unhoused. But you but think about the other people on any of those reality shows who are people who come from a situation like that, who are used to abusive relationships, don't have any money. This might be a great chance for them to become an influencer and actually make some money. Right Like this could really pluck some people out of their situation. And then they're promised these you know fame or riches, and then you know if they become the villain or they don't have a bad edit, then yeah, but you could say the same thing about the financial industry.

Speaker 1:

Like we promise you tons and tons and tons of money if you work all day, every day, you're around cocaine constantly and we will destroy your self-esteem. So it's, I mean, this is why this is such a a new one. We can't say that it's non-consensual if there are bad consequences potentially yeah, yeah, oof, it's tough.

Speaker 2:

I think that it is so funny. We always, like these conversations, go in similar routes where I'm like there's this crazy topic that we can think of and then somehow we work our way into thinking that it's like either it's just an offshoot of something really normal that we've experienced, line drawn when it comes to abuse or coercion, or even like human trafficking when you when money and financial rewards is everywhere in our society. But I think one one thing that stuck in my mind about one of the articles um describing what's going on with sex trafficking is it?

Speaker 2:

It is part of our culture, sadly, and part of and very much a part of other cultures, that women are considered lesser beings. They're seen as having less rights, less of a human, literally dehumanized, and seen as objects that are mostly there to satisfy a need or to use in exchange for other things. Right, so this is levels, right, levels of how people would view. But you know, in intimate partner violence, one of the biggest predictors of intimate partner violence is looking down on the victim, seeing them as dumb or inferior or not a person like them. So when you have Diddy and girls who are in these freak offs, it might really be like. This is not a person to me, this is a lower human being. I am better and I have the right to sell them as an object. Sell them as an object.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a quote we got from this study about trauma bonding was so. Another trafficker in this study reported I love everything about a woman. She needs a pimp to guide her, love her and protect her. The pimp is the father she never had or the brother she misses. A hoe was put on earth to be pimped by a pimp.

Speaker 2:

Without him there's no her, I mean imagine believing that I know it's poetry, oh yeah, I, you know this is. There's elements of this everywhere, and I think when we were talking, another thing that popped in my mind is a topic we talked on before sex cults and cults in general before sex cults and cults in general. If you haven't listened to our episode with Sarah Edmondson, who escaped a sex cult, it is phenomenal. But similar things, right, people who are lost, who want a home and want a family, are drawn in by these powerful leaders who say welcome to my family. Sometimes they're called daddy or they're called like the father figure or friend, right, there's something familial about it. And then, in order to gain access to this kind of power, they are asked to have sex or do sexual acts that are not in their comfort zone. So might not be like exchange of money and it might not be sex, it might be just other acts of service or, you know, like forms of slavery. And I remember there was a there's someone I know who is in a spiritual community and there was like a leader of that spiritual community that's really revered and he's like working a lot for this spiritual community. Okay, that's fine, working for free.

Speaker 2:

But a conversation that really disturbed me was him saying oh gosh, like this, my, my teacher really really gets me and really knows how to bring out, you know really difficult parts of me that in ways I really need to grow Example I was you know really difficult parts of me that in ways I really need to grow Example. I was, you know, working on something for him and I messed something up. I wasn't being, as you know, I wasn't selling the community as well as I should have. I was in a bad mood and he spoke to me about it and he berated me. He said like he was telling me all the things I was doing wrong, all the things that I was falling short on. He was right, of course, and then, as soon as I felt myself feeling completely hopeless, then he came in with telling me how great I am and my potential and how much he loved me.

Speaker 2:

And he was like really, it felt like he really saw me in that moment and saw everything I could be. And he told me that story like isn't this great? Like isn't my teacher amazing? And I thought, oh my God, like this is that's abuse yeah. So you know, it could happen in these other contexts where you have a powerful figure that is oscillating between the abuse and the reward.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I think I'm trying to find the basic idea here, and what's kind of swirling around my mind is, if your self-esteem is in the hands of another person, you are in danger, maybe not of sex trafficking, but maybe, I mean, that is antithetical to a secure attachment and it's difficult because somebody who, with very anxious attachment styles, they may put their self-esteem in the hands of anybody or of everybody, right, this is a problem with BPD. Anybody who is willing to accept me I now am terrified of being abandoned by, and so those people are very, very vulnerable to abuse. He just told a whole story about how his entire I mean his sense of self-esteem and worth and his view of himself was completely controlled by his quote-unquote teacher, mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean I don't know entirely what the takeaway is. Please, if you feel that you're in a situation like that, seek therapy, you know. Seek friendships that affirm your worth, that give you the power over your self-esteem, because it really is setting you up to be vulnerable.

