I was sex trafficked by GirlsDoPorn Pt.1 || Consider Before Consuming Podcast

long story short that's when everything began um from like 9 00 pm until four in the morning i was raped um they took breaks and and told me i had to refilm scenes um i tried to run naked from the hotel room at one point i was physically shoved back and there was someone outside of the door i didn't even make it to the door i said you i'm not doing anything else right and they're like oh then we'll put everything on the internet that we have right now with your full name or we'll send it to your parents do you want them to find out [Music] first of all we want to say thanks for being with us today thank you for having me this is an important conversation for many reasons one of them being that people think that sex trafficking and porn are separate industries and your experience sheds light on the connections between porn and sex trafficking you never agreed do porn at all yet your abuse was posted online with my full name to mainstream internet sites and although the porn production company girls do porn were eventually shut down and convicted of sex trafficking they went unchecked for 11 years or so they also claimed to be ethical like an ethical porn company during those 11 years but we'll get more into those details the first thing we want before jumping back in time is we want to know how you're doing by the way we want to introduce cozy this is cody to the audience we have a little mic set up for cozy when you came in and i saw cozy immediately in my mind i was like we should have set up a mic it was just too cute to not do it and so i literally put a mic down there for i think that's quite adorable super cute but going back how are you doing i it's been an emotional rollercoaster i was trafficked six and a half years ago it's been a rollercoaster of emotions it's been a long time coming with the fbi trial and we had uh wolf one of the main guys that started one of the co-founders yes he he did plead guilty yesterday so there has been a lot of publicity surrounding it we put andrea garcia away for 20 years last year last june so we have seen justice but with that has come immense harassment uh it's all being brought to light and i feel like the stories that are being shared about the women are so inaccurate uh so i'm really excited to be here today uh this is just my story each woman that i had the honor of meeting at court and when we were testifying they were incredibly brave they have all been hurt beyond words and um it was a really difficult day that first day that we testified it was rewarding exhausting empowering validating but at the same time it was just so shocking to know how much it's affecting all these women myself included years later i feel like it's going to be a lifelong battle it's something that they put on the internet they stole something from us that is never going away even though we legally own the rights to the videos now it'll always be out there and it's something that i am having to learn to live with and get stronger there's been a lot of therapy involved cozy helps a lot probably more than anything but i i'm stronger than i used to be i i had some suicide attempts even right before trial last year i went in with stitches on my arm i have this nice scar that almost looks surgical and when people say oh what happened i don't like to lie i'm not here to gain anything i'm not being paid for this i don't want to have monetary gain from the trafficking from the trauma i'm simply here to tell my story in hopes that hopefully we can stop this yeah i know it's always going to be there but we can bring education to people we can bring it to the light of day and uh hopefully help people that have been through any sort of sexual trauma because there is hope and healing it's definitely not easy it's it's very hard and it's a long road but i'm living proof i'm still here yeah begrudgingly at times but i'm i'm doing better and i'm excited to educate and bring this to light it's really cool that you have experienced a lot of healing and we can tell that that's the case because you are here speaking about it and fighting and so we are very grateful for that as i asked that question how are you doing today i think it's very telling that just yesterday you had an update about one of the co-founders to me that shows how this has impacted you because when i asked that question how are you doing i was expecting you to say like great i did yoga this morning i had whatever for breakfast but your first thought was yesterday we had an update yeah i had to fake it for so long pretending i was okay that i really appreciate authenticity now so i need uh i needed to realize it's okay not to be okay every day and you really do have to allow yourself to feel pain in order to work through it i spent years running and numbing and hiding and when someone would say hey how are you i feel like answers are commonly disingenuous we're always oh i'm good i did yoga yeah i'm fine yeah but i i want um i just want to live the rest of my life in an authentic way i want to be genuine and real and everyone has trauma in their lives everyone has pain we're all struggling at some point and we're here to help each other so being honest um i i have bad days but overall i have a lot of hope for the future right now that i didn't have for a really long time right what are you doing these days to take care of yourself mentally emotionally yeah there there were years uh where i i tried therapy um i i've been a yoga instructor for a long time that helped me a lot but more than anything i had to seek medical help i had to be hospitalized at times the self-harm and suicidal ideations just got too much and it's okay to ask for help i've realized i really was scared to do that i am a nurse i i love being able to connect with my patients now saying hey it's okay to hurt and sometimes the best thing that you can do is hold someone's hand and validate them so i'm trying to let people in and i didn't do that for a long time i uh i have really bad atd so i got off topic sometimes lately i'm doing a lot of therapy i do talk therapy cognitive behavioral therapy i am on antidepressants or i was on antidepressants for years um i would get uh egotistical at times and go off of them thinking oh i don't i don't need this i can do it alone i'm tough or they just made me feel too weak so that wasn't healthy and then i would spiral um and i would think at times oh i don't i don't need therapy and i did have a therapist commit suicide and learning to open up to someone new after that and retell your story is