Human Trafficking Awareness: Saving Innocence - Alan Smyth

[00:00:00] David Dowlen: Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential and grow into the men? We dream of being all taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands fathers, and still take care of ourselves. That's the question. And this podcast will help you with those answers.

[00:00:20] My name is Brent and welcome to the fallible man podcast. Today show we're talking about human trafficking and specifically child sex trafficking. It's a difficult subject, but you can make a difference. And as men who are striving to be the best version of themselves, it's incumbent upon us to do so. I have one of the authors of men fight for me on today because they're not just authors, but they're active soldiers in the fight and his co-author will be joining us next week.

[00:00:46] They're going to show their stories more importantly, they're going to share how we as. Can help fight this horrific crime of child trafficking in the U S and hopefully the world

[00:00:55] Alan, welcome to the fallible man

[00:00:56] podcast.

[00:00:57] Alan Smyth: Oh, Brent, it's such an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:01] David Dowlen: I am so excited.

[00:01:03] You know, when you guys reached out to me, I had mixed emotions because this is such a difficult subject. Um, we were talking about before the show, I have two little girls, so this hit really, really close to home for me. So I'm grateful for the work you guys are doing. It's, it's such an important fight.

[00:01:23] And so I'm really happy to share today and have you all. I look forward to our conversation for all of our folks listening at home. Guys, we're going to have a really tough conversation. It may make you a little bit uncomfortable, but as you know, on this channel, we're not above that. Sometimes you got to get out of your comfort zone to actually start to live and be the best version of yourself.

[00:01:43] Anyways. That's what we're doing today now, Alan, I don't go deep into interview, uh, introducing my guests because I can read your accolades all day long, but that doesn't really tell our audience who we're talking to. So in your own words, who is Alan Smyth?

[00:02:02] Alan Smyth: Ah, that's a great question. Uh, I am a husband of 37 years.

[00:02:08] Uh, we got married at a young age. I shouldn't have that yet. Uh, I have to, I'm a father of two children. I have a son and a daughter, and, um, I'm a, I'm a leader. Uh, and I worked for an organization called saving innocence. I'm the executive director of saving innocence and we focus on child victims of sex trafficking.

[00:02:27] We've helped in the recovery process and the restoration process of those children who have been swept into something unconscionable. And, uh, I, the, the two sort of things that I think define my time, my space right now, where I'm at in my life, the way that I make my decisions, what I say yes or no to speaking at a certain location or going to somewhere or doing something.

[00:02:51] And those two pillars are one, does it have to do with child protection and does it have to do with challenging men? So those are the two hallmarks, uh, apart from the most important part of my life of being a father in that. But the way that I live out my life now, and the way that I make decisions on things I'm doing, is it help with child protection?

[00:03:11] And does it help with challenging men? And so I'm happy to be here with you, Brent, on your show and do a little of both.

[00:03:18] David Dowlen: Now I must say it's difficult to the conversation are of a book. It was to read to some extent I I'm a movie guy. So I love all the posters in the background right now on your video.

[00:03:29] And I love all the references in the book because it, uh, it helps you adjust with the subject matter to some extent. Now, guys, this book is very readable. You know, I don't talk about books. I haven't read this. Took me less than a day to read the whole thing. If you don't have time to sit down and read for the day, I read it over two or three periods of a couple of hours, very easy to read well-written and I love the fact that you have actionable steps in the back of the book because when you leave.

[00:04:02] You will be a changed person. And so the next obvious part is, well, okay. Where do I go from here? And so I love it that you're preemptively putting that together, along with the stories you tell and the interviews you have in there. But the all important question I have to ask all my guests is what kind of ice cream is your favorite ice cream.

[00:04:23] Alan Smyth: Oh, oh, what kind is my favorite ice cream? I'm going to, I'm going to go back. I'm going to, I'm going to pull way back. I worked at an ice cream shop when I was 17 years old and I took a liking to pralines and cream. And you can't go too far away from chocolate chip cookie dough that doesn't, that doesn't stink either pralines and cream.

[00:04:43] I'm going to go. That's my favorite.

[00:04:45] David Dowlen: And I got to admit, I think I have a carton and both of those in my freezer

[00:04:48] right now, actually.

[00:04:49] Alan Smyth: Okay. See, I knew I would like you, the more I got to know you. So

[00:04:53] David Dowlen: Alan, let's just start out with, tell us a little more about saving them.

[00:04:58] Alan Smyth: Saving innocence is an 11 year old anti-human trafficking agency.

[00:05:03] We're home-based in Los Angeles, California. We have a national impact in that we training consult around the country for other agencies that want to learn what we've learned. And we're partnered with law enforcement and other county agencies. We've got a team of rockstar, case manager, advocates that are on call around the clock twenty four seven, and when a minor victim, a child victim of sex trafficking.

[00:05:29] And we can unpack at some point what that means. Um, but when, when law enforcement or others, uh, intervene with what appears to be a child victim of sex trafficking, then, uh, we get a phone call and we dispatch one of our advocates. Uh, we're on the scene anywhere in LA county, within 90 minutes. And if you're all familiar with LA county, that's no small thing.

[00:05:51] And, um, we were on the scene and we step into the end of life of that little. Uh, usually a little girl, there's some little boys as well. We step into her life and then we begin to get her everything that she needs until she doesn't need us anymore. And that's likely a year, sometimes less, sometimes longer.

[00:06:11] Um, our youngest little kiddo, I mentioned it earlier. Brent was just seven years old when we came into relationship with her. And, um, she's now 10 and, uh, we're going to be with her for quite a while because she has such a journey ahead of her. But that's the essence of what we do. We train and consult and we, we, uh, we take care of these little kiddos and, um, get them back on their feet and help them get back to health and wholeness, which is, uh, no small journey.

[00:06:36] David Dowlen: So reading your book, this just like just edge, deeper and deeper into my soul. And I think the program you guys have at saving innocence is incredible. I've been going through your media for the last couple of days. And guys there they're everywhere and we'll have links in the description and the show notes for those.

[00:06:58] But I've been going through all of your media, just digging in as much information as I could, as I was reading through the book. And I'm, I'm, I'm thrilled that you guys are out there, cause it, it is, uh, terrifying how much more prevalent this is an eyeopening, but I'm going to get ahead of myself here. So tell me, tell us about the book.

[00:07:22] How did this come about?

[00:07:25] Alan Smyth: Yeah, no, thank you. Um, I came to saving innocent six years ago. I was in another career in another life and uh, after 25 years go in another direction with a faith based ministry called young life. It was time to step aside and have a different challenge and a new, we look, uh, cold called saving innocence and, uh, sat down with the founders that I'm really interested in what you do.

[00:07:49] Uh, I'm a dad with a daughter. You don't have to be a dad and you don't have to have a daughter, but I am. And I really want him to hear what's going on right now. Long story short, I came to saving innocence. And what I learned, uh, pretty quickly is that most of the buyers are men. Most of the sellers are men, the traffickers.

[00:08:10] And then when I would go pretty much anywhere, any kind of a training or any kind of an awareness event or wherever I might go, I'd show up and I'd realized really quickly, there's almost no other men here. So the biggest part of the problem is men. And. No, there is hardly any men involved in the solution.

[00:08:29] And that really bothered me for a long time and it I'm just kind of wrestling with it. And then I went to an event and Jessica, my coauthor, who you all will meet, I think next week, um, she's a survivor, uh, of 10 years of child exploitation and trafficking started age 11 for her. She'll tell, share some of her story.

[00:08:48] And if you read my book and chapter two, our book, uh, she tells in pretty, pretty detailed, uh, all of her story and the steps that she went through. And, um, she was at an event speaking on a panel with somebody else and they were sitting with another person who in chapter three is telling her story. Her name is Rachel.

[00:09:05] And Rachel said something that grabbed the whole. And lit me up. Uh, she sat, she started telling her story of trafficking and how she was lured to cut into it and she couldn't get away out. And then she, at some point recent place where she said, I can no longer, I can't, I can't do this anymore. I'm giving up.

[00:09:24] Basically, there's nothing I can do to get out of this. And she said something very powerful. Now she said, um, I could no longer fight for myself. I needed someone to fight for me. And I was already in, I was already at saving innocence, but we're stacking things on top of each other, man. Another problem. Uh, the biggest part of the problem that means men are the solution.

[00:09:47] And I, and I have a trafficking survivor right in front of me saying I needed someone to fight for me. And you'll notice that the book, the title of the book is men fight for me to fight for me, comes directly for Rachel. She said those words and I thought, okay, I'm in, I'll fight for you. I'll fight for you.

[00:10:01] And I'll fight for you. And I'm going to see how many good people I can get the fight with me and alongside. For survivors like Rachel and so many others that have just given up they've lost the will. They begin to believe the lies that they're being told that they're shameful and guilty and dirty and all the things that they begin to believe about themselves.

[00:10:19] And they see no way out and they need strong people to fight for them. And as I mentioned earlier, uh, one of the ways that I'm living my life right now, the rubric is challenging men. You know, the idea that men are, the problem is actually good news because if you can isolate and define a particular problem, whatever it might be, now you have a real opportunity at creating a solution that matches there's a problem.

[00:10:47] You know, last year I had a little spot on my forehead, the doctor didn't like he said, let me look at that. You took a little piece out of it. He tested it and sure enough, that's still a piece of skin cancer. Come on back. We're gonna dig it out. It was like, great. He analyzed it. He understood what it was.

[00:11:00] And he knew what the exact treatment was that was going to take. Well, in the case of human trafficking and exploitation of children or adults, it's unquestionably, the problem is men. Great. Now we know what the remedy is. If we can get enough men to turn around, to think differently, to see things they hadn't seen before, interpret them differently.

[00:11:24] And we humbly offer this book as a resource to help men do that. Uh, if we can get enough men to turn this around and say no more, not on my watch, we can actually see this. And, uh, that's the essence of how the book came in. I approached a number of survivors, J Jessica is one of them on our staff. She coauthored it and there's five other prominent survivors in the book offering their story.

[00:11:47] And they all immediately said, I'm so glad you get a book for men, a book like this, does it exist? Or so I'm told, and, um, there's great energy around it in terms of getting this message out to men. So that's maybe the longer version of what you asked, but that's the idea of how it came in.

[00:12:02] David Dowlen: I'm okay. With the longer version, because this is the story that's worth telling.

[00:12:07] Now. I always, I have a line of questions over here, off the screen, many of that's to keep my thoughts on track because I get into the conversation and get sidetracked really easily. But I want to start at one of the kind of roots of the problem. That's more of a weighting into it. So I've had two different porn, recovery counselors on the show that I've gotten to work with.

[00:12:34] I've done two different shows now, and season one and season two, working with specifically men who are porn addiction, counselors, and try and help men free themselves from porn. What do you say to guys, to men and women who say porn is harmless fun and things like only fans in the porn industry are fine.

[00:12:54] Alan Smyth: Yeah. Well, you read the book and you, and you do know that I address that very question in the book and, um, what's tragic about pornography. One of the many things that's tragic about. Is that, uh, the user sitting in front of his computer or his phone or wherever he's watching it probably after hours when his wife's gone to bed has no way of knowing if the actors in that porn video, are there consensually or not, you have no way of knowing.

[00:13:24] There was no, there's no a disclaimer of any kind. And what we also know, I've got a friend who's going to be releasing a hard hitting documentary in this next year called beyond fantasy. He interviewed everybody for five years in the porn industry. And, uh, he came back and said something very chilling.

[00:13:40] He said, not some, not many but Mo most of the actors, most of these women and there's men too, of course, that are in these porn videos are there against their will. They're being coerced in some way. We've had trafficking survivors that are literally being controlled by a third party. Their trafficker forces them to go into some motel room or some, uh, some movie set.

[00:14:01] Now she's being gang raped by a bunch of men. Someone turns on a video camera and that gets put on a porn site. There's millions of views. And she says to us, every time someone's watching that video, they're watching me being raped. Okay. So fellas, like seriously, I understand it could be enticing a little bit.

[00:14:19] There could be some sort of fantasy thought involved, but are we as men, are we literally going to somehow fund and participate in the active rape of people? That's what sex non-consensual sex is. It's called rape. And most of those porn actors, I'm telling you are there against their will. It's not consensual.

[00:14:43] And that means they're being raped on camera. So what would I say about porn and to those men and women, but men who are struggling with it, I'd say get some help. Because you're participating in the destruction, the actual destruction of other humans, and you probably didn't even know that. So that was a cold wet blanket on me.

[00:15:04] When I heard that I wasn't, it wasn't something that I had struggled with in my lifetime, but now knowing what I know, there's no chance I can tune into some porn video knowing that the person on there was being raped and I'm going to somehow watch it and get some kind of enjoyment out of it. We have gone completely off the rails as humanity and as men, because we are absolutely funding and fueling that elicit crime.

[00:15:27] David Dowlen: One of the stories you shared in the book, one of the ladies who was sharing, I believe I'm gonna not gonna be able to quote this directly, but, uh, she talked about being a stripper and working in that industry to some extent, and that it wasn't like someone held a gun to her head. It was more socioeconomically.

[00:15:50] Once she got into the life, there was, there was no way out for. And it reminded me of a young woman. I knew who had beautiful young woman, highly, highly intelligent, had a beautiful little boy that was her whole world. And her mom hated that she was a stripper. And we lived in an area where minimum wage, I think was still like 5 35 or something.

[00:16:15] And her mom was just begging her was like, please stop stripping, get another job. And she said, mom, I, you know, on an, on a bad night, I make several hundred dollars for a couple hours of work. So you show me another job where I can only work a couple hours a night, have lots of time for my son and still financially provide for him a good life.

[00:16:40] And I'll give it up tomorrow. But the, just the economics of her situation, once she got into that life and built a life with. There was no escape for her.

[00:16:53] Alan Smyth: Yeah. And, uh, many of the women that are in, uh, in the strip club, uh, space are actually being trafficked and controlled. And forced to be there. So you have to start there.

[00:17:04] And those that would say that they are there consensually, like, it sounds like this young lady was, um, on her own sort of choice. Uh, you're quoting from the book, a good friend of mine, harmony, who that was her story. She started a ministry called treasures where she goes in and speaks to girls that are caught in the strip club, in the sex industry in that way.

[00:17:24] And she has a study that she's quoted that says 89% of women in the sex industry want to leave. They want to do something else, but they don't see any other options. They don't see them there. This is the only option they can see based on where they're coming from and the conditions around them. And, and then she goes on to say, so what is choice without options?

[00:17:47] So they may not have a choice, theoretically. It's sort of like, okay, you can have a glass of water or a glass of water, which one do you want? Right. Uh, I'll have the water like that. You have a choice sort of, but there's only one option in their mind with their childhood, with the abuse that they've gone under, possibly being controlled by a third party.

[00:18:07] There is no choice. And that's the reality for so many of these young women and young young men as well. It feels like they have a choice, but there's no,

[00:18:18] David Dowlen: and I can't, she could have had someone in the background pulling the strings. I, I couldn't tell you, I didn't know. She was very private about keeping that part of her life separate from everybody, not in that part of her life, but I mean, just economically, once she started down that road, there, there wasn't an out for her where we lived with her skillset.

[00:18:37] There was nothing that could pay her in that region at that level. And so once she started on that path, you know, she, she may have been there totally on her own accord to start with. But once she started down that path, there was just no leaving for her. So even, even if they're there voluntarily, it's not entirely voluntarily, like you said, it's not a choice.

[00:19:00] It's a, I can I can pay my bills and take care of my family, or I can not. Yeah. Right. And for any parent, that's not really a choice.

[00:19:12] Alan Smyth: And, and so many of these ladies, women, young and old that are caught in that cycle that, that, uh, place, uh, their story is many. That they had undergone some early childhood abuse, oftentimes a sexual nature.

[00:19:32] And so from a very young age, the boundaries were enlarged in terms of the kinds of things that were allowable that were permissible that were, um, you know, that were reality for them. And so if you take one person who had never gone undergone any kind of abuse of any kind and one that had been sexually abused since they were three years old, the idea of being in a strip club or being in a motel room is not such a far leap for that person where they'd been abused and traumatized and sexually violated their whole life.

[00:20:05] Um, in some ways it could be a little bit of an upgrade because now somehow controlled a little bit that she could manage that in some ways where that other person who never had any of that experience, that's a huge leap and they could never even walk through the door. So you got to look at the whole totality there, the situation you got to look at.

[00:20:24] That woman who says she's doing it on her own choice. And most, most of those young ladies will have undergone, um, massive abuse at a young age. And that that's what kind of made it possible. And allowable inside their mind

[00:20:46] David Dowlen: The book, you very specifically, uh, talked briefly about language and we need to use the correct language and stop talk, taking the edge off this things with terms like under edge page prostitutes. Right. And you see that headline and you were very adamant that it's time that we actually start using correct terms.

[00:21:06] So let's talk about that for a minute.

[00:21:08] Alan Smyth: Okay. Yeah. And that's, that's part of the reason why this has been the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. The reason why as a humanity, as a society, as a people, we're late to this party, we're just starting to wake up now over the last few years as a country.

[00:21:25] And in a lot of ways, part of that is that we're stuck in this old thought processes, old language. So, you know, you probably heard the term child prostitute. Oh yeah. There's some child prostitutes. No, there was no such thing as a child prostitute. Uh, there's a, if you're under 18, 18 is the federal age of consent.

[00:21:43] You can't consent to a felony being perpetrated against. You're not a child prostitute. You're a, you're someone who's experienced a severe sexual abuse. You're a rape victim, but you're not a child prosecuted the word prostitute sort of suggest choice sort of suggest that profession, what somebody's going to use.

[00:22:01] And it's used for an adult populate. It's a legal term for an adult population. So a big part of the changing of language was things like that. No, there's no such thing as a child prostitute, if you actually can't, it doesn't make any sense. Cause those words don't work together. You know, a lot of times in, in the book we kind of poke a little fun at it.

