Columbus Underground just published a detailed news story about The Black Lens and my reasons for writing it.
The reporter did a great job summarizing the plot and also explaining the link between technology, pornography and sex trafficking — a key issue I explored in my debut novel:
The Black Lens is clearly the work of a journalist. It exists to inform and disrupt, and it succeeds. Stollar researched sex trafficking for more than three years to write The Black Lens, conducting interviews with survivors and experts.
There is no attempt to sugar coat the life of abuse lead by those forced into the sex labor industry. But beyond graphic scenarios and adult language, The Black Lens is a mirror for the casual reader.
Porn consumption fuels sex trafficking. Roughly 70 percent of men and 30 percent of women consume pornography about twice a week, and those numbers are growing. Stollar delivers the harsh truth of how this rate of consumption has contributed to the growth of the human trafficking industry.
According to the Black Lens, in interviews with more than 850 women, almost half said they had pornography made of them, and 47 percent said those who bought sex from them requested something they’d seen in porn.
This is a statistic the common Columbusite can actually affect. Abstaining from porn is one answer, but simply doing research on how the porn you consume is created is a big step forward.
Click here for the full story.