re-traumatizing telling it so much to the lawyers and the fbi i got to the point where i was so sick and tired of talking about it that i just didn't want to anymore so for a while my therapist uh she was my new therapist she was great she was patient with me we'd talk about my day or or a date that i had went on and now um lately the past couple of months we've been very real she had me write myself a letter saying what if you had wanted to do porn what if you um had agreed to go there knowing what was going to happen how would your life be different how would you accept yourself and i got so angry and it was so difficult at first and eventually i wrote that letter and i thought everyone makes mistakes everyone has trials um and i it gave me a lot of self-compassion that i didn't have before some of the girls did go in to filming or they went to san diego knowing what they were going to take place what was going to take place what they were going to be part of but they were groomed they were coerced they were lied to yeah they're still tricked yes and that's why the men were convicted of not only sex trafficking but conspiracy for sex trafficking and i don't think any differently of any woman for their story i i didn't know and and it is frustrating being portrayed as a jane doe because uh they kind of just lump us all into into one thing and everyone's story was unique everyone was lied to everyone was coerced i thought i was flying out for yoga clothing modeling and it looks like one thing it makes us all look like porn stars the lawsuit has called us money hungry there's been a lot of horrible backlash um so being honest and authentic finally with that being real with my therapist actually delving into the pain and letting myself experience it has been incredibly helpful and i also do ketamine therapy i've been doing that for about a year and a half i go into a ketamine center they're in a lot of different areas it's given me a chance to disassociate it's a drug that they use in anesthesia a lot of people call it special k they use it as a party drug highly don't recommend that because it can actually be a super transformational tool and really beneficial and when i do it i listen to piano music i have an eye shade on i lay on a couch they do three injections over 90 minutes cozy lays on my lap she's amazing and basically you're in a different dimension you lose more so than other psycho psychedelics um you lose sense of self and it's almost terrifying for a moment not not knowing who you are and at the same time it was the biggest relief because my my trauma wasn't there wow and when i kind of came to when you have that terrifying moment who am i you think who do i want to be and like logically i knew like oh i have all of this crap in my life and during suicidal moments and times that i had before before i i thought i can't possibly live with this i can't bear another day it's never going to go away but in that moment the first ketamine session that i did i thought what do i want to go back to how do i want to make it better what do i value and the first thing i saw was cozy and she's oh cool she's a big value but i i thought about family and i thought of all the things i would miss if i didn't make it back to my body and it's a it's a really different experience every time i've been it's been very different but it actually regenerates gray matter in your brain and it helps reset synapses recreates positive neural pathways so it actually is good for you literally changing your brain yes and helping you frame the trauma in different ways absolutely and sometimes i i i'm not ready to to feel the trauma sometimes it's like i'm having a fight with my mom and that's what i think about going in sometimes i set intentions sometimes it's deep and sometimes it's lighter but it's been really transformational um i highly recommend it to post traumatic stress disorders patients to survivors if anti-depressants and regular traditional therapy hasn't worked um it's been around a lot of people are seeing a lot of success with ketamine yeah for over like 10 years that it's been considered a really positive alternative treatment for ptsd especially with war veterans so i i highly recommend it but do it with a medical practitioner yeah because they dose you correctly and uh that's been the thing that has helped me the very most it helped me get off my antidepressants it helped me realize i have things to live for opening up to my family has been the the biggest transformation in my life they didn't know what had happened until the fbi trial started okay they never asked and i never told them i think consciously i thought i was protecting them letting them think i was a porn star because that's how they saw it that's how it looks and they there was a all the shame how could you do this to us why would you we all have to live with this um and that was the first time i considered taking my life because i couldn't bear the thought of my parents telling my little brother what his sister had just done and i so i was like sorry i didn't run no you're fine it seems like the stigmatization around that whole thing is what caused you to feel dread about opening up absolutely i think that was that was the worst part for me being i i was um this good girl in high school uh no one everyone knew that i wasn't a partier i i was kind of labeled a prude because i was religious and i was proud of that and the first person that sent me the video when it was released about a week and a half two weeks after was a boy from high school with a picture of his penis saying wow look look who grew out of her prude stages and i just immediately got violently ill and my parents were sent it by one of their family friends later that night so in the religious community that i grew up in my high school community i felt like everyone knew within a week and i was just disgustingly harassed and um no one asked no one said hey are you okay hey what happened hey why did you do this so i just let it go on i just said how sorry i was for betraying their trust and making them feel shame thinking maybe i was protecting them a little from my pain and then i thought if i kill myself everyone's better off i don't have to make them ashamed of me anymore every everything that i've done wrong will go away and i still felt so stupid and naive for going out there i held a lot of self-guilt um i thought oh you stupid naive girl and they were charged for not only sex trafficking but conspiracy for sex trafficking king these men did it for over 10 years they were master groomers yeah they were master manipulators and liars and it's taken a lot of therapy to to work through that i still have days where i i blame myself and i think a lot of the girls do but overall we've created this really beautiful support network and having my family actually know what happened it was difficult that it took the fbi trial for that to come to light but having them actually know what happened knowing that i was a victim i hate that word i i like survivor so much more but i it's something i have to internalize knowledge it is important technology absolutely and then also not have that victim mentality yes rape trauma syndrome people um blame themselves and they're so traumatized from the sexual assault that they don't tell anyone and it's so common and i did that for years i didn't think i deserved to be alive i didn't think anyone deserved to know the truth and no one asked everyone was so eager to label me that um i just owned it and i think that's been the best part of actually having the fbi trial seeking some justice has been incredible getting to know the other women and how strong they are but getting to kind of tell the world no this is not my identity this was not something i chose knowing that um i couldn't look at myself naked in the mirror for a few years i felt physically ill if i would go to the grocery store and a man would check me out because i felt like it's this ugly thing it might as well be tattooed on my face everyone recognizes me and it's still reposted weekly like i own the rights and it happens constantly i've changed my phone number six times i've had to move i'd have stalkers a dead cat left on my doorstep the harassment has been disgusting i i got stood up on a date one time and he said oh i wouldn't want to go out with a porn star and so i sent him the link to our article and he goes yeah but it's still out there oh no and i was like okay yeah this is part of my life my uh i got divorced because my ex-husband couldn't handle it i was so broken um and he he didn't know how to support me and it uh it just destroyed things uh as you're talking one of the things that's going through my mind is the interview that was done by the bbc with mia khalifa i don't know if you see oh yes yeah she she yes but in that interview she says that she gets emails and dms all the time from women who were trafficked into pornography and i think there's so many misconceptions around what happened to you i don't think that people understand when they go on the internet to get a quick fix um they don't understand they might be participating in human trafficking right all of the men that have seen my video and objectified me i goosebumps it's a hard thing to talk about um you don't know the girls or boys or children that are in that video yeah i might have looked like i wanted to be there because i had been beaten up and threatened and trapped and drugged yeah and i've seen it i've had to see it multiple times because of um court and my i can tell my eyes look completely dead and i remember how i felt in that moment i remember having to lock myself in the bathroom afterwards coming out to a blood-soaked bed i remember how it felt uh i didn't enjoy a single moment of that i can't actually enjoy sex since then uh never have been able to of course sorry tmi for you but yeah that's just yeah i think it's just so easy to to disassociate because it doesn't feel safe my own body doesn't feel safe and i the idea that men are masturbating to me and thinking in that moment like oh so hot looking for these things on google they have no idea the blood the pain the tears the suicide attempts that how much that ruined my life and how they're contributing to the need every time they go on a pornographic website so i think the more that we talk about how destructive porn is how closely related human trafficking in porn is porn's creating the need as long as there's a demand they will supply it absolutely it will exploit so we need to we need to lower the demand and try to create real relationships real intimacy maybe work on ourselves a little so we feel worthy of that i just want to say that if any of our listeners do struggle with the porn habit that that doesn't make them a bad person and that if they are experiencing that there are resources to get to a healthier place for them absolutely but going back to what you said about the fact that they might be consuming content that is that appears to be consensual yeah it was top 10 the girls do porn channel top 10 recommended channels for years right and they had a download button right that's a big time recommended right which is why pornhub doesn't have a download button anymore but how how long was that around how many people were affected by that that's one of the reasons my video still gets released constantly right because it's been downloaded and people aren't going to listen to a court order in different countries they don't care or even within this country yeah so it's not i know that it's never going to go away i do agree fully that people struggling with pornography alcoholics aren't bad people gambling doesn't make you a bad person watching pornography does not make you a bad person everyone makes mistakes and i think i've ruined porn i hope i've ruined porn i know i have for my brothers um and hopefully i have for some other people hopefully i do for some listeners today absolutely but it doesn't make you a bad person there's help for everyone right i can't stress that enough the name of our podcast as you know is considered before consuming and i think that the listeners will benefit from hearing your story yeah you've made it abundantly clear that you were not interested in doing pornography or nudity of any type no not of any type i was forced into it it all started with a job listing yes that's correct can you go into details about how you happened upon that particular job listing yes i was doing a lot of fitness modeling at the time i was in school and paying for college myself fitness modeling was clothed i taught yoga so it was professional i i had never done anything nude i had never sent a nude picture prior to that it said uh female fitness models wanted age 18 to 22. they posted these all over the country and craigslist is big where i'm from everyone uses like i sold a car on craigslist one time but i always thought like oh like they probably vet these things i'm sure it's professional and they had a um a website link that they sent me and it looked really professional they had a really great photographer i was like oh okay awesome then i spoke to reference models so everything was like very professional very well planned very