CASTIMONIA

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Sex Industry Workers: The First in a Tier of Victims

Originally published April 10, 2006 by “BB”

Ok, on Friday I told everyone that I was going to get into the tiers of pornography and the harm it does, at every single level.

Today, I wanted to start at the ‘bottom’ so to speak. I wanted to address the women who are actually the first level of harm. The ones who take the brunt of the pain foisted onto them. The women who are actually in the sex industry. There are so many aspects to this that I doubt I will be able to get them all clearly and concisely but I’ll try nonetheless.

The sex industry destroys so many of the women in it, they are sacrificed with no thought, to the alter of the penis. Story after story comes out, and in each and every one of them we hear similar themes.

We have L**** L*******, who the porn-apologists still insist was lying about the porn industry, even though she passed numerous hours of lie detector tests. Clearly, for anyone willing to do the research, the sex industry is not what they want us to believe it is. As a woman who worked in the sex industry I can back up that most of the girls I worked with had stories of rape, abuse, and sexual assault that makes my gut clench to think about. For my part I can say that my own experiences mirror what radical feminists have been saying for years. The sex industry is damaging to women.

Now, there are always one or two people who want to step forward and tell us differently, who want us to believe that there may be one or two women out there who enjoy it. That may be true, certainly I will not claim to speak for every woman. What I WILL claim is that how many women does it take before someone gives a f***?

The people that inevitably pop up to say that my experiences are wrong, are simultaneously saying that there MAY be a few women who enjoy the sex industry therefore all is well in Wonderland.

They’re wrong. Dead. Wrong.

All is not well in the Wonderland that people want to believe exists in the sex industry. Here are some gems, lifted from One Angry Girl.

In the early hours of July 11th, 1994, porn actress S****** W*****, a.k.a S*******, put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

Friends say she was upset about crashing her Corvette into a fence earlier that evening– she thought she’d broken her nose and would have to cancel an upcoming stripping appearance in New York. She was also worried about not getting paid for a recent strip show in Las Vegas. Then again, she was also high on heroin and cocaine when she shot herself, so it’s fair to say her judgment was a bit off.

S****** was born in California, and was 23 when she killed herself.

Or this story

“I was having a hard time surviving, so when I met a guy on the streets who offered to pay me and feed me and buy me some clothes just for letting him take pictures of me, I really thought I had a good deal. After a few months I really thought everything was going to be great. I was sleeping with him, and I didn’t care that the cameras rolled and took pictures of us while we made love, because he was the first guy who really seemed to want me. After a while he told me that I was the best he’d ever seen, and he thought I could probably take two or three guys on whereas most girls couldn’t do that…I really didn’t want to…

“They began to film with several guys…Then came all the disgusting things; [edited to remove triggering language] By this time I had been with (name) for about 3 years.

He was still supporting me, but he was now beating me a lot, and was spending most of his time with other girls. I was getting completely broken and desperate. I started using drugs about 2 years into being with him, and now he is no longer asking me to do anything to make him proud. Now he would just withhold my drugs and tell me if I wanted them I’d have to do these things. I needed that dope just to get through the day. I was strung out pretty bad and [edited to remove triggering language] I didn’t care how many of them took pictures of it. I really didn’t care about nothing…

The thing I guess that finally got me out of there is when he brought another woman he’d been with and told me I had to do it with her for the pictures…I don’t know why that was worse than [edited to remove triggering language] or maybe it was just all of it combined but anyway, I had just had it. So I took off…I was just about 18.”

Or this story

“I was raped when I was nine,” she says. “You have to understand: My dad always called me his favorite son, y’know. He said he wanted to teach me to be tough. So he would drop me off in places like Sawtell, y’know, bad neighborhoods, and let me find my own way home.”

A***** tells the story like she’s fine about it, like it is what it is.

“I wandered into some courtyard, a building with gates, y’know, and three – I think three –  guys basically passed me around. I know there were two more, standing watch by the gates. Then I think I blacked out. Anyway, I was more afraid of what my father would do to me when I got home. I had a broken nose and a bloody lip – I fought – so I knew he’d know something.”

A***** says she’s not sure whether anything happened before that or whether her father ever sexually abused her. She describes a second rape, at fourteen: A guy pinned her against a Dumpster behind the cheesecake factory where A***** worked. This time she spiked the guy in his eye with one of her high-heeled shoes then ran.

