DALLAS – With eXXXotica Dallas set to hit Big D Aug. 7-9, it’s no surprise adult industry critics are besieging local media outlets this week, decrying, deriding and defaming all things porn as part of a futile attempt to persuade officials to ignore the U.S. and Texas constitutions. At the very least, they’d like to bully those who operate the city-owned Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center into declining the porn industry’s business in the future.

None of this is surprising, including the intensity of the vitriol aimed at the porn industry by people who have been given a forum to make outrageous, un-sourced, unproven, unreliable and downright ugly assertions about the nature and character of the adult space. Hell, even some dumbass YNOT writer with a goofy pen name managed to predict the whole sordid mess more than six months ago.

In a column published in the Dallas Morning News, Katie Pedigo, executive director of an organization called “New Friends New Life,” flatly asserts hundreds of women and children will be “sold” at eXXXotica.

“Whether explicitly or implicitly, the City of Dallas by hosting this convention is facilitating the coercion of the vulnerable and, ultimately, the violence they will endure,” Pedigo claimed in her shrill screed. “We know that traffickers have been preparing for next weekend. They have been recruiting from the nearly 400 kids who are trafficked every night in Dallas. They have been getting ‘their girls’ in line, and when the convention comes, these girls will be bought and sold. It will not be their choice. It will end up being their sentence.” [Emphasis added.]

Really, Katie?

If there were any evidence to suggest what Pedigo claims is true, the FBI would be crawling all over every eXXXotica event nationwide, regardless the host city. Agents may not give two shits about alleged obscenity. They may find 2257 inspections to be irrelevant busy-work. But if you pay attention to the news at all, federal law enforcement takes things like child porn and bona fide human trafficking pretty damn seriously.

To be clear, there’s little doubt if one were able to scour the width, breadth and full history of the porn industry, one could find examples of victims who were subjected to treatment fitting the definition of human trafficking.

What is the definition of human trafficking, you ask?

According to the United Nations, under Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, “trafficking in persons” is defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

In the above context “exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

The adult industry is a massive, highly fragmented and global industry. Do I believe nobody involved has ever trafficked in humans according to the above definition? Of course not. I’m not naïve, and I know if one were to delve into the fringe nooks and underground crannies of our industry, he or she would find some nefarious, seriously unscrupulous creatures, some of whom will do damn near anything for a buck.

I also happen to believe being able to cite examples of corruption and wrongdoing within the adult entertainment business distinguishes the porn industry from other industries in no notable way. Every sector of every market has had its fundamentally rotten apples. Ask former customers, investors and employees of companies like Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, Healthsouth, Countrywide or any number of other corporate criminals.

What Pedigo would have readers believe, however, is the sponsors, exhibitors and attendees of a long-running industry trade show are the same as the transnational organized crime enterprises the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime focuses on in its anti-trafficking efforts.

Popular male porn star Evan Stone is scheduled to appear at eXXXotica. Does anyone seriously believe he’s a victim of human trafficking? How about Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals, the sociologist who will give a presentation called Trainwreck: How Hollywood Portrays Sex?” is Tibbals a human trafficker too, Katie, or merely someone who facilitates trafficking for no particular reason?

Stormy Daniels will be there as well, to talk about the making of “Wanted,” the western-themed feature she directed for Wicked Pictures. It’s unclear where Pedigo would place Daniels within the pantheon of horror she envisions eXXXotica to be. Maybe she’s merely the unwitting dupe of a studio that secretly traffics in people who later become famous, such that they are willing to forgive the vile transgressions of their oppressors.

P.edigo’s over-the-top rhetoric may do more to harm her cause than to aid it. If you think obviously exaggerating, dissembling and outright lying to your audience works, refer to the attitude of current teenagers toward the public service announcements deployed as part of the so-called “War on Drugs.” It’s pretty clear there’s no downside to mass-defaming the entire adult entertainment industry for someone in her position.

There’s no negative consequence to Pedigo for stating the U.S. Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA) “makes it clear that the majority of those involved in pornography have been coerced, forced and defrauded” despite the fact Congress “finding” something is about as meaningful to its potential truth as being written on the wall of a public bathroom stall. For example, it was a Congressional “finding” that resulted in marijuana continuing to be categorized as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, meaning there is “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” More than a few doctors would dispute that assertion these days, methinks.

In case you’re wondering how the TVPA “makes it clear that the majority of those involved in pornography have been coerced, forced and defrauded,” the word “pornography” appears precisely once in the Act — and it isn’t followed by anything that would support Pedigo’s claim.

In §102(b)(2), the second finding of the Act states: “Many of these persons are trafficked into the international sex trade, often by force, fraud, or coercion. The sex industry has rapidly expanded over the past several decades. It involves sexual exploitation of persons, predominantly women and girls, involving activities related to prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other commercial sexual services. The low status of women in many parts of the world has contributed to a burgeoning of the trafficking industry.” [Emphasis added.]

I put “pornography” in bold above so you could find it easily. I didn’t emphasize the word “majority” because it isn’t there.

Of course, there’s also nothing new about well-intended anti-trafficking activists fudging a bit to make their case — and as noted by Michael Horowitz, a man referred to by some as the “father” of the TVPA, things have changed somewhat in the movement since he originally spurred the legislation.

“Now it’s just one big federal entitlement program, and everybody is more worried about where they’re going to get their next grant and whether they are going to get it,” Horowitz told the Las Vegas Review Journal in 2013.

In making her case against eXXXotica, Perigo doesn’t cite a single source to support her claim a child is sold “every 26 seconds,” much less explain how this alleged statistic relates to the American adult entertainment industry. Her estimate extrapolates to roughly 31.5 million trafficked kids per year, which doesn’t quite jive with statistics offered by groups like the International Labour Organization, which in 2012 estimated the number of trafficked children to be around 5.5 million, and the total number of trafficked humans to be 20.9 million people.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether Perigo’s numbers come from a flawed estimate, a good estimate, or were pulled straight from her ass. There’s no particular relevance to eXXXotica, outside the one people like Perigo perceive.

Of course, it also doesn’t matter that she has essentially defamed an entire industry, painting with a single brush tens of thousands of people she will never meet and of whom she has no actual knowledge whatsoever — because nobody outside the industry will ever call her on her bullshit or rise to our defense in any way.

On that note…. Enjoy eXXXotica Dallas, 2015, folks!