well thought out they uh they had it their whole routine completely down to a t right they were professional groomers yeah especially making sure to talk on the phone more oh well if you have a minute i'll just give you a quick call and i can explain it and i'm like oh well that's great yeah seems personable but it doesn't leave a paper trail absolutely i don't think that i think they they made sure to not have paper trails and their their lawyer encouraged a lot of that as well we know that you made it abundantly clear again i've said this but i'm going to state it again that you were not interested in doing porn but can you speak to when was the first time they introduced that idea and what your response was absolutely um so i had shown them fitness photos that's what they they asked for um to like see my muscle tone flexibility things like that it didn't seem sexual whatsoever and it was probably after about 10 phone calls and email exchanges that they said oh by the way we also own an adult film production company and nude modeling and swimsuit modeling if you'd be interested in that said this over the phone you could make even more money um and it's all very tasteful very professional we had talked long enough at this point that i'm like oh these guys are are good guys like they always say hey how are you doing it was always kind of rushed but they were very polite and i i felt like we had um like a good report yeah good report there was like some camaraderie almost and when they said that i was like oh my goodness absolutely not i was raised super religious no like never thought in my mind and then they're like oh well we'll send you an email really quick um with the pictures of our male performers just in case it peaks your interest kind of thing which i think is a strategic move on their end because yeah and in court they can say we sent you an email exactly exactly yeah and then and then there and then i'm calling them saying uh absolutely not right fitness modeling not interested in any other part of any industry you're part of hell no never going to happen and um that's when they were like oh well if you were interested this would be the distribution you would make 10 000 instead of just a couple thousand for yoga clothing modeling and i'm like fitness apparel only thank you yeah um so i i did know it was an option but i had vehemently rejected it prior to going out to san diego did they seem to respect your rejection yes they said oh okay well it's always an option once you're there if you change your mind just think about it um so when i got on that airplane i completely thought i'm going out for fitness modeling and that is it and that was just you had just turned 22 yes it was a couple weeks after my 22nd birthday and if i put myself in your shoes i think i would feel some excitement as i land in san diego for this you know this what you thought was a fitness modeling job yeah absolutely yeah and i i was a professional so uh yoga instructor so i was like okay like i'm qualified to do this and um it was completely different the moment i got there when you say that it was completely different from the moment you got there can you speak to that a little bit more like at what point did you become suspicious um i think it's important to talk about before right before we go there the reference models i had face time conversations i i wasn't just like oh i'm gonna go out to san diego and just trust these men um i was wary i was like uh okay so i've spoken to your photographer i've seen your website i've seen portfolios i'd really like to speak with some prior models and see how the experience went for them so i had um two different face time calls the girls were really really sweet they had instagrams um they were like all these guys are the best to work with i made great money it was super easy they're so kind you'll be super comfortable in and out like a day and um then you're good and if you want to do the porn part it was super enjoyable best sex i've ever had you won't regret it kind of thing and i'm like nope absolutely not clothing modeling and they're like oh okay well it's it's an option like they had also said it's an option but when i declined it wasn't like oh you can't come right because i would have never gone had that happened so you did your due diligence to vet the company i i thought i had i i blame myself a lot still for not doing more um but i had never heard the words girls do porn i had zero idea that that is what they did yeah well they seemed to completely respect your no they did yeah and they were like it's an option it's an option and so i think that that's all anybody can do right yeah your intention and i'm sure that your red flag would have gone off if they were like oh come on don't be a prude or whatever yeah there was none of that at all respectful yeah yeah so you did your due diligence you know there have been parents that literally dropped their daughters off and my parents knew where i was going they had my flight info they sent me my um return flight too before i went out and my my hotel info i had all of it in an email told my mom everything i'm going out for clothing modeling and then she doesn't hear from me for a few days wow so going back to the question now that we have that context going back to my question of when did you start to become suspicious of this opportunity how did that come about okay um like do you mean once i got there yeah okay so i i landed um and teddy geige uh he was the their photographer i had no idea who he was but uh i had talked to matthew wolfe on the phone and he's like hey um there's gonna be a black escalade out front to pick you up super excited um we'll just uh let you get like a good night's rest tonight and then we'll go to the beach and shoot tomorrow uh so that we have better lighting and i'm like oh okay um that sounds good and then i i see the black escalade i get in um he came around and opened the back door for me and i put my suitcase in and i was like oh super what a gentleman thank you uh and then the second we start driving the the doors lock and i i kind of had a weird just a a little bit of a weird feeling and i like moved the door a little bit and it wouldn't budge so i was like i started getting wary and then they he was like hey do you want anything um to eat and i had a sandwich and he was like wow most most girls don't like eating before this they want to look their skinniest and i was like what an odd comment and then they took me to andre garcia's apartment and automatically getting out of the car um teddy comes up like opens my door for me i couldn't