“That was an easy one for the cops, ‘cause they knew who they were looking for – someone holding his eye,” A***** says, laughing…

Or B*********’s story

The director had told M******* that V**** liked her work, and when the pair saw each other they immediately fell into each other’s arms, kissing from one side of the house to the other.

“There’s nothing bad about you,” she told him admiringly as they prepared for the shoot. “You don’t know me very well” he replied with a grin.

But when the director finally got the pair to settle down to the business at hand – filming a sex scene – the tone changed. Without any prompting, V**** got rough during the sex, [edited to remove triggering language].

Afterward, she looked shaken, her face reddened and her eyes watery. But she insisted she was OK. “I look torn up – can you tell?,” she asked an ABCNEWS producer who was following her progress for Primetime . Laughing and wiping her eye, she turned away and said without conviction, “I took a beating today, and it was great.”

After the session, she was shattered. “I wasn’t ready for [edited to remove triggering language] … It was painful. But I can hide it really well.” She had just turned 18, the legal age for participation in sexually explicit films.

M******* went on more shoots over the next few months. Then her agent sent her on a job where she would have sex with male actors in prison outfits – [edited to remove triggering language], she tried to back out, telling the director it was “sick,” but once again she was talked into it. [edited to remove triggering language] “It was really hard because I really felt like a piece of meat … in a lion’s cage, [edited to remove triggering language]  She was paid $4,000.

So, $4000.00 is apparently the going rate now to be able to allow every man on the face of the planet to degrade B********* until she’s naught but dust in a casket?

Or, this study.

In the second phase of her survey, Kelly found that:

100% of the women reported physical abuse in the club.

100% of the women reported sexual abuse in the club.

100% of the women reported verbal harassment in the club.

100% of the women reported being propositioned for prostitution in the club.

100% of women also witnessed these things happening to other strippers in the club

The women in the survey reported that customers have

1. spit on them

2. sprayed beer at them

3. flicked lit cigarettes at them

4. pelted them with ice, coins, trash, condoms, room keys, pornography, and golf balls

5. hit them with cans and bottles

6. pulled their hair

7. yanked them by the arm or ankle

8. ripped their costumes or tried to pull their costumes off.

9. bitten, licked, slapped, punched, and pinched them

All of which I had experienced when I was in the sex industry as well.

Even more these are the things they’re thinking about while they’re gyrating for you –

“I daydream about nothing in particular to pass the time of 12 minutes.”

“I’m thinking about how good I look in the mirrors and how good I feel in dance movements.”

“I tell myself to smile.”

“I think about getting high and that I am making money to get high.”

“I am giving these guys every chance to be decent, so that I don’t have to be afraid of them.”

“I am filled with disdain for the customers who do not tip, but sit and watch and direct you to do things for no money.”

“I think of how cheap these f****** are, what bills I need to pay.”

And, when they’re doing that lapdance? Again, most of the things I have felt before myself when I was working in the sex industry –

Strippers engaged in private dances reported these reactions:

“I don’t want him to touch me, but I am afraid he will say something violent if I tell him ‘no’.”

“I was thinking about doing prostitution because that’s when customers would proposition me.”

“I could only think about how bad these guys smell and try to hold my breath.”

“I spent the dance hyper-vigilant to avoiding their hands, mouths, and crotches.”

“I was glad we were allowed to place towels on the guys’ laps, so it wasn’t so bad.”

“I don’t remember because it was so embarrassing.”

Still think those women just love what they’re doing?

read on

Prostitutes in one study had this to say –

  • 89% had been molested or raped as children (2/3 of the molesters were fathers, stepfathers, or foster fathers)
  • 38% reported that they had been used in porn as children
  • 97% of them had been raped as adults
  • 70% reported that sexual abuse affected their decision to prostitute.
  • 44% percent had attempted suicide
  • 24% of those who’d been raped said that their rapist had specifically mentioned his use of pornography during the crime
  • 22% of those who’d been molested as children said that their molester used pornography during the crime or mentioned its use during the crime

 Or, check out what Shelly Lubben has to say about her time in the sex industry.

And you know what’s scary? There’s more, thousands more stories from the sex industry. I took this teeny, tiny sample from OAG’s website. I have an entire list of websites that are bookmarked that have hundreds more stories attached to them all of them different, all of them unique and all of them saying the same thing. They were abused and harmed while in the sex industry.

