Usually, when people find out what my degrees are in, they wince. Why would anyone choose to specialize in sex crimes, they wonder? Well, when it hits home, it hits home. God often uses your tragedy as your story and then your vocation.

When I first started out working in this field, I could not have imagined the evil I would encounter. I knew it was out there, but it was hard to fathom the depths of evil that some people engaged in. During my internship for my Masters, I worked at a juvenile justice facility. While there, I was, also, working on my thesis, so I decided to study the lives of the juveniles currently incarcerated for sexual offenses. The 17 teens I studied came from all walks of life and their demographics were highly varied, but they all had one thing in common: Every single one of them had been introduced to pornography at a very early age, some as young as two. I found this highly interesting and so that is what I went on to study.

I have dealt with some of the worst situations you can imagine. I have dealt with the fall-out of the pornography industry and it's not pretty. What you see on the screen doesn't even come close to giving you a window into the lives of the people in the industry. I have worked with victims, perpetrators, and family members touched by all this. I have given talks to police, nurses, teens, and church members. I have tried to be as vocal about the dangers of the industry as much as possible because most people just don't know.

When I was working in Florida, I started to notice that I was getting a lot of sex-trafficked victims. When I reported it to the agency that deals with sex trafficking in Florida I was asked, "Do you value your life?"

To which I said, "Well, yes, of course."

Then I was told, "Then don't say another word about any of this."

I mean, what was I supposed to do with that when the very agency that is supposed to help is warning me of the potential danger of sounding the alarm? I felt helpless.

Recently, though, with all the Jeffery Epstein news exploding, people are slowly starting to wake up. Thank God. But, if we really want to fix it, we are going to have to change our cultural way of thinking about pornography.

For far too long, our country has been tolerant of pornography at best and obsessed with it at worst. There are people who whole-heartedly support it and will defend it to the core. Usually, these are users of porn who don't want to give up their "favorite" addiction. Other people have been apathetic and indifferent about it all.

Quite frankly, I'm sick of people hiding behind the First Amendment by feeding me a pathetic line about how all this is a freedom of speech issue. This needs to stop. Just stop with this argument. Please do not pretend that viewing porn is your First Amendment right because it somehow allows for freedom of speech. When children are being sold and used on the sex market, your argument falls on deaf ears. I have dealt with the lives that have been destroyed by this stuff and to try to justify this filth by saying it's your right is cowardly.

I'm sick of men defending it because "men are visual" and "men like sex."

I'm sick of women defending this crap because it "adds spice to our marriage." If you can't figure out a better way to add spice to your marriage than by viewing raunchy, degrading filth, I'm not sure what to tell you. But, please stop pretending like it's good for your marriage. Science points toward it being detrimental.

‍I'm sick of viewing videos about kids getting taken just to be sold into the sex-trafficking world.

I'm sick to death of parents being naive about this horrendous evil. We can no longer stick our heads in the sand. Parents need to open their eyes because kids are viewing this stuff as young as six-years-old.

I'm sick of the fact that the pool of boys my girls are going to have to choose from are predominantly going to be addicted to porn.

I'm sick of men on Facebook telling me that viewing porn is natural and that "every single man on earth views porn." I guess they know my husband better than my husband knows himself.

I'm sick of fathers slapping their sons on the back and acting like catching them viewing porn is some kind of rite of passage. You are not a real man when you use people for selfish pleasure. You wanna be a real man, use your strength to fight this. As Matt Fradd, a leading voice in the fight against porn, says, "No matter the level of consent, it is a manly thing to treat a woman who has forgotten her dignity with dignity nonetheless."

I'm sick of the fact that I even have to read stories in the paper about how it's little kids that are desired on the sex-slave trade market. We still haven't figured out sexual perversions always devolve into worse and worse scenarios.

We cannot scream and throw a fit about the "rape culture" in our country and at the same time defend pornography. With the prevalence of pornography, is it any wonder that we have a rape problem? That is not to say that all viewers of pornography will turn into rapists. However, in my line of work, I've never dealt with a rapist who didn't view porn. When we defend people's right to objectify others, what the heck to do we think is going to happen when we do that?

Please, don't cry about rape and then go view filth like "Fifty Shades of Grey." Do not look me in the eyes and say you are for women's rights and blah, blah, blah, and then pay money to go watch some narcissistic creep harm and degrade a woman. And please don't give me the "but it's just entertainment" schtick. It makes me nauseous.