open it has his hand on my back and automatically there's another guy that comes up and he was a bigger guy i don't even know what his name was he was the one that eventually took me to the airport to leave when they finally let me go um and he he stood next to me so i have men on either side of me and i'm like okay where where are we going and they were like oh we just needed to um like take a quick head shot of you and we have a makeup artist for the head shot and i'm like oh okay like that sounds seems normal yeah it like everything's like it's all oh oh it'll be great they're being super it'll just take a minute great yeah great makeup artist really cool apartment right and like everything's gated it's like an underground parking garage so i'm like i haven't seen a single person other than these two men since i landed so i get in the elevator we go up um and automatically once i was in the room and the door shuts the bigger guy stands by the door and they're like oh hey like let's let's uh take your purse for you so they take my purse which has my cell phone in it and then um makeup artist started i was alone kind of in like the living room area waiting for a while before everything else started happening and i was never alone i'm sitting alone on a couch while a man is always in a stool or standing in front of the door and i'm like okay this is like can i have my phone and they're like oh we just placed your purse in the safe just to be safe we don't want you thinking we're stealing from you or anything and i'm like okay when is this like gonna happen it's getting late and it just gets weirder and weirder hair and makeup are done they're like oh you probably want to shower go use the shower and straighten your hair and i'm like i showered this morning i'm good and my hair and makeup is done and then they told me to take my clothes off and it was what they called the panda pick they had a picture of a panda it's like artwork in the background and at that point it was andre garcia teddy and so i have multiple big men in the room i'm 5'5 don't have my phone and and they're like okay take your clothes off michael pratt needs a picture to make sure you are who you say you are that's when i i really felt terrified and began to panic um and eventually they stripped me not by my choice um and then they um took me four men including andre garcia at that point took me back down to the escalade and they're like we're just gonna take you to your um hotel room and i'm pretty traumatized at that point i'm like i want my phone i want to go home i don't want to i don't care about the yoga clothing modeling i'm not doing this anymore they're like okay well we'll just drop you off at your hotel then and we go to the hotel on the way um andre stopped the car and i still can't get out at this point like it's still locked i don't have my phone stops the car and picks up uh marijuana and uh pill a bottle of pills from some guy in like an alley on the way and like the windows are tinted i can't roll my window down i can't do anything at this point i'm like i'm hoping that they're just gonna take me to the hotel now and so uh once we got there it's like underground parking once again there's no one around we go up to the hotel and they have all these boxes and the moment that i knew i was in really big trouble was when um the door shut and one man stayed outside uh while one guy like left with the car and teddy and andre are in the room and the other guy's guarding the door from outside and they automatically unplugged the hotel room phone and set all these papers out in front of me and at some point the guy that was guarding the door came in to intimidate me into signing these papers and i'm like what is this they're like oh it's just for for your athletic photo shoot tomorrow and i'm like i don't even want to do it anymore like can i can i just go can you guys go and at that point i started getting threatened um i was intimidated they're standing over me saying sign here sign here initial here and i'm like can i read these and no no everything we have to hurry we have to hurry and long story short that's when everything began um from like 9 00 pm until four in the morning i was raped um they took breaks and and told me i had to refilm scenes um i tried to run naked from the hotel room at one point i was physically shoved back and there was someone outside of the door i didn't even make it to the door i said you i'm not doing anything else right and they're like oh then we'll put everything on the internet that we have right now with your full name or we'll send it to your parents do you want them to find out um so i i went through all i i froze i i fought i i didn't know if they would kill me right i was quite terrified of that and then uh it got more and more threatening and then like oh oh do you want me to hurt you now do you want it to be rougher um and every time i i didn't look like i was enjoying it they would refilm the scene yeah eventually i just wanted it to be over so eventually i did what they said yeah but at no point did i enjoy any of it right during my deposition uh their lawyer put it up a a freezed uh still image of my video of me in a very compromised position nude and says sure looks like you're enjoying it in this part he was trying to get me to admit guilt or or some sort of ownership and i had to physically run from the room and throw up wow and when the um when the raping did finally stop when they finally got what they wanted i locked myself in the bathroom and i eventually it was it was starting to get light at that point and i eventually came out and they had ordered room service and were sitting there eating burgers and french fries watching tv teddy and andre and i said get out now and they were like oh no want a french fry like stop stop looking so sad and like wanted to do more and um i didn't realize that they had canceled the whole other hotel they had booked for me they expected me to stay there that night i was like physically in in pain for days um it was not only was it like awful being violated but it was like physically gruesome and horrendous horribly painful right it seems like they didn't even care to edit out like your own blood because it was just part of it so was that just part of this no i think i think they edited it out quite a bit because the videos they wanted it to appear consensual yeah the video is a little less than an hour okay and um yeah i don't i don't think i've i've seen it i don't think that it really showed the blood that was covering the bed strategic um they they didn't let me leave they uh brought me