Speaker 2:

I do like that definition you put out, because it's really focused is one person who make, makes or breaks your sense of self and feeling of worthiness. That's one institution, one, yeah, one source of like your worth I think that's really tricky and really something to think about.

Speaker 2:

And, um, if that is the case, you can first of all, like, as you're saying, like look around for other social supports, right, like go go to your friends. And it might be more the case if you only hang out and and seek, uh, comfort and intimacy with one person, or only had one attachment, right, and this person is it. Of course, that's going to dictate how you feel about yourself. It it's the only source you have. But if you find yourself isolated right, if you realize I don't have any other friends or relationships outside this person, that's something to work on too, because part of what we do in cognitive behavioral therapy is okay.

Speaker 2:

So this person or this situation makes you feel bad about yourself. But what about? Let's pay attention to the other things around you that don't make you feel that way. Oh, you don't have that. Well, let's build that. Let's build more of that scaffolding that gives another picture and a more complex view of who you are, right. So, in general, we want to just put a plug in for, you know, doing a lot of reading on this, there's a lot of um non-profit organizations out there that will help with things like this um. There's the national human trafficking hotline. I found um it733, or you could call 1-888-373-7888.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, or you can go to the website humantraffickinghotlineorg. That's where I found the safety planning information and red flags. So tons of good information there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I thought this was nice. I mean, there's apparently truck stops are a big area for sex trafficking because it's easy to be transient, you run away and avoid detection. So there is a nonprofit organization called Truckers Against Trafficking where truck drivers can recognize and report instances of human trafficking. And as a provider I mean, I was trained in this when I started working in hospitals. But as a provider, you know, like you're a doctor, you're a therapist, you work in a hospital or some other institution Know that this sex trafficking is not super rare.

Speaker 2:

You might come across someone who is a victim, might come across someone who's a victim and if that's the case, look out for this these typical signs, as you were mentioning, of, um, of abuse. They they're really withdrawn, they're shy, they feel they really guarded. Um, if, uh, there's someone with them all the time, if that's the case, then the recommendation is make sure you talk to that person alone, like, give them a chance to. You know, even if someone comes in and say, oh no, I'm their family member, I'm here to support them, like, if you see that someone is is uncomfortable, take a moment and say I, we have to talk to this person, um, you know, by herself for a minute, for a couple questions or whatever. So, gosh, I hate.

Speaker 1:

I hate talking about how this is something that we have to do, but I know, I know, but I'm kind of glad we did this topic to show the kind of universality of some of these, these signs of abuse.

Speaker 2:

Um, I will say also that there was one there's one um review paper that talked about what kind of therapies can help become interventions, and the majority of interventions for victims of human trafficking are based on PTSD.

Speaker 2:

So they really target PTSD and trauma symptoms, which is great and that it's really effective which is great and that it's really effective. However, the downside is that victims of human trafficking tend to have all sorts of problems. They have depression, they have substance abuse, they have a lot of things. So there's a call for interventions that really address all the different problems they might have, and I know from doing PTSD work that if someone has been repeatedly abused since childhood, it's really hard to change the narrative of themselves. Right, you know you're trying to help them see that the world is not a scary place all the time and there's parts of them that are really good and that information is just not available to them. They're like I don't understand what you mean.

Speaker 2:

So it's hard, and you know things like dbt or other approaches might be more helpful yeah, I was thinking like schema focus therapy or something for yeah, um, I'll just say again that we are building Kula Mind, a community and online platform that supports people who have loved ones with mental health issues, been sexually abused or abused in any way, or they victims if you were a victim of abuse because the person that you love has kind of mental health issues or anger issues or anything like that. Anyway, if you feel like you need help and support, go to coolamindcom K-U-L-A-M-I-N-Dcom. There's a place to indicate your interest, interests, and we're going to come out with some really cool stuff for you and, uh, cool ways for you guys to get support.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, can't wait, okay. Oh well, thank you for listening. Um, if you like us more than Diddy, please leave us a five-star rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify. We really appreciate it and we'll see you in two weeks. By accessing this podcast, I acknowledge that the hosts of this podcast make no warranty, guarantee or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this podcast. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast and any and all content or services available on or through this podcast are provided for general, non-commercial informational purposes only and do not constitute the practice of medical or any other professional judgment, advice, diagnosis or treatment, and should not be considered or used as a substitute for the independent professional judgment, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a duly licensed and qualified healthcare provider. Thank you, and information from this podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement.