I Hate MTV

I came home after a day of sheer panic (my first exam is only 9 normal days away!) and decided to try and calm the mind through the numbing process of channel-hopping. It was especially exciting today as they had switched round all of the channels. Music-channel rodeo, wahey!

Anyway, at 7pm an obscure program came up on MTV about the European sex slave trade. MTV Europe had started this thing called Exit where celebrities turn serious and talk about the horrors of the sex trade. Anyway, this one had some model called Heidi something (Not Klum) and had about four + stories about how women were tricked into the slave trade and how it's fucked them all up. How you could meet a pimp who would sell you off from a blind date, a "modelling contract", a boyfriend you've had for a while... It wasn't actually real, from what I could tell; the description of the show wasn't fully clear. Anyways, after each story Heidi Something would interject that "An EXIT plan is needed here." Again and again. I guess it gets the message across, but I was hoping for something more substantial, especially from a cultural giant such as MTV, but there was nothing. Each story, the same message, and I sank further into my seat. In the end, she said that some of your friends could be having sex with victims of the sex slave trade and this needs to change desperately. Then the programme ended in a blaze of music. Strange. The wasn't advertised and as far as I know there's only been two programmes of this kind, and it hadn't been informative at all.

But what made me angry was the fact it was followed by a TRIPLE bill of Hip Hop Honeys, a reality TV show were women strip off for the chance to make money out of (mostly) deluded men. I found it actually offensive. What chance do we have opposing the sex slave trade when the channel trying to oppose this retaliates against itself by showing off the glamourous side of quasi-prostitution, adding to this 'perfection' of slim bodies, with women most men or women can never gain access to, so wouldn't that drive them to use the trade, and help drive it on, feed it? It's mind-boggling.

Sex trade is serious fuck-uppity. Women are raped, beaten into submission, made to pay back debts that they'll never pay back. I'm afraid I don't know much about this. Face it, it's important: it concerns all of us before the possible victims could be over half of us. It's the tyranny of the minority. But then, men attack men, women cheat women and men, and everyone seems to make money out of this...well, apart from the prostitute. I'm a member of Amnesty International at my college, and I'm supposed to lead the Anti-violence against women campaign in my group, but I'm still scratching for ideas. Right now, I can't think of anything since tomorrow I have my first poetry reading, college ends in three weeks and I'm moving house (should!) in five weeks, then Barcelona, A2s and summer with all of those happenings. I simply won't have the time, but I feel guilty about it anyways...here's the site if you want to get involved. I'm sure Amnesty won't mind...http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/index-eng

Go for it.