back to andre garcia's apartment in the morning i still didn't have my phone um didn't eat breakfast or anything they tried to get me to film a solo scene and then they wanted me to film a threesome scene and i said absolutely not during the the night before um teddy had kept saying like oh give us a give us a little teaser of of your um of your solo tomorrow and i'm like what i don't even know what you're talking about and he he was like you have to masturbate on camera and i'm like absolutely not not gonna happen and then there's more of all those stages of trauma i did the fighting i did the screaming it didn't help and the threats got worse and worse and when they brought my family into it i would have done anything to get out of it at that point and so i said oh yeah i'll give you what you want so eventually in the morning um they're like okay so we canceled your flight home you're gonna film the solo scene and i'm like you can kill me at this point you can do whatever you want i'm not doing anything else and they had picked up another girl at that point and i told her she needed to run and she knew what she was there for she's not part of the case at all and i was like no you don't understand you need to get out of here and andre um got more aggressive that day tried other things there was more physical and sexual trauma that day and eventually when i just refused to comply and they knew they had another girl that was willing and ready they let me go to the airport that night through the process um did they force you to take any drugs or alcohol yes uh after they forced me to sign the paperwork they forced me to smoke marijuana and gave me four shots of vodka yeah my i can see it in my eyes like i look i look dead inside and that's exactly how i felt and then as soon as i got home the video was all over the internet with my full very unique name a week and a half two weeks later a lot more happened in that time um i i tried to call michael pratt at one point and say like absolutely not once you were home no while i was um still at andre's okay um you got your phone back no andre let me use his phone because i wanted to talk to pratt and andre's like oh we can talk about the solo video um and pratt started going off on me saying uh you're not as hot as we thought you were your body's not as good as we thought you as we thought it was um we're not gonna pay you any more yeah a lot of degrading a lot of swearing lots of yelling and i'm like please please just let me go home and i didn't have my purse like i didn't i couldn't make my flight home i i was trapped i was terrified i didn't know how long i would be there and yeah by the time i got home when i got picked up from the airport i was so traumatized i didn't i thought as long as no one knows as long as no one finds out i can just bury it and hopefully it goes away and i i did go to the doctor within a few days and i had like terrible vaginal lacerations and the internal injuries um from the horrific rape like it wasn't just rough sex it was complete abuse when you say that if you just buried it it would all go away was that the case did you try to bury it did it go i i didn't go away no uh and even letting my family think the worst of me which in my mind having my family think i was a porn star for years was the worst thing in my mind um worse than the abuse having having them think i was a porn star yes that was worse than the abuse in my mind having them think the absolute worst of me i still have um i have a big family and i still have moments at family gatherings where i i'll feel like oh i should i should just leave early i i don't really feel welcome i feel like i'm the screwup of the family goodness yeah i'm still mending those relationships um i have a lot of like deep-rooted anger and resentment um that no one like could see the cry for help right and i i will be honest i was very good at hiding it for a while and then they were like oh she's just so suicidal and drinking to numb and hurting herself because she's so ashamed because she embarrassed our family so much because everyone knows um and like my dad's friends had seen it like my parents had seen it because it was on major porn sites yeah the the link that everyone was getting was from pornhub and i thought okay i can do this for everyone it's better if they don't know it's harder on me but i'm protecting them and i now like going on on dates or with friends or a lot of people in my life i i almost feel like i owe it to them to just tell them right away because i'm like oh you'll find out anyway and i i almost think oh once you find out you won't want to date me or you won't want to be my friend because it's this horrible horrible thing and i thought i owed it to them i thought you want to contextualize it right off the get-go so they understand what happened it's more i just like want to warn them how broken i am sometimes now i like with the fbi trial there's proof yeah so i can be like no i was human trafficked yes there's a pornographic video of me out there here is the 20-year sentencing yeah but before there was proof i thought no one's gonna believe me anyway so i might as well just warn everyone yeah there's this awful thing yes it was trafficking but i i didn't feel like anyone would believe me anyway so i just kind of became a shell of my former self i wasn't like the gregarious vivacious bubbly girl i was as a kid and growing up in i feel like they took that from me what was the time frame from [Music] when it happened it happened in january of 2016 and fast forward to the conviction of of them being charged with sex trafficking how many years was it between those two days andre garcia was just charged um in june of 2021 so it was years five years it was years yeah i joined um the trial it had already been going on for like a year we had to merge two different um groups of girls so i became jane doe 18 and that's when i told my family hey i joined an fbi trial they said oh you're just embarrassed trying to get this off the internet huh and i'm like no this is what happened during the sentencing i didn't let anyone come with me i didn't want to put my mom through hearing about it and she's she's read the articles that um i wrote with you guys but it took years to get to a place where i could even like talk about it and it's been six and a half years and i feel like just since testifying against andre garcia last june i feel like that gave me some of my life back good the harassment hasn't lessened at all i just kind of had to get stronger yeah um has your mom and family increased their understanding and empathy as the