[00:22:18] You know, the commonly known that the sex buyer, the man was caught commonly known as the John. Oh yeah. Let's get the, there was a couple of Johns just arrested some Johns. Well, okay. How much more can we soften it? I mean, I've got a friend named John, multiple friends named John named John. Yeah. You know, we got to go to the bathroom Hayworth.

[00:22:37] I've got to go to the John, you know, I'm going to write it there, get a dear John letter, like it's used just for everything. But the sex buyer oftentimes raping someone, an adult or a child is called a gentleman. Let's call him a sex buyer. Let's call him a child rapist. So those are some of the things that we touch on in the book.

[00:22:55] Language is important and um, it sets the stage. And if we can use the proper language, now we can maybe get after some of the solution

[00:23:04] that we're talking about,

[00:23:06] David Dowlen: You were, uh, in the book and we're going to get into this on a few minutes, you talking about authentic masculinity, you use the term authentic masculinity and you use the term, uh, toxic masculinity in the book.

[00:23:19] I actually am very adamant about changing some language there as well, because to me, the things that people are calling toxic masculinity is lack of masculinity. Yeah. Right? Masculine men, truly masculine and authentically masculine men. Don't do those things. Right? So I, I, to me, I, you, it rang into my head when you started talking about using language correctly, because I'm very adamant about that.

[00:23:49] If you look, I'm actually wearing one of our shirts, it says essential masculinity got the word toxic, crossed out. Because I think authentic masculinity as you turned it in, the book is critical to the world and we've we bastardized the term entirely. So when you started talking about language, it was like, yup.

[00:24:11] There's a few things we need to start fixing that on. And, uh, I think you, you hit the nail on the head with starting right where we need to terms like child prostitute and John just need to go away. Let's let's call a spade a spade. This is what it is. It's rape. It's a sex buyer. Is someone breaking the law and violating somebody.

[00:24:35] We need to stop softening up. The media is horrible about some of the language they use. Sometimes it just drives me nuts. Now, before we wrap up the first half of the show, all right, before we go to our break, I want you to, uh, one of the, one of the biggest impacts, I think that your book had on me really speaks to men because a lot of people think that this is far away, right?

[00:25:02] I go to a free Methodist church there they're a big anti trafficking and anti-human slavery group. And a lot of people think of this as something far away, oh, this is in Europe, right? This is, oh, this only happens. And those of us is smaller towns. Like I live in are like, oh, well, you know, it may happen.

[00:25:21] But it's only a big city issue. Men absolutely loves statistics. So will you share with us some hard statistics about how prevalent this is?

[00:25:33] Alan Smyth: Yeah, that's the big aha. That's the big gap in most people, men or women, their, most of their understanding, they hear the word child trafficking. And I count myself in the same thing before it was the saving innocence. I heard about saving in a sense. I said, oh, well, they work in a Thailand or Cambodia.

[00:25:48] Like tell me, I'm interested. No, no right here. What do you mean right here? Uh, are us born American citizens? Certainly there's a flood over our Southern border of our country. And a lot of those young ones are being trafficked in. So there is that element that's happening, but the vast majority of the child victims of sex trafficking and there's labor trafficking and there's adults, but the child victims of sex trafficking, which is what we focus on saving innocence, the us born American citizens.

[00:26:15] That right here, they're in every state, maybe every zip code, the people that count things will say conservatively, there's at least 300,000. Children being trafficked for sex in our country right now, 300,000. We figured there's a good 10,000 happening at any given time and LA county where I live, we did some consulting with the state of Texas.

[00:26:39] They did a study and they figured out they had a problem that came and asked us for some help. They determined there was 80 or 90,000 just in the state of Texas. So you start doing the math and all the big population centers, for sure. But in the rural areas too, you know, you got oil drilling up in North Dakota and there's hardly anyone there that a bunch of men working on oil rigs, there are girls being trafficked in there to service them while they're there.

[00:27:02] It certainly is, uh, you know, more prevalent in the bigger population centers and around sporting events and, you know, consumer shows or just downtown living. But, um, you know, I'm not sure about the little town you live in. Exactly, but it's not far away. I can promise you that if it's not right in your town somewhere, somehow it's not far.

[00:27:24] Um, it's everywhere and, uh, that's why we need every man to step up and, uh, you know, cross the line, get into this fight.

[00:27:34] David Dowlen: That's disturbing on just an entirely nother level, you know, it's, it's somehow easier when you think about it far away. Right. It's still wrong. It's still a horrid, but you're like, uh, that happened somewhere far away.

[00:27:48] It's like when a big disaster hits, it's like, oh, it's horrible. There was an earthquake in Haiti, but you know, it's it's um, yeah.

[00:28:02] Alan Smyth: And when you read the book, you find out that the typical profile for a lot of the young victims, they're coming out of the foster care system, they've had this early adolescent sexual abuse that we talked about, but, uh, so even here. Someone who's listening to this podcast might make the mistake and say, oh, well, I got my two parent home and we love our daughter and our kids.

[00:28:23] And they're good. They're safe. That would be a big mistake. Chapter three, this friend of mine, who said, you need to tell him for her, tell her story. Um, star in sports straight, a student went away to college right now. She sounds like my daughter, like all those things. And she was approached by a fake modeling talent scout, and suddenly started threatening her life and her parents' life.

[00:28:48] She didn't do exactly what he wanted her to do. She came from a great home. She got it. She was a great kid with a great childhood. So it's not as far as way as, as you might be tempted to think it's closer than . You think for sure,

[00:29:00] David Dowlen: guys, this is where we're just getting started on this journey today. So stick with us.

[00:29:07] If you are listening on wherever platform, you're listening to YouTube. Podcast doesn't matter. Do the good social media thing. It helps us to keep making these shows. It helps us keep bringing you important things like this. Please stick around for the second half of the show, we're going to roll it, our sponsor, and we'll be right back.

[00:29:24] I'm calling on all men right now to stand up and stand against this horrific crime. It is estimated over 300,000 children are being sex trafficked in the United States alone. Every single day. I want you to get on your social media. I want you to follow saving innocence.org or fight for me.net. Both of these charities are working to end child trafficking in the United States and abroad.

[00:29:49] You can donate at www.thefalibleman.com/shop and buy our stop human trafficking merchandise. And all proceeds will be given indefinitely to savinginnocence.org. You can also go to www.savinginnocence.org/donate and donate directly to saving innocence. Men. It is time for us to fight and stop this horrible thing known as human trafficking.

[00:30:17] All right, guys. Welcome back to the show we're on with Alan Smith author of men fight for me, we're talking about human trafficking and more specifically child sex trafficking. Alan is sharing with us that this is something that we, as men can not only affect, but it's in our power to put it to rest.

[00:30:39] It's in our power to stop this heinous crime from happening. We have that ability. We have that responsibility as men who are trying to live up to the very best version of ourselves. And we're going to get right back into this one more now, Alan, uh, you, you broke up the book in a really great way. And one of the things you talked about is the average buyer, which was also something that was just a big surprise to me.

[00:31:02] So will you enlighten our listeners? What do the average buyers look like? Because we all have these like movies. Images in our head of villainous people with twisty, mustaches and crap like that,

[00:31:17] Alan Smyth: right? Yeah. Uh, it's not the degenerate living under the freeway. You know, it hasn't looked like a kick and a shower in a month.

[00:31:25] Uh, it's not, it's not, you know, anyone that you can tell by just looking at them necessarily. What does it look like? It looks like people, you know, I would, I would say that anyone here listening probably knows the sex buyer. They probably know someone who buys sex, who has bought sex before. Um, there's school teachers and cops and pastors and dentists, and literally coaches and everyone in between.

[00:31:55] And, uh, normal people doing their normal job, oftentimes married with kids and they know their wife would not go for some of the things they're thinking about. Maybe they've seen something online, they've looked at some pornography or something, and there's some little twisted thing they've accumulated some sort of a fetish or some sort of a fantasy.

[00:32:16] They either could never bring it up to their life or they did. And the wife said, are you kidding me? That's crazy. And so they pursued that process. They continue to feed that addiction until finally they're in the presence of someone that they paid money for and otherwise upstanding member of society and the community.

[00:32:36] Uh, one of my favorite people who's quoted in the book. Uh, her name is Ori. She tells her story and I read on the homepage of saving innocence.org. Uh, she, she would talk about being trafficked across the street from Disneyland, the happiest place on earth. Her traffickers got her to motel across street from Disney.

[00:32:52] And he got some dad they're on vacation with his family and he I'm going to go back. I'm not feeling I need a little nap at the hotel. Okay, great. He shows up in the motel room and spends time with a 12 year old girl. Um, otherwise other than that 30 minute time, he's a great guy with his kids. They're on the rides and he has a job.

[00:33:10] He coaches little league, you know? So what is, what does the average buyer look like? A regular guy out doing his thing. That's what he looks like. He doesn't, there's nothing that stands out, particularly

[00:33:21] David Dowlen: let's quantify the definition of what is a sex buyer.

[00:33:27] Alan Smyth: A sex buyer is someone who pays money for sex, and that we have to enlarge that definition.

[00:33:33] There is the worst possible example of someone that we're thinking about who goes to a motel room across the street from Disneyland and rapes a 12 year old. That's a sex buyer. Yes. Okay. Someone who pays money, he goes into a strict. He's buying sex. That's a sex buyer, someone who pays some sort of money to watch pornography, they subscribed to it in some way, they're a sex buyer.

[00:33:55] And even if they get onto some free thing, that porn site is monetizing your eyeballs and your clicks, and they're selling it to advertisers. So you're a sex buyer, even if nobody pays any money, um, it's someone who's paying money for some version of exploitation and sexual contact, whether you're physically with that person or not.

[00:34:14] So all of a sudden, and that's part of the message of the book. Okay, guys, we all gotta take, I gotta think of breaths here for a second. We have to stop here for a second and figure out what we're doing, because what we're doing could be buying sex and we're not even aware of.

[00:34:33] David Dowlen: So sites, like only fans are PornHub, those all volunteers going to the strip clubs with your buddies?

[00:34:43] Alan Smyth: Absolutely. Oh, for sure. PornHub, they'd been in a firestorm, uh, for the last year. I don't know how if you've been following it, but we've, we've had some, some friends that have attacked them and, and, uh, they have their they're on the way out, but yeah, all those porn sites, uh, certainly if you're actually paying money, you putting your credit card in as a sex buyer, you're a sex buyer, but I would say it's even a bigger definition than that by just participating in any way, whether or not you're actually putting money in, if it's being monetized in some way, then you're, you're a sex buyer.

[00:35:14] David Dowlen: Now, now, guys, I want you to like, quantify that out in your head. Okay. Every, everybody thinks it's just a little thing, but whether it's your phone or computer or wherever. You are contributing financially by watching you are contributing. By going to that strip club, you are contributing by hitting that site.

[00:35:35] Only fans were, we're telling women that their best quality, their most important feature is the sexual side of them. And you don't know if there's somebody outside of the room, that girl is in with a gun. If she's not performing okay, it's I don't want to be dramatic, but it is actually, honestly, that real, you just don't know because you can't validate that.

[00:36:06] Now, one of the things I I've read before we even talked was the Superbowl is considered the highest trafficking day of the. And in your book, you talked about, it's not just that you said you were, uh, working with LA Rams as they came back, uh, for awareness. Why is it that sporting events are large-scale events like that seem to have a bigger draw?

[00:36:29] Alan Smyth: Yeah. Well, it's, it's not necessarily that they're sporting events per se. It's just a large combination. Sorry. It's just a large combination, a collection of men and winters, a lot of men for any, any reason. Uh, there tends to be some percentage of them that are looking out to build into their, their evenings, um, entertainment, uh, a form of sex bind.

[00:36:54] Uh, the Superbowl is the major, uh, gathering, you know, the major worldwide gathering people traveling in. So it's thought of as the biggest day of sex drive. In fact, matter of fact, today, I had a big conference call with, uh, members of the FBI and the members of the Sheriff's department and local LA, uh, United States attorney's office and gathered a whole game plan for this super bowl coming up in about a month, uh, in Los Angeles.