I'm revolted at the idea that people still try to say it's harmless because it's viewed in the privacy of their own home. Whatever. There are kids being sold while we sleep at night and if you think it's harmless, then you have an inability to understand evil. I once worked at an attorney's office where I came face-to-face with vile, utterly heart-breaking pictures of child porn. I've had those kids' faces seared in my mind and I can't forget them. Don't tell me it's harmless, because those kids will grow up having to deal with the trauma of all this. They will turn to drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and sometimes suicide in order to cope.  I remember those children's faces and they haunt me. They haunt me all the time. They would be young adults now and I pray to God they found freedom and healing.

You haven't had to hold the hand of a woman who jumped out of a moving car because she was trying to escape her sex-trafficking pimp. He was waiting for her in the lobby of the ER and I couldn't convince her to come with me. Do you know how hard that is? She had been trafficked to this country and was scared out of her mind. She was like a frightened, caged animal.

I get upset by all this because people are, many times, willfully ignorant about the dangers of the porn industry. I'm not ignorant, but when I try to speak out, I get lectured by the pro-porn fans as if they have a clue about what goes on behind the scenes. People need to start waking up, especially parents. Educate yourself and talk to your kids about this stuff. I wish we didn't have to but the nature of the world has forced it upon us. Make no mistake, your kids will run into this stuff, so it is imperative that get on the offensive and educate them before the world does. We don't have the luxury to just shrug our shoulders and hand our nine-year-olds their iPhones where they will stumble upon this putrid pestilence. This sickness is eating us alive.  It's destroying marriages, scarring brains, leaving men more interested in pixels than actual living, breathing women, and shuffling along generations of addicts that will see others as mere objects for pleasure. "But, hey, I'm paying for it and they are willing to be paid, right?" Maybe so. But, maybe we should be better humans than that.

I don't know what to do other than be a voice. I can protect my kids as much as I can. I can control my little world to the best of my ability. Sometimes, I really wanna pull a Jesus temple cleansing. I want to go to all these porn producers and take out my whip and just tear it all up. I really do. There is nothing redeeming about pornography--nothing. It is an evil in-and-of-itself.

I'm ashamed of our culture: Standing by or defending something that takes sex--a beautiful, love-filled act--and just stomps on it and drowns it in sewerage sludge. Then holds up this twisted, perverted, festering pile of crap as if it's even close to being on par with the intended version. There is no freedom of speech issue here. Those trapped in the sex-slave trade are not free to speak. Those spouses that have to endure their spouse being addicted to porn, are not free to speak, because they are told to just "deal with it."  Or they are told that's it's their fault. Lord have mercy.

I pray for our souls. Help me, Lord, figure out how I can fight this. I pray for all of us to muster some courage and fight indifference to all that pornography entails: Prostitution, sex-trafficking, "gentlemen's" clubs, etc. I pray for a way to pierce hearts and help our country desire goodness.

You may claim it's freedom of speech, but let us not kid ourselves. It enslaves people in their addiction to it. It strips away all freedom of those forced against their will to engage in it. It snares and traps those in the "business" because most of them have a history of sexual abuse and their unresolved, painful wounds of that abuse get played out in this business. Not to mention, this "business" is oppressive, abusive, and strips away all dignity. That does not sound like freedom.Trust me, I do understand that we can't all be engaged in every single moral issue. There are only so many hours in the day.  But, this will find your children in one way or another and it is imperative that we speak with them about it. There comes a point where we have to set some standards in our country. I know, I know, it's faux pas to have high standards about anything these days, being that we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But, this will hurt your kids. It will hurt their future spouse. It's hurting all of us. We shouldn't be proud that our country spends billions of dollars on this industry every year.

If you need help talking with your kids, educating yourself on the matter, or fighting the addiction, please check out Matt Fradd's book, "The Porn Myth."  He is out there speaking up and trying to be a counter-voice to our culture.  He knows his stuff and I am immensely grateful for his good work. You can, also, purchase the book "Good Picture, Bad Pictures" to use as a tool to help with talking to your children about it. I've used it with my kids and it is tremendously helpful.

I hope the tide is turning on this subject and I hope people are starting to wake up to the reality of all the goes on in the world of pornography.