convictions have come out and they better understand the situation yeah i think having proof um it's sad that it takes that right my family has been great and way more understanding it's more like friends people i i knew growing up they're like oh my gosh i thought i knew you and and now i can kind of say or that one guy that stood me up i can send him an article and be like there you go you're a jackass yeah and at the same time i i don't blame people um i know it is a lot of trauma we do all have trauma we all have things in our closets sometimes we're just afraid to be ourselves right and i really am trying to own it now that's part of doing this podcast i just want to educate people i want to make sure this isn't as taboo to talk about i want to reduce the stigmas against it um as you've do you mind if i interrupt no please say your initial response was to hide it right and barely act like it wasn't never happened yeah i know that just know that i had that trauma right and carry it alone right and we know that's not the best approach to trauma right but it's a natural instinct to want to do that absolutely i'm just curious how it's been how has it been for you to actually speak out about it to own that that happened and if it's been helpful to to talk more about it i think uh when i finally opened up to my family i was terrified that they wouldn't believe me yeah and i i had the evidence at that point um and since i opened up to them it's gotten easier um mostly since we put garcia away for 20 years i couldn't uh i was the only girl that hadn't written her statement every single girl that was there that testified emailed their statement to the judge or brought it handwritten and had it ready i typed mine out on the my phone in my hand while the first couple of girls uh were testifying and i i waited in a different room um where it was on a big video monitor so i could see what was going on i was like halfway through so i didn't even know what i was gonna say i didn't even really know if i could do it and i didn't have anyone there supporting me um i should have brought cozy darn it that would have been really nice would have been helpful i had yeah i had stitches on my arms i had just tried to die if a week before so i didn't even know if i could do it and i think that that was one of the proudest moments of my life um there was a lot of a lot of women had anger and hatred and resentment and they have every right and a lot of people said um you're incapable of change and who's incapable of change uh andre garcia oh yeah yeah and he um he wouldn't like make eye contact with us and i asked the judge at one point at the end of my testimony if i could address him and i said and i was like really grateful that i could even i that i had the capacity to even feel this way i said it's not up to me to judge the worth of your soul but i i truly hope that you do change one day and the only reason i testified was so that he couldn't keep hurting girls that's the only reason i'm here today so that we can educate people um but that since that moment it's been easier to talk about good i think going through every detail writing the articles with you guys it was validating and and it does help me heal because we still have i still have the guilt i still um crave validation i don't even realize it sometimes uh that's human nature yeah it really is um and as a nurse sometimes the best thing i can do is sit there and hold someone's hand and let them talk about it i think a lot of the times when we have friends or family you say hey i'm struggling and they and they automatically say oh well go exercise or like last night i was having a hard time because of um today oh because of the wolf yeah there was um there was there were some articles posted and it just automatically says like this is what happened to all of these girls and being lumped in there being called a porn star beings things that say like we got awarded millions of dollars in this settlement like i've never seen a dime of that money um i've never done any of this for money i like hospital bills therapy it's all ridiculously expensive they've ruined our lives in so many different ways but uh just being like reminded of that yes he pled guilty uh he should have years ago uh andre garcia got 20 years some women thought he should have gotten life it is validating i'm grateful that we have a justice system that does listen to us and that we are seeing some justice but every time uh a trial comes up the harassment ramps up it's reposted i i've had disgusting messages the past couple of weeks um i'll probably change my phone number again soon and it's something that i just have to prepare myself for that's i'm not using my name um today in this because i don't want to make this about me i want to make i want to give all of the other girls the amount of compassion that they deserve this isn't about me it's about telling the story of what these men did and this is my personal story but we all had awful trauma we all have to deal with it we all get lumped into these categories we're considered the jd's the gdp girls and there's like reddit feeds calling us all sorts of things like oh they're just trying to sue pornhub to get more money and it's like what money okay i've never seen that uh thank you for harassing us more right i think i almost i just want to say if at some point you do receive money yeah that's justice yeah it would help pay for therapy and and things that these women do that's how it works yeah they hit all of their assets though i think that that's something that is good for people to actually know that that first lawsuit we did where we did sue jdp we've never seen a dime from it and like who knows if we ever will yeah when you say sue jdp oh you know yeah gdp well there's um in court documents there's evidence that michael pratt said when i bankrupt this company these girls are yes so he did declare bankruptcy before um fleeing that was wolf or pratt that was pratt that was pratt and i remember yeah and our lawyers have said like we we think he's hidden all of his assets offshore or it's in cryptocurrency or whatever so we we've just kind of accepted like i never went into it for that i went into it to fight for other women we are grateful that you're doing that thank you the world's a better place because you're doing that it's getting yeah it's getting easier and easier to talk about i think it's important to note too that y'all are not just going after this from a legal standpoint you also fought as soon as the videos were posted with takedown requests oh yeah i do that still constantly