Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, BTR.org. I'm Anne. I'm sure you remember what it was like when you were searching for help, maybe for your husband, hoping to find the right program or therapist. That's why I started podcasting. I supported my husband through seven years of pornography addiction recovery and not one therapist during that time told me I was experiencing emotional

and psychological abuse and sexual coercion. I didn't want any other woman on the planet to be in

the dark. If you're like the majority of my listeners, you're experiencing the type of abuse that's

invisible and difficult to wrap your head around. Your husband is using porn or having

affairs or lying to you, and you're getting the same bad advice about how to improve communication

or your relationship. If you need support from women who totally understand, check out our daily

group session schedule at BTR.org slash group. We'd love to see you in a session today. One simple, anonymous way to help spread the word

is to click, follow, or subscribe to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast on your favorite

podcasting app. While you're there, every five-star rating helps make this podcast more visible

and will help save other women from getting the wrong kind of help, like a couple

program that will make this type of abuse worse. For those of you who follow or subscribe to this

podcast, thank you so much. Your support means so much to me. I have Malia Stevens on today's

episode. She is a board member with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and the founder of Rescue Innocence Movement, a nonprofit created to protect this generation of children from the harms of sexual exploitation through prevention, education, and legislation.

Melio, welcome.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be with you.

Most people don't realize that hardcore pornography is

illegal because it's so prevalent. Yes, and you're absolutely right. Because it's so normalized

in society, most people don't realize that this easily accessible material is actually illegal,

at least the hardcore version of it, which is what mainstream internet pornography is today.

The only pornography that is technically legal is softcore, which is a very confined definition of pornography.

Hardcore internet pornography is illegal, and up until the early 90s, our Department of Justice was enforcing federal obscenity

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