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Rachel Denning (00:10.51)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning.

And we are grateful for you for listening. Thank you. Glad to have you here. Excited about sharing today's topic, although it's a sensitive and painful and uncomfortable topic. Sometimes terrifying. It is terrifying. And you hear things, see things, come across things that you don't want to hear us hear come across ever. You wish it weren't happening in our time or especially in your life to anyone you know, but it has become.

a reality in our world and so it needs to be faced.

And it's uncomfortable and scary and intimidating and we'd rather not. Most of us would, well, that's where this little kind of little metaphor comes from, just burying your head in the sand and hoping, you know, everything goes away, but we can't. And in fact, as we'll get into later, if we don't do our part, then we're actually contributing to the problem. But before, whoosh, that's, I mean, we hit it hard, but I wanna just.

Give a little update first before we dive into the topic. Rachel and I just returned from our annual honeymoon trip. And yes, you heard me right. Every year we take a honeymoon trip because who wants to have one honeymoon in their marriage? That is lame. That's the lamest idea ever.

Rachel Denning (01:39.79)
but I didn't know any different so we fully embraced it for years and years and years. And then finally we were like, no man, let's take a trip every year to celebrate us and to celebrate our marriage. And we realized we've taken three trips this year already. We did our Valentine's trip, which was incredible to the Dolomites. And then we did our anniversary trip to - Probably like two nights. Then we did an anniversary trip to Bodrum Turkey. It was like three nights I think. And then this one -

was to the Lake District. And we're grateful to our friends, another couple. They made us aware of this area. I didn't knew nothing about it. And they said, hey, where do I go? I'd heard of it from Pride and Prejudice. Of course, they went to the Lakes District. Oh my goodness. Pride and Prejudice fame, but it's worth all the hype, that's for sure. It was amazing. What a spectacular place with a beautiful, beautiful history. It is the, I think, ideal picturesque English

countryside. I mean, it's got the little either white or stone cottages and all of the flowers and the beautiful stone fences and the whole time we were there. Rivers and lakes. Yeah, and the whole time we were there everywhere we went there were blackberries on the side of the road. It was like non -stop blackberry feasting. So go in August, late August to the Lake District and you can have all you can eat blackberries. And we went to the home of William Wordsworth, which was

great because I had memorized one of his poems years ago and I'd recited it and a poetry poetry thing we did and we went to the home of Beatrix Potter and we saw Charlotte Mason's grave. Which was a divine coincidence. Yeah we didn't know. Like one of those beautiful serendipitous things where we went to this gorgeous church we're like oh let's take this little pass through the cemetery and we walk right down and said the grave of Charlotte Mason. Which was in Ambleside.

Which is a beautiful town with which happens to also be the outdoor gear capital of northern England So I was happy about that we went to so many outdoor gear shops. Yeah So it was a great time. It was just so wonderful and again, we love Emphasizing how important doing these trips are and we've talked about it before and it is it's critical to have these we believe annual trips as a couple because it gives

Rachel Denning (04:09.359)
gives us a chance to just, for me I love it because we literally are almost like kids. You and I, we just get to have that playful aspect of a man and a woman playing and flirting and having fun and teasing each other and being with each other and making love, like all of this, all of these wonderful things that only happen when you are just with your spouse. It's not something you can do.

There's just a different side of that relationship that comes out that's not always there when you're with the kids because there's a lot, and we love being with our kids and we love going on trips with our kids, but it is very different and I think it's so important to have that.

happening at least once a year where you can interact in that way and remind yourself that, you know, it started with a man and a woman falling in love. That's where it started. And it needs to be maintained and refreshed and renewed. And that's why we do this and why it's so incredible. Yep. And it's worth the commitment and the dedication to make it happen. And the money. And the money, the investment, because you can set aside for several days thoughts,

of managing the home and thoughts of running business and work and you clear your mind of all the transactional things that are necessary in life to really focus on the transformational part of your marriage and it is magical.

So awesome, so special, so important. So make it a reality. I know some of you have gotten, you've settled into the mindset of, well, we go on our weekly dates and we - We do errands together. Yeah, we run errands together and we talk, we hold hands and that's enough. And you know, after the kids move out, then maybe we'll do some things like that. And I'm saying, no, if you don't nurture your marriage, then you won't make it till the kids move out. And if you do, if you just endure each other until they move out, then you'll find out like -

Rachel Denning (06:10.319)
oh we've kind of grown apart or we let the kids get in the way or you can't do that you can't you cannot neglect your marriage saying well I got to focus on the business or I got to focus on the kids or we have to do these other things so the marriage will the marriage will tolerate it the marriage will endure all this neglect and it won't mm -hmm it's got a message last night from a friend I married 20 years and their marriage is

is about to end and it just comes from slow subtle neglect and that's why we call it an investment because often the excuse people give is that they can't afford it and we're like well that's why it's called an investment because you're investing you can't always afford investing but you do it because

You want the long -term benefits that come from it. You want the compounding interest, so to say. And in marriage, this is the compounding interest. When you make the time and money investment into your marriage, it's going to deliver returns.

But if you don't because you say you can't afford it, well, you're not going to get those returns. You just won't. You miss out. You miss out and there's no recovering that. There's no making up for the missed compound interest when you choose not to invest early on. Yep. And regularly. Right. And regularly. So all the years that you miss, like, you can't get those back. They're gone. Exactly. Now you can do great things from here on out, but what you missed, you missed. You can't, there's no going back. Right. And so it's, man, it's worth every effort to make that happen.

And like with everything in life you get out what you put in. So put in more and it's amazing. Okay, on to the topic. Well and it was on this trip essentially that we started having this conversation about discussing this in a podcast episode. There is a...

Rachel Denning (08:13.005)
Massive and growing problem, and I'm sure you've heard about it, and it's been in the news The movie has come out recently called the sound of freedom. We have not seen yet overseas It's not out It's got a lot of interest but it's also receiving flack from media Hollywood There's a big group of people fighting against it some have called it a conspiracy theory the so we just want to say from

first -hand knowledge there is a very real problem.

It is much bigger than most people think and honestly than most people want to believe. We don't want to believe it's this big and this bad. And it's one of those dark, evil things that stays hidden. And that's why we can think, nah, it can't be near as bad as they're saying. And like, oh, come on. They're, they're just making this stuff up. And, and if it's not happening directly to us or someone we know, if we believe,

it's not happening in our neighborhood which is actually super naive because it is happening in your neighborhood. Referring maybe not specific trafficking but definitely sexual abuse and like someone recently posted and was talking about so much of the quote trafficking or sexual abuse that's happening is happening in people's own homes. Sexual abuse is happening generally with a relative or someone they know close and so sexual

Sexual abuse is happening all the time, that is absolutely happening in your neighborhood, as is pedophiles, sexual abuse of children.

Rachel Denning (09:59.437)
is is for sure 100 % happening in your neighborhood and you're like, no, no, no, no, we live in a great neighborhood. It is not happening here. I guarantee it. It is happening in your neighborhood. You're like, no, we live in a very affluent, very educated, very religious area. We're, you know, it's not. Yes, it is. It is happening in your neighborhood. Now it sounds very pessimistic. You might be like, okay, you're being a little extreme, Greg. I promise you it's happening.

And the reason you said quickly in passing that you're talking about first -hand knowledge, one, it's happened to us, two, meaning it's happened to our children, two, it's happened to people you know that you've talked to. Many.

Three, you are involved in an organization that works with anti -human trafficking and you are regularly, I mean I think every day, I don't know, are receiving updates, I see you on your phone receiving updates on the intel that's happening around the world. And so it's happening everywhere is the point. We're gonna share some stories and examples I think, but just to emphasize.

and expand on what this means, first hand knowledge, this is what we're talking about. First hand knowledge, this is what's happening. And my friends, guys I know, they are out regularly fighting this.

running missions and ops inside the US and outside the US. Now, again, just human nature, we want to think, oh, those horrible bad things, they happened somewhere else. We love to think that they happened in these other dirty, filthy countries where they're just terrible, rotten people.

Rachel Denning (11:46.189)
And while those things are happening, what's interesting about this specific thing is that American men are the greatest consumers. So those filthy, disgusting things that are happening in other countries are actually the consumers are American men traveling there. But we would be so naive and ignorant to think that it's only happening there. It is also happening right here in our own backyard, so to speak, in the United States. Well, right. So the trafficking industry itself,

One, it's happening when people travel to other countries. And two, it's essentially America is the largest importers of human trafficking. So they're the biggest consumers of traffic. Both abroad and at home. Of trafficked. Yep.

They're bringing them into our country. They're sneaking them in. They're taking them right in our country. This girl, she was a young adult and got in an Uber and woke up four states over inside a shipping container. They had given her some...

chemicals to make her pass out. Luckily, she had stuffed her phone in her bra and they didn't know about it. So when she woke up, she grabbed it, turned it on, and they were able to locate her and save her, rescue her. Well, our own daughter was living in Texas. We were abroad at the time, I think. I'm not sure where.

and she called us when she was in an uber because he wasn't he was not following the route he was supposed to be found to take this and so she called us and you know was obviously terrified because she realized that this individual was taking her someplace they weren't supposed to be going

Rachel Denning (13:42.957)
and luckily was able to and especially with her she has you know most of us have fight flight or freeze when we get the basal ganglia goes off we're in danger she freezes and so she was essentially frozen she could barely talk to us on the phone and we just managed to tell her that we're tracking you just tell him that you're on the phone with us and that he needs to pull over right now and get out and you know that luckily

she was able to do that. But those types of things are happening all the time and unless you have some sort of training she at least had the awareness to be like I need to get you know I need some help right now instead of waiting until it got worse and she was able to call us and get out of that situation but... So it's happening it's happening with women, young women and girls but also boys as well.

it has become so bad that anyone could potentially be a victim. And I think we mentioned in another episode, but there was recently a soccer coach.

in tennessee that had been a soccer coach in the community a trusted member of the community for twenty one years or something like that and he got busted he would invite because everyone trusted him well what happened was he was at chick -fil -a or something no i don't some restaurant and he left his phone and sorry we don't want to taint chick -fil -a's name here the server uh... they grabbed the phone and and they opened it up to see who it belonged to see if they could contact him and they found all these videos this pervert

videoed himself raping all these boys. So he would invite the boys over to his house. He was a soccer coach. Everyone trusted him. Everyone loved him. Invited him over. He would drug them and then would have sex with them and record it on his phone. So luckily the...

Rachel Denning (15:44.397)
I say luckily only because the boys weren't really traumatized by it because they were unconscious. He would use the chemical and make them pass out. I would believe still would cause some trauma. But yes, exactly. Yes. But they weren't conscious. They weren't aware. And so he and for years, for years had been raping boys, little as six, I think, up to like 17, something like that. So,

It's, and then filming it, just an absolute sicko. And right in this good little Christian community where he was so trusting and all these things happened. So even when I was a young man, I was 15, 16 when my friend, her dad got arrested. I'm like, what's going on? He was, you know, they'd been married for a couple of decades. He had been a leader in his church. He was leading his congregation for years and years and years. I mean,

I mean, we just thought he was this phenomenal guy and turns out he was busted for sexual abuse, sexual molestation of girls and he had hidden it from his church congregation, from his family, from his daughter, all this stuff and he got busted and he'd been doing it for years and years and years. I mean, right there. And I remember as a teen just like, what? Like...

What a charlatan, what a fake, what a funny, this whole facade, this total mask of being the super spiritual good guy. And he was a rotten rotten pervert. Well, okay, let me, let me, let me pause here. I've seen it where it's genuinely, I know this is going to be hard to walk through, good person. Like in these aspects, like they're good people.

but they have a very severe and perverted sexual addiction and in they do very very bad things while in another way kind of being good people if that makes sense right we don't want to just say oh absolute evil depraved malicious person it was a human complex and right it was a decent human being with a very rested twisted

Rachel Denning (18:07.31)
distorted sexual perversion committing heinous crimes. Right. And very often people that are committing sexual abuse have been abused themselves. So we recognize that it's a result of many, many victims become predators. Exactly. Right. But one of the reasons why we're having this conversation is because of this

dangerous aspect that people who are committing these atrocities and crimes are very often people who look like and act like and in some ways are good people and that's why it's so terrifying and requiring our vigilance because it is often the good people

who are doing those things. It's not going to be someone who you think looks like Charles Mason or some psycho serial killer. Even they are often people that are very unassuming and very nice people and you think, oh, they're safe. They're harmless. That's what I was just thinking right now. If we pulled up just a photograph and we would find a smiling picture of all these people and we just held up, which one of these looks like a...

A predator, a abuser, a trafficker. You'd look through and be like, oh, jeez, none of them are, or maybe that one. He kind of has this look in his eyes. And it would be like, yeah, every one of them, every single one of them, it was guilty, right? And they don't look like it. So you can't just go out looking for the person that looks evil because that's not the case. And if I were to ask, okay, well, is it men or women? Well, both. Women are participating a ton now in trafficking.

and because they're easier to trust. So they're usually being manipulated by someone else or they're in it for the money or whatever. You guys, I hear the stories that just blow your mind of women.

Rachel Denning (20:14.317)
running hugely successful non -profit organizations and they're actually secretly... They're a front for trafficking. Exactly. They're hidden right in plain sight. Or politicians. Or celebrities. I've seen it in movies before and you think, oh, whatever. No, they're putting that in movies because it is actually happening. It's a reality that's happening. People are putting this front on of doing good in the world and in reality...

there it's being used to traffic other human beings because let's just be honest it's a huge money maker it's huge. One of the things that they talk about with the aspect of trafficking is that it's a renewable product so to say. A human being is a resellable product in that you can sell this human

over and over and over and over again to multiple people. The reality is they're being sold five to ten times per night. Which is just so disgusting. Right. And so, you know, well, and let's just give some more insight here. One of the things they've been talking about in these circles of anti -human trafficking is to...

doctors and dentists to start looking out because the traffickers want to take good care of their product so to say. I'm using the terminology that's disturbing because that's how it's viewed and so they're taking good care of them, they're taking them to the doctor or the dentist to make sure that they're in good health and it's because they want to

invest in their asset this is a moneymaker for me i can sell this person five times a night i need to make sure they're healthy and so they're trying to train awareness you know train doctors and dentists in awareness to like watch out for these things because this is going on this is what's happening so part of the thing i want to talk about is how does this happen how we got into this point how has our society become this

Rachel Denning (22:15.981)
perverted and disturbed. Can I share one more before we go there? Because I don't want to forget this one. This one.

rocked me.

oh man when i heard the story it just broke me it was a student i had and she is an amazing person and i had mentored her through her teens she was just world class so awesome super special

And she and her mom came on one of our trips overseas. It was awesome. And we really connected. And then they told me the story that for quite a long time when she was a little girl, she went over to play with her little friends. They were, I think, starting when they were five or six or seven, really little. She'd go over to play with her little girlfriend a couple of doors down. And for a very long time,

time the dad was raping her as a little girl. Again and again and again. Whenever she went over to play, she would get raped.

Rachel Denning (23:27.789)
And she didn't tell anyone because she got threatened. She was a little girl. And that went on for a long time. And it all and nobody knew about it for years. And then finally in somewhere in her teens, she it all came out. And of course, when it comes out, it the trauma, the hurt, the pain, the suffering. Oh, my goodness. Just horrendous and in such a difficult period of healing. And so when I heard that story,

Oh, just broke my heart and made me obviously so angry. And it was just this massive warning. Here are these in a good little neighborhood, these cute little girls, just being friends. And you think, of course, I'll just send her over to play with her. Of course, she gets to go over and play with her friend. And little did they know that the dad, the guy, the man who's supposed to be protecting these little girls was the predator. And it was, it was just a,

Sick reminder that

Rachel Denning (24:34.829)
I want to say you can't trust anyone. There are very few people you can actually trust. And we're going to talk about this and I want to talk about that. Like what do you do about this? How do you prevent it? How do you protect yourself? And we're going to go through that. And in some ways that's a part of it. Like honestly for me, I don't trust anyone, especially not right off. There's no way. And so we'll talk through some of that. But.

I think what I want to bring awareness to is why and how this is happening. Now obviously it's very complex. There's no one answer, but I think in what we have seen and heard, part of the answer is, well, one, the abuse. Abusers were often abused. That's part of it. But then, which then... That would still keep it small, way smaller than it is. Well, except that I also believe that because now more people are becoming abused, there's going to be more abusers. Exactly.

And that's all being fed by, I think, this is where you're going. Yeah, but a lot of this, I mean, I don't know what the percentage is, but I would think it's a majority, is being fueled and fed by pornography. Hands down. And so what's happening is, you know, I mean, think about it, 50, 100 years, I don't know when pornography came out in print format. Before that, and Jordan Peterson brought this up.

A man could go an entire lifetime and maybe see a handful of naked women. Maybe.

Right? Because you lived in a society where people were modest. They wore clothes and they, you know, Victorian, it was down to their ankles and their wrists, you know? And so seeing a naked woman was a very rare thing. Well, they introduced pornography and now it's easier to see a naked woman even if it's just in a photograph. I mean, teenage boys are seeing naked women multiple times per day and now videos of it is easily accessible. Well, okay, and so this is where I'm going. So...

Rachel Denning (26:38.735)
What's happening is all of this is just amping up, it's increasing. And so now you can see more naked women in one day than a man used to see in his entire lifetime, right? And what happens with this process is it actually starts to desensitize you.

So now where just seeing a naked woman might be exciting or enticing or erotic or whatever, now that's no longer enough because you see a naked woman all the time. Like, meh, no big deal. It's very, it becomes very normal. So yeah, there's some terms there. Our society and many societies have done this in the past. And you can study the societies that were very sexualized and it always led to the destruction of the civilization of society. There were places we've visited in ancient,

Rome and ancient Greece that were just highly highly sexualized and then collapsed because of it. But you're seeing that it's been sexualized and then normalized. Exactly. And so then it becomes so common as with everything, same with a little bit of drugs or caffeine or whatever, after a while it's not enough to get the rush or the high or the hit anymore. So it has to grow. It has to change. It has to alter. And so what happens then of course,

is, and there's a whole progression here, but you know, sex gets more weird or kinky or violent or then it goes on, which now we're leading to kind of this point here, now child pornography is a huge thing. It's a big, it's a big industry, it's a big deal.

because the the addict needs novelty and so it went to violent and it went to strange now it's gone to children essentially boys and girls

Rachel Denning (28:30.285)
Exactly. And so that's kind of where we find ourselves at now is that pornography is so rampant. I mean it's common. And in fact many people don't even think pornography is a big deal. They think, in fact we've had people tell us personally, people we personally know that like, you know what, pornography is not a big deal. Like if my husband wants to look at porn, great. That means he wants to have sex less with me and I'm okay with him. That's their take.

It's not a big deal if my husband or my sons look at pornography. They'll say, oh, it's very natural. It's normal. It's a natural normal thing. My boys want to look at it, of course. What's wrong with that? But what people don't understand and don't fully realize is that that's not where it ends. Besides the fact, we did a whole podcast episode about masturbation and cheap sexual acts, which definitely ties into this and is worth listening to. Besides the fact that you're actually

And this has proven reducing your ability to have a normal relationship with someone, partly because what do you need to do in order to fulfill yourself? Well, look at porn and masturbate. That's easy.

But to go out and talk to a girl, that's terrifying. Like, why would you do that? That's way more terrifying than just staying at home by yourself and masturbating to porn. Like, that's easy. There's no requirements. There's no leveling up. You don't have to level up. You don't have to be anybody or do anything. You can do whatever you want and watch video games and have that. That's way easier than having to... Yeah, it's a pseudo -reality. You could be a total loser and get the hottest girl via pornography. Exactly. Well, now they're coming.

coming out with AI porn. Like they, our son, who's 18 now, I mean he has been seeing advertisements on Instagram for this AI friend that you can talk to.

Rachel Denning (30:23.437)
which then of course the next level, and I mean I've heard this from Jordan Peterson, is now, then it turns into porn. So you have this friend who's virtual and you can chat with her and everything, but then if you pay extra for the membership, it's the porn version. Oh yeah, I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about it. But that's the next level is kind of this virtual porn where you get to have this online girlfriend. And she can be... She can be everything you want her to be. Exactly, and she can just talk to you. Right.

And she's of course very attractive and perfect in every way. She's going to be perfect. She's not going to nag you. Your brain's going to... She's not going to make you pick up your socks or take out the garbage.

No responsibilities, no requirements, no demands. Exactly. But your brain's going to go through all the sensations. Right. And so you'll... Sensations that used to drive men to take action. To get off their butts and do something. To be men. Yeah, to be men. That desire, that desire for that type of interaction and that type of...

connection so quote -unquote with a woman drove them to do something with themselves well they don't have to do that now because now they can get it virtually and they can still maintain their loserhood without

you know, without having to change anything and get what they're after. And the same is true for married men, where instead of leveling up and being better, they can just view porn. Right. And they can escape. And we're not just... They don't have to try to figure out how to get their wife to have sex with them, you know, and go through all the requirements she has, quote unquote. They don't have to do the dishes. They can just go...

Rachel Denning (32:10.573)
have this other interaction which meets their needs and there's nothing they have to do to be better. Right. Now it sounds like we're just totally throwing men under the bus here. There is another aspect where some very very good men who are very loving men who want to have a great relationship with their wife for whatever reason the wife doesn't... Understand. They're not having sex enough.

And I know some in desperation finally turned to that.

And again, there's no excuse here, but they turned to it because they have this natural drive and it's not being met. But that we're getting off track here. And all of that is discussed in more detail in our other podcast about sex, on what husbands need from their wives. There's like four episodes. So coming back, so now we've had decades of porn that gay went to hardcore porn and has been readily available, easily available, decades.

of it. Decades. It literally rewires the brain.

and it has to in order to get hit and their science behind all this and the dopamine whatever it has to get harder and harder worse and worse so then are more novel more intense more and then they've converted predators they begin acting out of it and i saw this i met uh... we're costa rica's hiking this waterfall happen to meet the president of fight the new drug

Rachel Denning (33:45.773)
and he told me of young teenage boys who had never even kissed a girl.

like never like they didn't leave but they had already as teenage boys been addicted to hard porn for so many years and then went you know went through all the cycles to violent to then child porn and these kids were being slapped with pedophile charges.

without having left. That was one story. This kid, I mean, the police bust down the door and the parents are like, what's going on? He's like, well, your kid's online consuming...

child porn. Then he said other stories where these young teens and especially young adults... Meaning they were doing it from home. Yep, all from home. Never even left their house. But then there were other ones of course that after all that virtual stuff was enough and they became predators. And so they went out and... Young, inexperienced boys who had no normal interactions with girls.

but now we're porn addicts and predators and abusers so porn is rapid uh... from from what i've ss seen in in

Rachel Denning (35:03.437)
read things like that it looks like about seventy five percent of young men and men are looking at porn regularly and this includes in church everywhere everywhere do not assume that that your little group is is not doing this. I know it happens within our church that's about the statistics 70 % of men and so it's happening it's been happening for so long now that it's just become rampant and now it's moved to child porn where thousands of

new child porn is being uploaded to the internet every day. Many, many thousands of new videos, think about that. So children are being sexually abused and it's being filmed and it's being uploaded to the internet every day. Thousands. Now one great thing I did here or read recently is that since Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, he has been very diligent about removing child porn from Twitter, which is great. It's fantastic. It needs to be fought. But it, oh man, is this such a

complicated subject. But the point is...

If in this is where I'm going to drop the hammer here. If in any way, shape or form you are participating or somehow facilitating in porn, you are feeding this much, much bigger problem. You're participating in the cause and you might be thinking, no man, I would never do that. That's sick. I, you know, I just watched a little bit here, a little bit there by supporting that industry or tolerating it in any way, shape or form. You are in a, in a way contributing to a much bigger problem. Even though you're sitting there saying I would never do that. You're actually.

participate in cause and I would even raise that up to say if we're not actively fighting against this and teaching against it and discouraging it, if we're not a part of the solution then by default we are a part of the problem and the problem is so big and so deeply entrenched and exactly like a drug that it's causing so many problems now and it's led to this horrendous situation we're in where there are millions of women and

Rachel Denning (37:06.031)
children being sexually abused, sold for sex, and trafficked. And that's just trafficking. There are many, many other millions who are being sexually abused all the time. So, yeah, why don't you really quickly give the numbers on the human trafficking statistics? Well, their estimate, again, it's hard to say. Obviously, nobody's out registering in some kind of census. It's all hidden, so it's hard to say. But some experts are assuming their state

pretty boldly that the numbers we have could be...

unbelievably low compared to the reality. We just don't know. But there are tens of millions of people being trafficked right now. Of those, there's at least a couple of million who are children and that are in just specifically in sex trafficking. And like I said, they're being sold five to 10 times per night. There are children being trafficked as young as three year olds.