right and so you're not this isn't a monetary gain thing this is all like you're fighting for your own dignity to have these videos of your exploitation take it down and all women have what was the response like and when was the first time that you tried to have a takedown request for all these main stream tube sites oh yeah were those requests ever listened to that's yeah it's a really good question um the first request i sent was to pornhub because that was the first place i saw it um i didn't get a response uh it wasn't taken down and then i i realized um once i was sent more and more and more links and once more people were showing it to me once i made the mistake of googling myself i kind of realized it's like a drop in a bucket at that point i did send out i still do this i still make the mistake of googling myself when i feel strong i usually do it like once a month right now which is why i i know it was just recently reposted a few weeks ago um i think i've managed to probably get it taken off of four websites um permanently you can still google it it still shows up on like a thumbnail the image is still there i keep trying to get google to take those down and i did participate in a illicit image study with google um they are trying to improve their system but like there's dropping a bucket there's horrible pornography all over the internet and the more i try to get mine taken down i feel like the more it surfaces even though i own the legal rights and yeah most websites don't listen most websites have a more pornographic websites we'll have like a contact us at the bottom um and so i'll send the lincoln and say hey this is illegal this was human trafficking this was against my will i have court documents proving it i'll attach those if i need to um one of the girls had wrote out like a really good outline that we could just start sending um but i realized like the more i look it up the sicker i get and so i have just had to get stronger it happened six and a half years ago some some women it happened over nine years ago too and it's still reposted constantly and i mean a huge part of that is because for so long tube site culture has been you can upload anything and download anything and after nicholas kristoff's the children of pornhub article in december 2020 yeah i read the mastercard and discover um we're going to sever their um their working relationship with pornhub thank goodness yeah that was when pornhub said oh okay well we'll take down this we'll we'll uh we'll remove the download option yeah try to verify more of these um accounts and sites yeah and content but xvideos which is the largest porn tube site in the whole world they get about three billion visitors i've seen my video on both of those they still have a download button yes they do and this is something that a lot of people don't understand is once something is uploaded to these tube sites youtube it's it's you have to go through multiple steps to download content from youtube you can still do it that's very true but porn tube sites give you the button right there yeah or you can just screen record on your computer or your phone exactly and so people think yeah oh um they're they're so greedy asking for more when they have the ownership rights when the reality is that's what's so upsetting the game of whack-a-mole yeah that's that's the the money hungry there's a big reddit uh what are they called reddit thread i don't have read it but i've seen some really disgusting things on there about this trial um using people's names links to videos on other sites reddit hasn't done anything about taking those down and they they post our personal information constantly like my parents have received letters saying we're gonna come into your home and rape your daughter and murder her and it's like that's my parents i i found a fan page for myself oh no that had pictures of me with my nieces and nephews pictures of me growing up uh pictures of my family of one of my weddings pictures of cozy i think that disgusts me more than anything that they are they're they're not only hurting us individually they're wrecking our families people have disowned their kids over this and not everyone uh believes it even though we've been working with the fbi even though we have won lawsuits we have had some justice but it's still oh oh money huh money hungry they're they're just porn stars they just want more they just oh they're just embarrassed that it got so big but that's not true at all that's never been true going back to the name of the podcast consider before consuming we hope that our listeners stop the demand for sex trafficking by refusing to consume pornography and one of the things that needs to be considered is what you are consuming may not be consensual even when it looks consensual do you want to take a break yeah that'd be great regardless of age ethnicity gender sexual orientation religious affiliation political persuasion or any other diversifying factor porn can impact anyone if you've recognized the harmful effects of pornography in your life or recognize the harms pornography can cause in society we welcome you to become a fighter as fighters we strive to be bold understanding open-minded and accepting if you're ready to become an official fighter we invite you to join the movement at ftnd.org forward slash fighter that's ftnd.org forward slash fighter join us in our fight for love by becoming a fighter today thanks for joining us on this episode of consider before consuming consider before consuming is brought to you by fight the new drug fight the new drug is a non-religious and a non-legislative organization that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography by raising awareness on its harmful effects using only science facts and personal accounts if you'd like to learn more about today's guest and the conversation we had you can check out the links included with this episode if you've enjoyed listening to consider before consuming consider subscribing and leaving a review again big thanks to you for listening to this conversation as you go about your day we invite you to increase your self-awareness look both ways check your blind spots and consider before consuming you

Channel: Fight the New Drug

Views: 3,451,142

Keywords: sex trafficked, sex trafficking, GDP, girlsdoporn, i was sex trafficked, sex trafficking survivor, porn sex trafficking, porn, sex, anti porn, podcast, survivor, sex trafficking podcast, consider before consuming, cbc, fight the new drug, ftnd

Id: VVHJW5j7cYQ

Length: 63min 33sec (3813 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2022