Her boyfriend was one of the biggest names in the hip-hop industry. Many outsiders envied the money and power associated with being the romantic partner of this incredibly influential figure in music. But what went on behind closed doors was truly sinister.
She was drugged and raped by prostituted men who were paid for by this music mogul, while he watched and gratified himself. He even filmed the abuse, threatening to release it in order to ensure the silence of his victims. It went on regularly for years. And she wasn’t the only one.
This is the story of the abuse that was allegedly inflicted by Sean Combs, popularly known as “P. Diddy,” on dozens of women. The charges against Combs, and other public figures like Andrew and Tristan Tate, shed light on the evolution of sex trafficking methods and what modern-day sex trafficking really looks like.
What is Sex Trafficking?
Sex trafficking involves compelling someone to perform a commercial sex act by way of force, fraud, or coercion. Commercial sex acts are any sex acts on account of which anything of value (e.g., money, clothes, shelter, food, drugs, etc.) is given to or received by any person. Because a person has no meaningful right to refuse sex in the context of sex trafficking, the principle nature of their exploitation is that of rape and the abrogation of their individual autonomy.
Despite its common portrayal in the media, sex trafficking is not always pimps or brothel owners finding random women and forcing them to stand on the street at night to pick up sex buyers. Many victimized individuals are sex trafficked by people they know, such as romantic partners, friends, and even parents. In one study, only 9% of those interviewed identified their sex trafficker as being a stranger. The most common relationships that survivors reported having with their sex trafficker were immediate family members (36%) or boyfriends (27%). As is the case with Combs, he allegedly trafficked his own girlfriend for many years.
What Modern-Day Sex Trafficking Looks Like: How the Internet Has Changed Things
In today’s technological age, sex trafficking is frequently linked to a wide range of exploitative behaviors facilitated by tech devices and online platforms. These include but are not limited to image-based sexual abuse, sextortion, pornography, and online sexual exploitation. Many of these behaviors are present in the charges brought against Combs and Tate. Combs paid prostituted men to rape women, then filmed and watched the rape in order fulfill his own twisted sexual desires. Recording rape or sexual violence is a type of image-based sexual abuse.
Rather than forced sexual acts being directly exchanged for money, as is the commonly understood method of sex trafficking, Combs leveraged his power to abuse people and then control them by threatening their reputation and careers.
The videos Combs recorded of the abuse committed against his victims were used as blackmail collateral to prevent them from speaking up. This is sextortion—another type of image-based sexual abuse—and it is common in contemporary sex trafficking cases as well. In 2023, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 26,718 reports of financial sextortion, up from 10,731 reports in 2022.
As for the Tate brothers, Andrew and Tristan, they allegedly sex trafficked women by feigning deep romantic relationships with them, sometimes promising marriage and children, and then ultimately coercing them into appearing in pornographic videos on popular camming sites, such as OnlyFans. The brothers kept a significant portion of the profits from these videos and only paid the women a small fraction. According to cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, pornography was the 3rd-most common form of sex trafficking in 2019, after escort services and illicit massage businesses.
The NCOSE Law Center is currently representing survivors of the Tates’ crimes in a lawsuit the brothers filed as means to harass them and intimidate them into silence.
In the digital age, the Internet is not only a means by which sex traffickers distribute videos of their victims’ abuse—it is also the most common means by which sex traffickers access their victims. Social media apps, gaming platforms, and other interactive technologies are major avenues by which sex traffickers find and groom their victims—especially children.
The interconnectedness between various forms of sexual exploitation, and the pivotal role that the Internet plays in fueling this interconnected web, is central to NCOSE’s mission and strategy. With you at our side, we aim to strike at the root of the complex systems enabling sexual exploitation, by incentivizing tech companies to become a part of the solution, rather than a part of the problem.
Learn more and find out how you can help by visiting DirtyDozenList.com!