Then, there are the stories of suicide, the stories of murder. Prostitutes, porn stars, so many women in the sex industry who are dying in the industry. At some point you’d think that we’d be collectively screaming ENOUGH! But we don’t do we? Or rather, the men don’t. Because, as I’ve asserted before, men believe they have a right to the bodies of these women.

By and large the women in the sex industry are destroyed shells. Existing but not living. Drinking, doing drugs, self-medicating the pain while they are used and beaten and raped and their stories, their lives go unnoticed.

The numbers don’t lie and they’re also not hidden. The statistics and studies that have been done have shown conclusively that women in these jobs are hurt, raped, abused, and harassed at every level.

For $4,000.00 you can film forever the degradation of one woman [edited to remove triggering language]. You can film it and you can make money off of it, off of her degradation and pain, for as long as technology allows it. Long after she’s dead in her grave that $4,000.00 will continue to bring you money. Long after she dies penniless in a car accident (L**** L*******) you will be able to make money from her rape.

The numbers are out there, the stories are out there, but we’re screaming them into a wind of denial by men. So many left-leaning men are quick to research a company before they purchase something from them, unless and until it comes to prostitutes and porn stars. And then, when the information is put before them, they close their eyes and insist it doesn’t exist. Yeah, male privilege is nice that way.

The abuses continue as the men eat it up, the more painful and degrading the better. The girls are used and destroyed, committing suicide, dying of overdoses, or melting into oblivion penniless and forever bearing the mark of the sex industry. And despite what they want you to believe it is NOT just “a rare occurrence”, it infects the industry. Yet, industry defenders are quick to point to the women who have ‘made it’. The J**** J******’s of the world, and even they are not immune. Ms. J****** herself has experienced rapes and abuses that would crush any man I’ve ever met. How exactly is she not a victim again?

When you masturbate to the image of a porn star it is more likely than not that you are benefiting from rape. When you hire a prostitute you are more likely than not benefiting from her rape. You are benefiting from the fear, the worry, the low self-esteem inflicted onto her from men just like you. If you believe yourself a ‘good man’ then how can you use these women? These broken women who have a long history of abuse, rape, molestation?

Why? Because they are not human. Very often even women direct their anger to the bottom tier of the sex industry. They grow angry with the ‘tarts’, the ‘whores’ the ‘bimbos’ and the rage falls squarely onto the shoulders of these young girls who are simply following through with the training that men have given them. These women are victims…no, strike that, these women are survivors that have more courage, willpower and desire to live than any man I have ever met.

They have the ability to weather the storms of rape, violence, and molestation and they continue to live…broken as they are. They defy the violence that has been wreaked upon them and exist despite it, and perhaps that is yet another reason that men hate them. They exist despite how you have tried to break them.

Is it a stereotype? Sure it is, but you know what? When the numbers back you up it ceases to be a stereotype and becomes fact. Stereotypes are unfounded, malicious rumors that exist merely to create fear and loathing of a person. FACT however, is when the statistics and the studies and the numbers stand in your favor. The fact of the matter is that sex-industry workers are in big trouble. The facts are that the majority of them suffer through abuse regularly. The fact is that most of them have been raped, abused and more. Those are FACTS.

The fact is that if you give the sex industry your money you are fueling the drive for degradation, for harder and more damaging abuses. You are fueling a culture filled to teeming with broken women and the results are so much more far reaching than you ever thought. (A fact I will get into in later posts) You don’t want to benefit from the rape of women? Then stop doing it. Stop giving your money and intimate support to an industry that benefits from the rape of women.

You don’t like the mafia? You don’t like benefiting from the pain of women? Then stop it. Stop the excuses, stop the dumb act, stop the rhetoric. The stories are out there, they’re solid, and they’re real. The numbers are out there and they are equally real. The truth is, that if you don’t like an industry that destroys women then you have the power to make it stop, just stop putting your dick over the needs of women. It’s simple.

They’re hurting, and if you boycott Wal-Mart and Nike and other businesses but you don’t boycott and fight against the sex industry then you are a hypocrite of the worst order.

The sex industry is promoting and causing rape, so much work and study has been done on the topic that Donnerstein states that the “Correlation between porn and rape is greater than the correlation between smoking and lung cancer”.

