Women Doing More

3 Reasons Why Meeting the Emotional Needs of Boys Could Decrease Human Trafficking

2015-05-26T13:11:00.000-04:00

This post originally appeared on the blog: Boys Cry Too

There's little that makes me want to run out and change the world as much as stories about victims of human trafficking. These stories dig their little hands deep into my soul and twist with a force that refuses to be ignored. Unfortunately, I am not an ex CIA agent with resources or knowledge to organize sting operations like Tim Ballard. No, my contribution is going to be a little more indirect, but it is still an important piece of the puzzle. Rather than rushing into red light districts or trying to start a safe house, I want to share how meeting the emotional needs of our boys will decrease the demand for human sex slaves. Sex buyers are overwhelmingly male, but clearly little boys are not born desiring illicit sex. Rather sex buyers develop this preference over time as a coping mechanism for emotions they don't want to feel or because it offers a simple, exciting alternative to emotionally complex and challenging relationships. By improving how we meet the emotional needs of boys, we can decrease the demand for sex services in 3 ways:

1. By Decreasing the Need for Emotion Numbing Activities:

When we encourage and validate boys who reach out for support during difficult emotional times instead of expecting them to "man up", we teach them to cope by relying on friends and loved ones instead of addictive substances or activities like drugs and pornography.

2. By Promoting Empathy:

Empathy is a skill that can be learned, but boys who experience little compassion from people around them, and boys who are taught to ignore their own feelings have fewer opportunities to learn it. Research has shown men who pay for sex feel little if any empathy toward the prostitutes they patronize (Prostitution Research). By recognizing the emotional experiences of boys and validating their feelings, we can increase opportunities for them to learn how to empathize with others. Hopefully, this increased awareness will make prostitution less appealing.

3. By Making Committed Relationships More Satisfying:

A committed relationship will always bring with it complex, emotional challenges. Partners who successfully work through these challenges forge increasingly deeper connections and commitments. The physical expression of those ever increasing connections is a big part of what keeps a long term, monogamous relationship satisfying. Partners who are unprepared or unwilling to work through emotional challenges often respond by "checking out." As soon as the novelty wears off, a relationship with one or both partners emotionally checked out becomes unsatisfying. When that happens, some people suffer in silence, some move on and start new relationships, and others try to manufacture the lost excitement with things like pornography or prostitution. Men who learned and practiced emotional connecting when they were young will have an easier time meeting the complex emotional requirements of a mature relationship and be able to find more satisfaction at home with less need to manufacture excitement elsewhere.

**NOTE: If you want to do something to actively fight human trafficking in the more immediate future, I love this organization. Check them out and consider getting involved.

Half the Sky

2011-11-28T14:46:00.001-05:00

I just finished this book. It's one every woman should read. And probably every man too. But DEFINITELY every woman. It can be a tough read, not because it's written poorly but because the things women endure throughout our world are heart wrenching, sickening, wrong, and just plain sad.

I had to take it slowly, but this is just the kind of book I would have written had I lived another life where I traveled the world instead of giving birth. It even ends with 2 pages of what you can do just like this blog! That made me smile.

It's full of stories of individual women and the terrible experiences that have been forced upon them and how they've miraculously been able to rise above them. It cover rape, trafficking, maternal mortality, infant mortality, abuse, and more. It covers just about every problem women endure throughout the world. And it tells stories of women who have come up with and implemented plans to help solve some of the world's most insolvable problems. My favorite story was about a woman who became a world class fistula surgeon without ever attending a day of school. If you have given birth and don't know what a fistula is, you should learn. As soon as you know what it is, you will want to help. Somehow. Someway. It's a tragic condition almost no one in America experiences but is found all over Africa. Women with it are modern day lepers and outcasts. We lament that our bodies are not the same after giving birth. After learning what some women go through, it will be hard to ever complain again.

This book will make you grateful for what you have and spark the desire to want to do more for women who have not been so blessed. You can buy it on amazon for about $10 or used for about $5. It could be a great Christmas gift.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Read this book.
Share this book with others.
Donate a copy to your library.
Ponder how you in your circumstances might be uniquely positioned to help.
Consider picking a problem from the book to support somehow. There are plenty of organizations listed in the back if you want to support one highlighted in the book too.

SIDS

2011-02-24T10:24:00.001-05:00

Here's an website every parent of an infant or parent to be should read and consider:

http://www.stopsidsnow.com/

This may not be the only cause of SIDS but it seems to make a lot of sense to me as one of the possible causes, and so easily preventable too.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Read
Learn
Share