[00:37:22] So we're gearing up for it. But again, I wouldn't want people to say that all the other days aren't important too, because it's happening every day, the week. And maybe it's the largest concentration of sex trafficking for that whole. But when that Superbowl leaves all those traffickers take their product.

[00:37:43] These girls they're controlling into some other place, they just spread it out. So I don't know that there's any more or less traffic on that day, but it just all concentrated on that one zip code and that one little area. Does that make sense?

[00:37:54] David Dowlen: Okay. Okay. Now guys, I want you to hear that what he just said, this isn't just some guy who wrote a book.

[00:38:01] This isn't some, just some guy who works at a charity organization trying to dot I's and crosses T's to do his good deeds. He was consulting with the FBI and the police force. Alan is in the fight. This is not some surface level do gooder. Allen is in this fight. He looked at it and saw him. He saw what changed his life, changed the direction of his life.

[00:38:27] Radically changed his direction, and this is his fight. He's sharing it with us. He's sharing this message with us guys. I promise you will not come away from this book and change. Now, I want to get into how as men that we can start to solve this problem. And I want to start that with in the book you talk about you and a couple of your friends started figuring out what you thought authentic masculinity was and how to teach that to your children.

[00:38:53] Will you share that with us?

[00:38:55] Alan Smyth: Yeah. Uh, I came across a book called raising a modern day night, uh, when my son was about four or five years old and I was immediately taken by it. And it was a kind of a book for dads who have sons and helping them raise, raise them into good, good young man. And you know, there was no good working definition.

[00:39:15] Agreed upon definition of what makes them. Is it a certain age at a certain accomplishment that graduated from high school or college? Is it the first time they had sex at some point that makes them a man, what is it? And so the idea that we did, I got my two buddies with their boys, the same age. And we came up with our working definition.

[00:39:36] Here's the definition of a man. And this is how we're going to define authentic masculinity, strong, healthy, helpful masculinity, the kind of masculinity that brings healing and strength to the world rather than tearing it down. Not the watered down diminished version of masculinity. We see represented in song lyrics and TV shows and movies all day long, all day, every day, social media, the counter-cultural authentic, powerful, healthy, positive masculinity.

[00:40:03] And we came up with four pillars of masculinity that we decided this is what it means to be a real man. Number one is he accepts responsibility. He accepts the responsibility, not only of his own. But responsibility for things that are needed in his community, in his, in his town, in his neighborhood, maybe in the world, he accepts responsibility to, he leads courageously.

[00:40:29] Uh, we need courageous leaders, especially we're going to confront this dark heinous, evil crime that we're talking about here on this podcast. He leads courageously. Now it's notable to say that you can actually be afraid of something and still be courageous at the same time. Courage is not the absence of fear.

[00:40:47] It's the ability to overcome that fear and move forward. Regardless. Uh, three, he lives a life of service, right? He's here to serve his family, serve his wife, serve his family, serve his community. His neighbors serve the world. So we got, uh, accepting responsibility, leading courageously, living a life of service.

[00:41:08] This is a, this is a world that I want to live in a, a bunch of men doing that. And the fourth pillar is he understands that who he is. It's more important than what he does. And we're speaking about the kind of the character, the integrity what's going on in the inside of the man is more important than the job.

[00:41:25] He chooses the fame that he accomplishes, that the struggle that he has, all the outward things aren't as important as the inward, the strength of character, honesty of all the things that we would want good men and women to be. So that was our version. That was our definition of authentic masculinity.

[00:41:46] They were practicing those four things. And we did that with our boys from the very young age we named the group Braveheart. And if I'm on the video feed right now, you can see the Braveheart poster is right, right behind me and my little movie room. And, uh, we love the movie. Uh, you know, William Wallace was a real historical figure fighting against the injustices.

[00:42:05] Uh, a battle bigger than himself courageously all these things. We were hoping to impart to our boys. And we, the team, we determined that as authentic masculinity, someone who was practicing those four tenants of masculinity, there was a lot of fun. And I think, uh, a valuable word. That's why I put all that in the book, because if we can get a bunch of men live in that way, we, we got a shot at the it's

[00:42:28] David Dowlen: like a good world, man.

[00:42:29] I, I read that. I'm like, yeah, yeah, totally just rings through what I believe. So in the book, I, you had some, you had some amazing quotes, man. I love just reading the quotes of the chapter headings. Uh, I'm a big quotes guy. I love quotes. So, but one of the things you said, I mean just, and you bolded it at the end of the chapter is it's not someone else's job.

[00:42:52] It's our job. So tell me how authentic masculinity is going to be the key to stopping child sex traffic.

[00:43:01] Alan Smyth: Well, uh, we're going to live out those four tenants. We're going to, first of all, were accepted responsibility. Like this happening is on us guys and it's on me and my neighborhood and my community and the world that I live in.

[00:43:13] This is on me. I'm accepting that responsibility so we can get men to accept the responsibility. It's not someone else's problem. It might not be your child, but it's another member of the human race. So let's accept that responsibility. Now we're going to lead courageously in that. So what does it mean to lead courageously in this fight of ending trafficking?

[00:43:31] Well, you're out on a Friday night or any night with your guy buddies. I wonder what jokes are going to be told. They're going to be demeaning and diminishing winning. I wonder what actions, you know, a lot of guys listening to this probably would be tempted to frequent a strip club or go onto their computer late at night.

[00:43:52] And, and, you know, look at pornography, which we already talked about. So it's going to take courageous leadership. To read this book, be fueled by it. Like you are a Brent and now are you courageous enough to step out and take a stand with the people that you surround yourself with. That's gonna take courageous leadership.

[00:44:16] So the character, the integrity that we live our life by, we talk about there's a chapter eight. I believe it's called looking, looking in the mirror. And that's where we list a lot of things from the macro to the micro. Here's, how we're going to get rid of this thing called child trafficking. And one of the things is we have to make sure that our life is in alignment with the kind of world that we want to see that we're going to leave behind for our children and our grandchildren.