These women are just as deserving of your sympathy as the workers at Wal-Mart. They’re just as deserving of being fought for as any child in China but unlike these other causes there are very few of us standing in support of them. The rank and file of people standing shoulder to shoulder to fight the oppressor that is the sex industry is abysmally small.

If you hate war, then wake up and see the war that is being waged daily on women. If you hate men abusing women then stop taking your part in the abuse. These are human beings and all of the stories above are coupled with more stories, thousands of them. More than I could ever quote, a blog could never contain all the stories, all the numbers all the statistics. I could write and not stop writing for years if I tried to chronicle the stories that come out of the sex industry. Every day there are MORE stories, more tales, more destruction.

Do the research, see what there is to see. The women in the sex industry are on the front lines of the sexism that flows like water through our society. You don’t think I know what men think? You’re only fooling yourself. As a woman who interacts with men sexually I know EXACTLY what most of them are thinking. The fact is that the most violent pornography is the stuff that sells the best.

Even pro-pornography sites recognize this. As I was hunting for more information this morning I stumbled upon a porn site (WARNING- DO NOT click on that link. It is a link to a porn site). I wasn’t going to mention it but the irony went too deep. It’s an article that discusses the degradation inherent in pornography; it accepts it and acknowledges it. It’s a good article, that recognizes the harm in porn and while their ideas clearly do not mesh with my own, even the pro-porn crowd admits that not only is degradation rampant but it is also the highest selling stuff on the market.

That link and the story therein, is a good read if you can stomach the porn site and the links to even harsher sites. The point is that even ardently pro-porn people still contend that abuse is there and that men LIKE to see it, that they crave it, that they want more of it.

If you don’t support abuse then stop supporting it. Women are being made to do the most disgusting things and if you, as a human being, think that taking someone who is already broken and breaking her further is wrong then stand up and try to stop it. But don’t, for all that is holy, contend that it’s not happening.

How many women must be sacrificed before we get that they are the victims? How many stories need to come out before we finally fix this broken record? How many? What’s your number? Before you start to care? How many Belladonna’s have to be hurt before you believe the statistics? Before you STOP yourself from participating in the gang-degradation that you have come to love?

By

Saturday Morning Meeting Music Topic – Spirit Speaks

In today’s Castimonia meeting we listened to a great song that I relate to Step 12; Spirit Speaks by Know Hope Collective.  Below are the lyrics to this song and what it means to me.

Your spirit speaks, it moves in meKnow Hope Collective
And I’m awakened to Your love
You’re drawing me onto my knees
And I’m astounded by Your love

‘Cause You spoke life into my lungs
You are the air I breathe, You are the air I breathe
Still You move inside of me
You are the song I sing, You are the song I sing, yeah, yeah

You cover me with arms that reach
And I’m amazed by Your sweet grace
You set me free, You washed me clean
And I’m forgiven by Your grace

‘Cause You spoke life into my lungs
You are the air I breathe, You are the air I breathe
Still You move inside of me
You are the song I sing, You are the song I sing, yeah

With every breath I breathe, with every song I sing
I want to shout it out, Lord, I am listening
To every word You speak, I’ll go where You will lead
To love the least of these, my greatest offering

Lord, I am Listening

I don’t claim to have ever heard the voice of God, at least not yet.  However, I often joke that the Holy Spirit has an English accent.  The reason I state this is because my good friend Ken, who started Merimnao Healing Ministries (the parent ministry over Castimonia), prompted me to start a Christ-centered sexual purity group.  I’ll admit, initially I was afraid.  I was afraid of what other people would think of me.  We were relatively new to the church, maybe 2 years there, and not everyone knew my background.  I did know this, I was being called to begin something bigger than me, although at the time I did not realize it.  Therefore, I now shout out to the Lord, that I am listening to Him by going wherever He leads me.  Sometimes I become frightened about announcing my ministry or what I do, but I have to remember that it is God’s work, not mine, that I do and I need only worry about what He thinks about me, not what others think, thus I “carry this message to others.”