But we've come across even younger. Again, I will spare you the horrors.

Rachel Denning (38:22.157)
the stories and images that will never leave my head. I haven't even told Rachel these. The evil, the things that have been done to little, little children. The things that are so evil and so dark, most decent people couldn't even imagine it. We couldn't come up with that kind of evil. The things...

they've done these were first -hand stories told to me uh... uh... i can't even comprehend this and and when i think about i just want to rescue these little kids and even more than that i want to prevent it from from happening so that's the whole reason we're we're having this episode right so back to what do we do about this well i think you you

pointed out the very first thing we do, which is make sure you're not contributing to this industry because the porn industry is feeding the human trafficking industry. Like there's just a direct connection. It's directly connected. There is correlation and causation. Exactly. So if you are participating in the porn industry at all, you are contributing to the human trafficking issue. So that's the first stop because if fewer people consumed porn, there's still going to be the people out there that do it.

the ones that are then going to become the predators or whatever. But we can do our part by not participating in the pornography industry. And then the next level is fighting it. If we got it back to, if we made it so difficult to get a hold of.

and shameful. Yes, I'm purposely using the word shameful. Some of you are like, Oh, do we shouldn't shame people and whatever shameful things need to be shamed. And people ought to feel very ashamed of shameful behavior. I remember seeing this guy we were in some store, I think we were in Alaska, we lived in Alaska. This guy he was he hadn't showered, he hadn't taken care of himself. He was just disgusting. And he, he literally looked like he slithered. I mean, that was the

Rachel Denning (40:36.431)
He slithered in the store and he was kind of embarrassed or whatever and he bought this porn magazine He went up to the counter and just slid his little money over. I mean he just looked he was just dripping with disgusting it just a foul thing and then just and and even the cashier was like he kind of slithered out and I just watched this whole interaction and And he had he had to slither out of his hole come into into the public area in

in front of other people get his thing that he wanted to feed his little addiction and slither back into his hole. It was a lot more work and now nobody has to go anywhere do anything. They just want a phone or any device they can get access to it. So if we if we can fight against it somehow join participate in in fighting this and I don't know some of you will have a particular set of skills.

that you can use to fight against these things. But many of you, perhaps most of you, can help by awareness, talking about it. If we share this and share this episode and talk about it with more people, if more parents are aware of it and talking about it, it's going to prevent...

more kids, women and children from being victims because the awareness of it is like, hey, I'm not going to be so trusting. I'm going to watch out for, I'm going to, I lay my eyes down and I start noticing some odd behaviors and I'm going to be aware. And if it, if, if I have some kind of evidence, then I'm going to bring alert authorities like, Hey, this, this is not good. And we start shutting it down and making it really, really hard, if not impossible. But it starts with fighting against, not participating in porn, fighting against porn and then spreading awareness.

And, sorry, one more thing I want to hit. You can contribute to this financially. Because, you know, it took, there was a mission that was done recently and it was a very successful bust, but it cost somewhere between 40 and 50 thousand dollars to go do it. Now, is it worth it? Infinitely. If it was your child... And how many people did they rescue in that? They, I think, got 12 people. So they busted a few traffickers and I think rescued 12 people. Now, if it was...

Rachel Denning (42:51.727)
was for one, it would be enough. Well, and what's really important to consider here is not only did they rescue those, but they rescued all of the people that would be brought into that by those traffickers. Those were active traffickers, and it was set up right next to a school, actually. And they were constantly watching. So it's those 12 that were in it, but how many?

would would have been pulled into it in the next few years if they not busted them. But even if it was for one, it was for your child, would you pay 40 or 50 thousand in a heartbeat? Without question. But it's expensive. And so you can contribute to good organizations that are doing it right and you can help be a part of this solution. Right. So I just want to give some other...

ideas for you know especially with our own home our own family one of course not participating in pornography if that's...

Yes, not participating, but now I'm thinking like, don't let your kids get on it. That's what I was going to say. We need to set up safety nets for our own children, especially our own sons. And we need to be educating them and talking about this, not in a way that's going to creep them out, right? Nor in a way that's going to introduce it to them. Or introduce the idea. Sometimes that happens. We start talking about it, and now they're like, what? You've piqued their curiosity. There's naked people on the internet? You know?

like they didn't know that before and now they do. We don't want to be introducing it but we do want to appropriately bring awareness to them about that this is a real issue. One thing my husband regularly does with our sons and our daughters but it's more common with the sons is just ask them when was the last time you saw pornography? When was the last time you saw a naked woman? Whether that's on your phone or the TV or whatever he's just asking them regularly. So it's not weird or awkward. They

Rachel Denning (44:56.879)
you know it's random they know dad's gonna ask at some point and you know they just tell us or they come to us when it happens or when they see something our sons have been on instagram and girls they don't know will contact them on instagram and be like hey send me a picture you know or they'll just the first point of contact will be sending a naked picture and when that happens our boys immediately let us know we were out of the state once when our son called and said hey I just

