EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN IS NOT ART.

You know those nights when you go to bed early, fall asleep pretty quickly, mayyyyybe getting up to drink water or pee, but never wake all the way up, and you’re able to crawl right back into bed and fall straight back asleep?  It was that night last night.  I was loving it. Until around 3:30, when all of a sudden I’m fully awake.  Tossed around a while, gave up on it, and figured I’d start the day early. 

Between Happy Hour with Columbus Bride and Groom at  Thursday Therapy last night, and a project meeting that followed, it was late enough when I got home that other than a quick run through email, my phone was off and my computer stayed closed. 

This morning, once I’d given up on sleep, I ran through email to make sure there wasn’t anything that needed immediate attention, and opened facebook, planning a couple of minutes of rather mindless scrolling before getting started for the day.  

This is the first paragraph of the first post in my feed.

I read the words. I know the definition of each of those words. Each of them. And yet, my brain struggled as it tried to make them make sense together. It took reading just those two lines a couple of times before what was being talked about here, which is, in no uncertain terms; child pornography.  

Wait. What?

The greasy, sick, dread that flooded into my body was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I read the rest of it, and as I read,  group notifications were going off like crazy. The boudoir groups that I’m a part of, where discussion of boudoir portraiture is the norm (uh, duh, we’re boudoir photographers) were instead coming to the sick realization that a big name portrait photographer has been shooting child porn under the guise of her ‘art’.   

I now know what it looks like to have sold your soul.

READ MORE  :: Let’s talk about Meg Bitton Part One 

READ MORE :: Let’s talk about Meg Bitton Part Two

This abuser, this pedophile, (because let’s be very clear, in no way is this art, this is unequivocally child pornography) is claiming to be the victim. The statement released is tantamount to “Oh poor me. I’m really the victim here, no one understands me, blah, blah, blah, bullshit.”  Bitton’s response to all of this? 

Producing child pornography isn’t healing old wounds. It’s a federal felony.  

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

Support those that are trying to fix this issue. Share petitions that help the voice travel further online. Send those petitions out via email, text even.

Here is a brief list of places you can contact to see how you can help. There are many more resources in your area if you get savvy with google. 

• Operation Underground Railroad
• Exchange Initiative
• Thorn
• TraffickCam
• Polaris
• http://www.sacasa.org/about-saaturn/
• National Human Trafficking Resource Center 1-888-373-7888 or text “HELP” or “INFO” to 233733
• National Center on Sexual Exploitation
• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-THE-LOST
• www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign 

WHAT I WANT TO SEE HAPPEN

If you can see on the list above there isn’t really one place that fights the kind of sex trafficking involving Social Media images, reposts, r o l e p l a y and other child fetish hashtags that contribute to the issue.

• I want Instagram to change their “community policies” and include a “sex trafficking, pedophilia, or grooming” selection in their reporting process. 
• I want the team that responds to these reports to be FULLY trained on what these individuals do and HOW THEY ACT on social media. 
• I want this team to be directly connected to the FBI and the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

If you see something, say something. Trust your instincts as though your families lives depended on it because they just might. 

HUGE thank you’s to Bre Geiger for her contributions to this article, as well as for all around being a badass.