Awakened to Your love

Furthermore, I was awakened to God’s love as shown by my family and my brothers in Christ.  Actually, I was astounded by God’s love.  In my addiction, I did not believe that someone like me was lovable or worthy of another human’s love, much less that of God.  However, as I began to be set free from the chains of sexual addiction and as I was washed clean and forgiven by God’s grace, I saw this as possible.  Now, I chose to display God’s love to others, helping them be set free, by God, from the chains of sexual addiction.

The least of these – the most despised and afflicted

I do refer to the men who attend my group as “the least of these” for a reason.  The more I learn about sex addiction and attend meetings or trainings, the more I hear about the trauma these men and women went through as children, adolescences, and adults. I hear heartbreaking stories of sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, isolation, abandonment, violence, rape, near-death experiences, etc…  When society hears of a “sex addict” the worst of the worst is assumed.  These humans are almost always automatically categorized as perverts, child molesters, and rapists; despised by the society that helped cause their affliction.  None of these men and women grew up with dreams of becoming a sex addict, it was thrust upon them at a young age, a way to escape what was going on in their life, a survival mechanism that became uncontrollable.

Therefore, I chose to start this group and love the “least of these”, even when nobody else in their life would.  This was my greatest offering to the Lord.  Coming alongside these men who struggle with sexual purity issues and helping them along the way, just as God placed men in my life to help me along the way.

This is why I relate this song to Step 12, “having had a spiritual awakening, as a result of these steps, I carry the message to others and practice these principles in my own life.” Better yet, “Praise be to God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Take what you like and leave the rest.

By

The Faces of Sexual Addiction – Monday Night Meeting Topic 07/30/2012

The mug shots below are of members of society that were arrested or tried this month (July) for their sexual crimes.  Not all of these people are “sex addicts” but I believe there is some sort of disorder within these people to have them commit these crimes against others.

I am not posting these mugshots to punish these men and women; their punishment is already coming at the hands of the courts and our legal system.  I post these images so that everyone can see that these men and women look like anyone else in our community; our teachers, coaches, fathers, mothers, pastors, police officers, etc…  The addiction has no boundaries, it affects anyone and everyone.  My sponsor once made a joke about attending his first recovery meeting, stating that he was expecting to walk into a room of a bunch of men wearing fedoras and long overcoats as is the typical stereotype of “flashers” or “sex addicts” in our American society.  This may be true in some cases, but a large majority of sexual addicts are just everyday people, like you or me.

You should be able to hover over the pictures and see a description of their crime.

The above men and women entered into what is considered Level 2 and Level 3 sexual addiction.  The reality of the addiction is that if you took a brain scan of a sex addict acting out with Level 1 behaviors versus the above, the scans would be nearly identical.  That is to say, there is very little difference to the human brain, the high one gets from acting out with masturbation and pornography and those acting out with level 2 and 3 sex crimes.  Level 1 includes sexual activity “socially acceptable” by society; masturbation, viewing pornography, visiting strip clubs, prostitution, etc…  Levels 2 & 3 include sexual activities that are not socially acceptable and in some cases, morally offensive as in the case of Jerry Sandusky and a few others shown above.  To learn more about the three levels of sexual addiction, please read Chapter 2: The Levels of Addiction in Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.

All the above are representations of “The Empty Chair” that sits in the middle of our recovery meeting circle.  The empty chair represents those members that have left the sexual addiction recovery program in search of their true bottom, those that are suffering the consequences of their addiction in prison, and those whose disease drove them to take their own life.

May God grant these people serenity.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

By

Rape, Remorse, & Consequence

My God, how did it get to this point?  What happened to me?  I had everything I wanted in life and yet, I wanted more.  It began with my lust-filled fantasies.  I was obsessed with sex and my sexual fulfillment.  I started pretty young.  I knew my father struggled with his own sexual purity issues.  He never talked to me about it but made his repentance public.  But how did I get to this point of my life?  How does someone with power, money, and prestige come to this point in their life???  This truly is rock bottom.

My lust was insatiable.  I wanted to be sexual with every woman out there.  I would mentally objectify and obsess over them.  I would masturbate thinking of these women.  I would even fantasize about our sexual encounters, masturbating each time.  When this wasn’t enough, I had to fantasize about more extreme things such as forcing a woman to be sexual with me.  Why?  Well, no healthy woman would want to be with someone like me, so in order for a healthy woman to be with me, I would need to take her by force!  Masturbating to these extreme fantasies fed my neurochemical addiction.  What wasn’t given to me, I would take by force!