I just want you to let you know that this just happened on Instagram. I blocked this person, I deleted, you know, whatever. But I want you to know what's going on. And so you have to just have that openness with your children so that you can talk about these things and you can be aware. Our little girls who are currently nine and six, and I think I even heard you this morning talking about it, we regularly talk about it, they have full permission to kick men in the nuts. They have full...

to bite, kick, scream, whatever, gouge eyes. Like we've told them full out. And we've of course taught them that that's not always appropriate, but if anytime they feel threatened or uncomfortable or like someone is doing something they shouldn't, they have permission to be violent. We've told them this. Because I would be more worried about them.

being afraid, because that's what people use. They use these fear tactics of I'm gonna hurt you or I'm gonna hurt someone. My girls, and if anyone has met my girls in person, you know they're feisty and they will be, and this goes for our older girls too, like they will be ready and willing to fight.

to protect themselves. We've also talked about and this might... You have to teach your children the virtue of violence. Yes, exactly. And I'm saying that purposely. There is a virtue in violence. And it's in protecting yourself and others that can't protect themselves. Exactly. We have this knee -jerk reaction that all violence is bad. It's not. Right. And we teach our kids that they should be nice and they shouldn't kick people and they shouldn't hit people. Which, yes, you're right. Most of the time that's true but we have to...

Rachel Denning (47:10.319)
We also have to teach our children that there is a time when they should be kicking and hitting and screaming and gouging. They need to be.

and if there were more people like that there would be fewer victims because the victims would be standing up for themselves uh... i have we have some german friends and she told me that when she was younger and i think this is actually brilliant that her mother told her that one of the week away to protect herself she was ever in a situation where you know she's sexual abuse yeah she was being preyed upon

Especially if it's something you couldn't get out of say someone was holding on to you or whatever She's like make yourself as disgusting as possible Poop or pee yourself like whatever it takes literally start slobbering out of your mouth and like just look like you're Like just start looking like you have mental issues or something like whatever it is just start making yourself disgusting And if you have to pee your pants to do that perfect great, and so we've told our our kids that too I'm like I don't care what it takes

do whatever you need to to make yourself disgusting uh... disturbing hurtful that's okay you have full permission fight and one of the things that i learned many years ago i heard it

predators will make threats. The reason people don't speak up is because they make threats like, hey, if you tell anyone I'm going to hurt your family, I know where they live, I'll come get them. So for 15 years, I've been telling my children, hey, if anyone ever threatens you that they're going to hurt us, you come right back and tell me. Immediately come to me. You immediately come tell me. And you know, at first they were like, well, won't they come hurt you? And I said, like, let me show you what I would do and what would happen.

Rachel Denning (48:57.999)
and I've assured them.

that if anyone brings a fight to my doorstep, they had better be ready to fully receive the fight I'm going to bring. And if they bring violence to my family, they're going to receive violence tenfold. And so my kids know that like that threat's bogus and they will come right back and tell me. And so they're not going to hide back and say, well, oh, so and so was doing this terrible thing to me and I couldn't tell you, I'm like, oh no, you come back and you tell me because they're going to get the full wrath.

of that works because they also know you are the type of person that has that capability. You have the strength and the knowledge and the wisdom to be able to protect yourself and us. I just think that they don't doubt that. And so that's another part of it too, I think, is that we have to be more competent and capable people. Even including...

being violent if and when necessary. So we've been training with our kids. We've been doing martial arts in Krav Maga. I take the kids to martial arts. I've been teaching them submission holds and fighting techniques for years and years and years and they've seen me and they've seen me perform in those gym situations and know full well what my capabilities are. So they're in their training with me and they look over and they're like, wow. Don't mess with dad. Do not mess with him. So they know and when I spar with them,

with them. I work them and so they know like okay it's ready. So even this morning we're working on the bags and I'm teaching them more techniques and we were talking about I don't know where it comes from. I just heard you like kick them in the nuts or something. Sanji was like oh if somebody tried to give up I would just kick them in the nuts and I was and so you know most of us react like oh no that don't do that. My first thing was yep exactly I said if anyone's ever threatening you you have my permission to just kick them as hard and grab a claw and scrap.

Rachel Denning (50:55.951)
to do whatever you have, bite, do whatever you have to do to protect yourself. And they know that full well and we're showing it. So to your point, Rachel, like the way you do life, your habits, your lifestyle, all those things matter so that they hear it and see it and know that it's a different reality. And our house is full of weapons.

