"See, this is why..."

It's a quote I say often, triggering an eye-roll or an instant tune out from my friends.  It infuriates me. It infuriates me that not enough good people care that everyone is not free.

This is why I write the book. Short synopsis: A West Point cadet was caught distributing pornographic videos of young boys.   If you're horrified by the article, just wait until you get to the comments.  That's right, a comment in defense of the perpetrator.  Not a word, not a thought, not a single tear for the boys in the video?

Not one of those boys had a choice.  By legal definition children cannot agree to sex.  That's what "age of consent" means.  

The men who buy sex are deliberately deluding themselves.  After all, the fantasy is part of what they are buying.  They don't want to hear that woman was kidnapped, smuggled across an international boarder and locked in a room when she isn't with him.  They want to believe she is happy, sexually liberated and of her own free will is choosing to be with him.  She isn't.  99 times out of 100 she is not free.

What we are doing to curb the demand for sex as a service is not working.

"What if it she's being held prisoner and doesn't have a choice?" is not working.

"What if it was your daughter?" isn't working.

Apparently, "What if it was your underage son?" isn't either.

We need a different strategy, a new approach.  See, this is why my book is a shout in the face of the men who defend sex buyers.  My book asks the question, "What if it was you?" 

It's a good question, because more often than you would think, it is. In a recent study in New York by John Jay College of Criminal Justice, up to 50% of sexually exploited children were boys.  

I've disappointed some feminists in my beta-reads.  Not satisfied with the four (yep, count them four) strong female characters, without each of with my protagonist would have died long before achieving any of his goals, I am under fire for "placating the patriarchy" by having a male protagonist.

Real gender equality is not a female author writing a book with a female protagonist and getting praised for it. Real gender quality is a female author writing a book with a male protagonist and not getting condemned for it.

I am not sorry about the gender of my protagonist.  I was not a victim of the system.  I didn't not feel pressured to create a male lead to increase my chances at publication or expanded distribution.  I made a deliberate choice.  I guess I'm the 1%.  There is no secret pimp in my shadows pulling my strings.

If only the 16 to 26 million sex trafficking victims in the world could say the same.

Photo Credit: The photo is my own.