And then she appeared, my own half-sister, my father’s other wife’s daughter!  Funny how I didn’t notice her before, but now she was everything I ever wanted in a woman, or so I fantasized.  I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  Each time, I would become aroused and masturbate; I would fantasize more and more about her.  I wanted her so badly, but she never paid attention to me.  I would stare at her every time we would get together, obsessing over what I could not have.  Even her brother saw the obsession in my eyes.  This obsession became a compulsion, and the compulsion led to me taking what would not be given to me, even taking it by force!  My cousin gave me a great idea, to trick her into being alone with me.  I wish I could blame him for this, but it was a long time coming, starting early on with only my mental lust.

And so I went ahead with the plan.  I acted sick, I told my father that it would make me feel so much better if my half-sister cooked my favorite meal and brought it to my bed.  I saw her walk in, my heart began to beat faster and faster, I pretended not to eat the meal and quickly told the servants to leave my room; I wanted her to feed me with her own hands.

And thus it began, I could not take “no” for an answer.  I grabbed her and told her, “Come to bed with me, my darling sister.”  The sickness and perversity in that statement was enough to push me over the edge.  I needed to say something like that to enhance my neurochemical high. I had been obsessing, fantisizing, masturbating, so for so long about her that I needed the extreme for me to become sexually arroused.  “Normal” sex with her (or any other woman) just wasn’t enough, it needed to be perverse!  My heart beat faster and faster and my arousal grew.  She said, “Don’t be foolish! Don’t do this to me!” She knew it was a very wicked thing, not only to rape but to rape one’s own half-sister.  The more twisted the fantasy, the stronger the high of my addiction!  She even tried to convince me that our father would allow us to be married, but I was so far gone into the addiction that none of it registered with me.  And then I finished my horrendous act.

The feelings of shame and guilt filled my mind.  “What have I done?” I asked myself quietly.  I have defiled my virgin half-sister, and for what?  I am so disgusted with myself, and so I transferred that hate and disgust to her.  I screamed that she leave the room and summoned my servants to take her away.  She screamed in utter disgust, not only did I rape her, but then I had her kicked out.  She left crying, there would be no justice for her, not until today, two long years later.  My father made sure to protect me, his oldest son, as long as he could.  After all, I was supposed to inherit his company; I was the next in line!  Two years is enough time and this punishment has been in order since the crime was committed.

And now I lay here in a pool of my own blood.  My half-sister’s brother exacting revenge on me for what I did to his sister.  I am slowly dying, I can feel the blood draining from my body, where are my other brothers, have they left me to die alone?  Is this the price I must pay for my addiction: Death?  Do people really die because of their sex addiction acting out?  Is this the ultimate consequence?  I have truly hit rock bottom, no, I am much farther beneath rock bottom. I didn’t think it could get any worse, and it has.  I only wish I would have listened earlier to friends and family about my problem, that I had sought help for this addiction before it reached the point of raping my half-sister, and now suffering the ultimate penalty; death.

2 Samuel 13

The above fictional account is based on the chapter written directly above, where King David’s oldest son Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar who is later avenged by her brother Absalom who murders Amnon.  Whether Amnon suffered from a sexual addiction is unknown, not enough of him is written in the Bible.  However, from what is written in 2 Samuel 13, we can see how Amnon could not control his obsession.  Did he rape a woman before or after his assault of Tamar?  We don’t know, but chances are his sexual impurity was not an isolated case. Furthermore, his lust for Tamar (and possibly other women) was not hidden – Absalom (and perhaps others) knew about it possibling enabling Amnon in his addiction.

Such a sad state how King David, a man after God’s own heart, protected his son for two years even though Amnon was clearly guilty.  Unfortunately, we don’t know how many times King David protected Amnon from the repercussions of his actions.  Chances are, since King David protected Amnon from the punishment for rape, that he probably protected him from all other “lesser” issues arising from Amnon’s sexual impurity.

It is unfortunate that rape occurs, and sexual addiction is never an excuse.  There are many sexual addicts in prison because of rape.  These men allowed their fantasies to go too far, it wasn’t enough to act out sexually, but they had to force others to fulfill their fantasies and reach that next level of chemical high.  It all starts with a lustful thought, where it goes from there is up to us.

Take what you like and leave the rest.