Yeah, well, side note, full of weapons. Well, in this process, we're learning, we're teaching them to differentiate and we're teaching them to recognize that there are different types of situations because if you just teach one size fits all morality of be nice to everyone, well then that's when you get a child, be nice to everyone, be obedient and respectful to adults, well then that's when you get the situation where a child goes over to an adult's house.

well, a friend's house, but then the adult behaves in a way that's inappropriate and they're taught and they think, oh, I'm supposed to be obedient, I'm supposed to be respectful, I'm not supposed to say anything or hurt this person or kick, like that's not allowed behavior. But if you teach that it is allowed behavior in the right situations and then teach them to discern, well then that's, they have more power. And so that's when we have to teach competence and capability and teach that sometimes,

violence is the answer. And actually there's a book, I still have not read it but I should do it. But I know all of our teens have read it, along with you, that there's a book called that, When Violence is the Answer, because sometimes violence is the answer. Especially when you're trying to protect yourself from predators. Naivete and conformity.

And pacifism. And pacifism and a lack of self -confidence can be extremely, extremely dangerous. And it's not that those aren't good qualities or admirable, but there are times when that's not going to work. If you teach your child to be a pacifist, they are going to be at danger for trafficking if they're ever confronted in that situation. Or any kind of abuse.

Rachel Denning (53:08.397)
I know for myself, I personally went through a time period in my life as a mother when I don't know if it was the route, you know, the journey our life was taking. We were traveling, we were doing things differently and unconventionally. We were living abroad. We went through what we call our hippie phase. And there was a time when I believed, I wanted to believe that there were no bad people in the world.

that everyone was inherently good and that, you know, there were some people that were misguided but there weren't actually, there weren't actually bad people. And I've just come to see that that's just not true. And if we believe that, we actually put ourselves in danger and we make our, we can make ourselves victims. Because there are people out there who...

for whatever reason and maybe it's not always their fault maybe it's because of how they've been raised or what they've been taught or not been taught or what's happened to them there are people out there who do not have good intentions they do not have the goodness of humanity as their goal or as part of their understanding and so we have to be willing

to be violent when necessary and we have to teach our children to protect themselves when necessary hoping that it's never going to be needed but if we don't that's when we are in the most danger and from an experience i know of personally this happened to someone that we know where well a couple people that we know where they weren't

able or willing at the time because of what they've been taught or how they've been raised to be violent and as a result they were preyed upon they were abused sexually and in those instances it was by peers well one was by peers another was by it was instigated by peers in this situation this person had they were attending a local school

Rachel Denning (55:26.317)
and they had a peer at the school who they thought they could trust, which obviously they couldn't. This person took them away from the school to, I think it was probably like a hotel room, and there they were surrounded by, I think it was maybe like a gang or something of older men, they were in their 30s, this was a teenage girl, and they sexually abused her there. And she...

hadn't learned to protect herself or to fight back or to use violence and so she there was nothing they threatened her they threatened her family they told her that if you know they had a gun and they said if you say anything to anyone we're gonna kill your family and of course you know she believed them what what was she going to do and so she was abused by them I think it happened more than once

And part of it was she had been taught that there's no bad people in the world. There's no, you know, people are inherently good. And so it created this cognitive dissonance of like, well, what's going on? I thought people are inherently good. How is this happening to me right now if people are good?

and they're saying they're going to kill my family and they're doing this, I believe them. Like I have to be quiet. And so it happened more than once because of that and you know it was because they weren't willing or able or capable of fighting and being violent and of discerning people that you can actually trust. And so kind of going back to what you said before in jest but I think in some ways reality is that we don't trust anyone, everyone.

there's very few people we actually trust extremely few and we're never gonna trust someone right off this i think it's imperfectly like one of the other things is sleepovers we just don't do sleepovers now we have done sleepovers as a whole family with another family or something like that but we don't send our kids away to do sleepovers like that's just not something we do we have some friends who told us that

Rachel Denning (57:32.429)
uh... they just would tell people straight out like your child's coming over here i'm the father i will never be alone with your child and i would hope you would do the same i never want my child alone with another male in your house like that's it yeah you might think i'm weird for saying this but this is how it is

you just can't trust people you just can't expect that all that's a good person and everything will be fine it doesn't work that way unfortunately it just doesn't people have private perversions that are never made that sometimes even their spouse doesn't know about or their children and so you just have to have the safe these safeguards in place to protect yourself in a way approach it from sorry i don't trust you

And so this is what I'm putting in place to protect my child. And we're so afraid of the social repercussions of that, but I would much rather suffer social repercussions than the real consequences that are happening. And again, don't just think it's with adults either. It's happening with peers. In fact, for years and years and years, I've come across stories of even small children who had been abused becoming predators. They're just acting out what happened to them. So when you stop and say, well, is it rich people or poor people who are doing it? Both.

Is it men or women? Both. Which race or religion is most likely to do it? All of them. Is it older or younger? Both. It gets everywhere. It is just permeated society. It is an unbelievable problem. And you and I, ladies and gentlemen, have to prevent it from happening in ourselves, in our family, and then reach out and fight against it. Please do not be a part of the problem.

and actively, deliberately become a part of the solution. Do whatever you can to help put an end to this heinous, heinous evil that is prevalent in...

Rachel Denning (59:30.381)
pervasive. We got to put a stop to this. So again, it might be the Mad Masterclass in training. We walk through and talk about tools and tactics to do this and get the training, get the resources, get whatever you need to be more of an asset to stop the seed. Love you guys. Thanks for listening. Reach out.