[00:44:41] So in this particular topic of conversation, the inner life has to be in tune with a non exploitive culture. We're not trying to end trafficking trafficking is the weed that grows out of the soil of exploitation. That's why it's a bigger definition than just human trafficking. It's human exploitation.

[00:45:02] It's using somebody else for our own selfish gain, our own desires. That's what exploitation is part of that is trafficking, but then there's the other versions of it that happened. So we have to get lined up within ourselves, get ourselves straight and live in a right way. Then we can go out from there.

[00:45:19] And if we can do that and we can have some courage and speak out and take a stand and accept the responsibility to do all those things. Now we're cooking with gas. As they say, now, we can see some progress in this ugly reality called human trafficking.

[00:45:35] David Dowlen: I love the language you used throughout this. Talk about alignment.

[00:45:39] I just actually did an entire show on how you'll never reach your goals. If you don't align your, your mind, your body, your soul in the purpose. If, if you're trying to say you want to do this, but you're not aligning your physical actions and your regular actions with that, it's never going to happen.

[00:45:58] Chapter eight. I love how you got three stages of how we're going to stop this. But you put a ton of information in the back of the book. It's actually a little misleading as far as how long the book is. I'm thinking, oh, it was like 200 plus. Oh no. The, the book itself stops at this page. There's just more information.

[00:46:18] And you put a lot of resources, a lot of personal stories. A lot of you, you have an entire appendix on how to, what, what we can do now. Just, just easy things to start with, right? Because one of the biggest problems people have is starting, right? A lot of us go, well, we should do something, but where do we start?

[00:46:37] And you have a great section just on how to start. So people listening to this right now, what, no matter what, they're listening on, what platform, what can average people who are listening right now are just trying to be better. People do right now to start. Helping solve the problem.

[00:46:57] Alan Smyth: Yeah. And you're very, uh, keen to understand.

[00:47:00] I purposely made the book, the book book as short as possible because most guys don't like to sit and read. And so I wanted to keep it brief and there was a lot of resources and there is something, you know, I think it's 12 things you can do today. And, um, I think step number one is take another step forward in this and begin to understand and educate yourself.

[00:47:24] And I would humbly submit this book as a great first step. Get the book, get it on Kindle or paperback at fightforme.net and there's ton of information. A lot of survivors telling their stories. That's step one to help get to know there it is right there. fightforme.net You know, you go down the Google rabbit hole and, and Google different documentaries.

[00:47:45] There's a lot of books that are out there and just take another step of getting to know what's happening here. Get educated. That's what you can do immediately. You can start that right now. The internet doesn't shut down. It's not a nine to five internet. You can be up late at night and looking at something positive and try to get this.

[00:48:00] Um, and then after you're armed, if you will, with enough information to kind of understand what's going on now do something a lot of times people say, what can I do? And I say, I don't know, what can you do? Like do that. So like right now, Brent, we reached out to you and you've got this great podcast. So what you can do is you could invite me on your podcast.

[00:48:21] That's what you can do. And you can do that other things too. You've already shared with me some of the things you're thinking about, you're introducing me to your friends. Great. So I would say, what can you do listener? What do you know? Who do you know? What'd you learn in school? Do you have any money?

[00:48:34] Great donate money to a, a group that. You don't have money. That's okay. I bet they need tangible items for their survivors. If they're working with find out what they need in your local town, find out anti human trafficking agency and make a difference. One step at a time, one day at a time, you don't have to go to school and get a new degree.

[00:48:53] We're not talking about brain surgery here. It's about making your align your life in alignment, with the things that you would like to see in the world. And you take a step and you do it and bring someone with you. And if you happen to have a son or a daughter or both bring them with you on this journey, your girls, your little girls are desperately needing a healthy version of authentic masculinity by which to judge all other men by future boyfriends, future husbands.

[00:49:20] They're going to look at you, dad. How do you treat your wife? How do you treat your daughter? How do you talk about women? What kinds of TV shows are on in the background? What kind of music comes on? You live your life in such a way that your daughter has a great, healthy picture of masculinity and the same goes for your son.

[00:49:39] Live your life in such a way where your boy understands. You might not even say very much to him about it necessarily. He's watching you and they are watching you every step of the way. Show him what a healthy, strong, positive, healthy male looks like. And it seems a little abstract, but if we had enough men and fathers living this way, now we're raising up a whole nother generation of people that aren't going to be susceptible and available to human trafficking, whether they're buyers or sellers.

[00:50:04] And that's going to be a big part of this remedy.

[00:50:07] David Dowlen: Uh, you, uh, I, man, we're, we're just on such a wavelength here. I actually sell a t-shirt that says live in a way in which your sons want to be you and your daughters will exept nothing less than you. My, my goal as a father is to be Superman. I want to set the bar so high that my children cannot help, but find decent men to have a relationship with eventually, because their expectation is this.

[00:50:34] And that's a really tall order. Right. And I struggle when I work at it every day, but that is. Men set the bar. So stupidly high that your daughters can't help, but find good men that your sons can't help, but want to be good men. Now, my, my wife slash engineer asks a question I need to throw in here. And that is Alan.

[00:50:53] How do people find the organization organization, nearest them to fight human trafficking,

[00:50:59] Alan Smyth: just Google, uh, you know, anti-human trafficking, human trafficking organizations near me, or whatever all that is. And some stuff will pop up for sure. Just get on the Google, get on the, you know, somehow. You know, like if, if you were in Los Angeles, so human trafficking agency saving animals will pop up pretty quickly, maybe more you live, but, um, uh, that's, there's no mass directory just Google it and you'll find somebody.

[00:51:23] David Dowlen: Okay. So someone out there listening to this podcast, what I need you to do is build a webpage that has a master directory for this issue. Right? See a need, fill a need, build a free website where it's just a aggregate of organizations that help people with human trafficking issues. Let's I need somebody to do that.

[00:51:45] I'm not a programmer, please. Somebody get out there, get on that right now. Uh, now guys, you know, I, I don't believe in asking you guys to do anything I wouldn't do. I was looking at simple things that I can do, and you know, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but it's this simple, I emailed 10 of my colleagues slash friends who have podcasts and said, Hey, I need to introduce you to.

[00:52:09] Alan Smyth and saving innocence and fight for me.net. You guys need to have him on your show. I don't know if they'll run with it or not, but guys, it was an email. It took me five minutes to possibly put, help him find 10 more platforms in which we can share this incredibly important message. You can do something, okay.

[00:52:35] Say yourself in the mirror, whatever you need to do, you absolutely can do something to help or to start helping the Allen what's next for you and saving innocence in the book.

[00:52:49] Alan Smyth: What's next, uh, for saving innocence we Jew, which is why the meeting happened earlier today, we just became co-leaders of the LA regional human trafficking task force, which means there's 37 government agencies, FBI, HSI, uh, I mean all the different government agencies.

[00:53:09] Uh, LAPD the Sheriff's department, all the other non-profits. Um, we are co-leading that effort with the Sheriff's department, got a federal grant to do that and, um, providing leadership and training on a mass scale. Um, it puts us on a national stage because we're the largest task force in the country. Um, and so there's national things.

[00:53:32] So that's kind of what's next for us. We're also launching a foster family agency, um, within saving innocence. It doesn't exist within other, you know, foster family agencies. They don't specifically focus on child victims of sex trafficking, which we do obviously. So we're looking for families. If you know anyone in the Los Angeles area, the most strategic thing we could do is to help put a healthy, loving, intact family, uh, around one of these kids.

[00:54:01] So we're doing that. As far as the book, what's next, we're on the war path. We're taking this book to anywhere that will have us, thank. You Brent, for having me, we're been on a number of other different kinds of podcasts that are similarly interested. I emailed promise keepers the other day said, Hey, right.

[00:54:22] Let's, let's put this book to your audience. I'll come and speak in one of your stadiums. Um, we're just trying to see who's next. Who's gonna, who's going to grab onto this and come alongside and help us get the message out. And, uh, it's, it's, it's my honor to do all of those things.

[00:54:40] David Dowlen: Now, guys, we always like to equip you with lots of resources, so you can go to fightforme.net and you can purchase the book here.

[00:54:49] There's a book available anywhere else.

[00:54:51] Alan Smyth: Well, it's for sale on Amazon. So you could just type in and then fight for me. And the page from Amazon will come up, you buy it there. We have a little link. You can see it by the book here. So we've linked it on the website, but you don't have to go to the website.

[00:55:02] We do like people to go there because there's a bunch of categories that can look at their biographies of the contributors and the survivors that are in there and their websites and their books. And we have a YouTube channel where we're doing things like what you and I just did. We're interviewing the various survivors and different people that are in the different chapters of the book and we're releasing those.

[00:55:20] So we're just trying to kick a lot of destiny on the conversation. So fightforme.net and that's a great place to go and you can get the book there, but also be part of the larger conversation

[00:55:29] David Dowlen: and guys, I was going through the website earlier. They've got video blogs with people who have been in the book and with those stories, they have all kinds of media.

[00:55:38] So, if you're trying to find that, what can I do? Here's a place to start. Here's another option for you. You can go to saving innocent.org, saving innocence.org, and it's saving them innocence. They have more information for you. They have more ways for you to help. You can donate directly to the organization.

[00:55:57] There, you can find out more, they do trainings. If you know an organization that would help or would like to be a part of this, they do church trainings. They do people trainings. In fact, they even have a CSEC advocacy course that you can sign up for whether that's individually are with a group. So if you have an organization that already works with people who are in a trafficking situation here, you can go and get more education on how to help them and how to be advocate advocating for them.

[00:56:30] Guys. There are lots of resources. We will have all that linked guys. It's going to be like a book underneath the videos on the. Um, also, you know, what, what else can you do on my website right now? There is a t-shirt coffee mugs and water bottle for in human trafficking to stop human trafficking. I worked that up this week.

[00:56:55] It's on the site and in perpetuity, all proceeds and profits will go to saving innocence. I will not take a dime off those, any money if you buy any of that stuff as gifts or for yourself, it doesn't matter. If one of those products sells, that's going to saving innocence.org because I can right. It's a simple thing to, I'm gonna have the power to do you have the power to do it?

[00:57:17] Jump on social media advocate for them. Follow on, follow them on social media, repost them, retweet them anywhere they are spread the word guys. It's in your hand, it's in your phone. You're already on social media. Anyways, share their page, share their posts, followed, subscribe to them so that you can share that out.

[00:57:39] Let's put this to bed. No one should suffer. No child, no person should ever suffer like this. It has to stop. Now,

[00:57:49] Alan, I'm going to ask you one more question. We'll wrap this up. What do you want people to hear most from this conversation today? What is the last thing you want

[00:57:57] them to hear?

[00:57:59] Alan Smyth: I want men to hear that there is a massive problem out there that we have been complicit and causing.

[00:58:08] If not actively we've passively, let it happen right under our nose. So my urgent message to men is step up, stand up and be part of the solution. I go far too many places where there's no men present related to human trafficking conversation. We have to change that. And you heard enough information today.

[00:58:30] To understand what the problem is. And now my urgent message to Uman is to step up, get involved, get off the couch, get off the sidelines, do something to be part of this solution because we have all done something that's caused this problem one way or the other. And in the book we quote William Wilberforce and I'll leave you with this.

[00:58:54] He's largely known as a British theologian in the 18 hundreds and has been largely credited with ending traditional slavery that we've learned about in school, the transatlantic slave trade. And he said something to his audience that, that stands today. He said, you may choose to look away, but you can never again say you didn't know.

[00:59:16] So man, if you've listened to this podcast and if, if you're willing to have enough courage to read the book, uh, you'll be taking the red pill like mijo. I quoted that in the, in the, in the book I'm moving. And you're going to be a woken to this reality. And now you can't say ever again, you didn't know. So now what are we going to do about it, man?

[00:59:35] Let's go

[00:59:37] David Dowlen: guys. Thanks for listening as always, and as always be better tomorrow because of what you do today. And we'll see you next week.

[00:59:43] David McCarter: This has been the foul man podcast, your home, everything man, husband and father. Be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss a show head over to www.thefalliblebain.com for more content and get your own fallible man gear.