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Category: Manipulation

Seventeen Things I Have Learned about Adult Entertainment Clubs
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By Alvin Erickson

Seventeen Things I Have Learned about Adult Entertainment Clubs

© 2024 Adults Saving Kids

Pimping can be done in a legal, subtle, astute and still destructive form.

True pimping is about control but starts as charm and trust evoking, which puts people who have been raised to trust people and be nice to people in a real bind.

People who pimp or recruit or groom or systematically desensitize others, live in a fog or delusion, deceiving themselves & are well paid to do, as they undermine their own lives.

This is a world where love is an act, it’s all about dog eat dog, producing fantasy is the game, everything is about deceit, manipulation, greed, control and depersonalization.

Most dancers need to self-medicate themselves to stay in the business and that only digs the hole deeper which they are already in.

Customers are regarded as fools by pimping people, laughed at, objects to be used with no concern of what happens to their lives and families.   Going to a strip club to prove oneself a man or a woman is to be foolish, taken in, not courageous nor ultimately fun.

Pimping people, strip club owners and managers become heroes in their own right because they have done the behind-the-scenes dirty work to create a robot–the willing and even aggressive sex worker, made available to the public as much as tenderloin steak. is made available on a plate in a restaurant.   No wonder customers appreciate them.

Legal pimping has been given an air of legitimacy by finding ways to do illegal pimping in a more sophisticated way of being within the law, so no arrests.

There is a strong disconnect between what one is seeing and what is actually happening.   Euphemisms like adult entertainment and gentlemen’s clubs mask the harm being perpetuated on workers, customers and eventually managers and owners.

Those who begin as strippers will find themselves on a descending slope towards performing sex acts with others and about 1/3 at least will find themselves in the trap of full-time prostitution. Remember, other pimping people frequent strip clubs to recruit.

Recovery from a life of stripping is usually much more difficult than anyone would imagine and seeking to help a stripper escape from the trap he or she is in is more like throwing a 20-foot rope down to someone in an 80-foot hole.

Families of people in stripping can expect to go through major pain because their child is caught in a trap and despite their anguish, they must find ways to stand with their child through years of misery so somewhere down the road their child can have some kind of life again.   On the front end, parents don’t know what to say or do to avoid this tragedy.

Any business which must sneak its way into a community and then make lots of money is obviously now in a powerful position to buy its legitimacy by corrupting local businesses and government people and it usually does, for it knows the drill.

At this point, I know of no recovery place for pimping people, managers, owners or their lawyers so these people will naturally, save for a miracle, stay put in their own kind of controlling quicksand.    They have no interest in looking into recovery for their workers.

Once a community has resigned itself to the situation, it cannot expect the problems will go away.   It will be at the mercy of these rich manipulators from now on.

There is a domino effect, one strip club—one nest of mischief will only lead to another.   Don’t expect the process to stop.   This is about control and money.    The pimping mindset is not satisfied until it has absolute power.   Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.   People will give you as much nonsense as you have room for.

Everyone is someone’s child and that is why it is imperative we step forward and give leadership—so another child and another family do not have to experience the horrendous trauma lurking in their future.   One staunch community can turn the tide.

Contact Info: Websites: https://adultssavingkids.org or https://parentsarise.org Phone: Cell: 612-708-1875 Email: info.adultssavingkids@gmail.com Address: Adults Saving Kids 820 West 65th Street Apt. #1 Richfield, MN 55423
July 2, 2024
If a Person is a Regular Viewer of Pornography, Has That Person Also Been a Victim of Trafficking?
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By Alvin Erickson

If a Person is a Regular Viewer of Pornography, Has That Person Also Been a Victim of Trafficking?

© 2023 Adults Saving Kids

To answer this question, we first must learn how a trafficker works. Here are the steps.

The trafficker scopes out what is of interest, what is the hot button to be pushed of the potential victim.

Presents himself or herself in a positive manner to the potential victim.   No red flags!

Finds ways to engage with the potential victim in a non-threatening way with just the subjects where the victim has key interest.

Now presents a winsome opportunity that will build on that interest of the potential victim.

Has now got the potential victim thinking how compelling and exciting this opportunity is.

Asks for a choice to be made when he or she senses the potential victim is ready to grab the hook.

Hidden behind this choice is an agenda of consequences only known to the trafficker.

Laid out before the potential victim are all the immediate benefits that will satisfy the victim’s desire for immediate gratification. Future severe hardships never mentioned.

Once the potential victim decides to go along with the opportunity offered by the trafficker, a process begins which will lead to more and more control by the trafficker and less and less ability to control any outcome by the victim.

This process leads to a state of helplessness as the victim is now in like an 80 foot hole and nobody like friends or relatives have more than a 20 foot rope.

At this point the trafficker has become the master and the trafficked person is now his or her possession.

The trafficker now gets paid because the victim is now bringing in the money to support him or her.

Pornographers Leading Victims into Compulsive Use

Now let review these steps as they might apply to someone caught in persistent use of pornography.

Step One: The pornographer looks and realizes quickly there are people out there who have different desires that involve seeing members of the opposite or same sex naked and performing sexual acts.

Step Two: The pornographer does not reveal his or her identity but does in a positive way invite this person to focus on and view without pay or concern the tantalizing possibility of viewing what that person desires to view or might just be curious about.

Step Three: Perhaps the potential victim runs across a pornography site while doing homework or something like that. No danger signs are shown. Only what is attractive.

Step Four: The potential victim is struck by seeing young attractive people who seem very willing to share their bodies and looks with the person viewing.

Step Five: Here are people of different looks, different body shapes, some reminding the viewer of people they know or have seen but would never come to them in a state of undress.

Step Six: Even though all of this started possibly as just stumbling on to a porn website, the viewer is now put into the position of choosing or not choosing to get back again to such a website or other porn websites.

Step Seven: At this point the viewer has no idea where this is going for what the pornographer is seeking to accomplish which is ongoing compulsion is never mentioned but remains hidden from the viewer.

Step Eight: All the focus is on the immediate. Nothing is ever shared about the dangers and long term consequences of getting involved. It is all about immediate gratification.

Step Nine: As the viewer gets more and more involved, it now becomes apparent that what is to be viewed has no end. There will always be the possibility of newness, of videos, movies, hard core porn, other looks, other bodies.

Step Ten: The brain of the viewer has now reached a point where turning away from what is there to be viewed becomes nigh onto impossible. The viewer is now in a helpless state having lost control of his or her ability to leave all this forever.

Step Eleven: The pornographers have won. They now have control of the viewer’s secrets, sexual appetite, future actions. Of course, this is not said openly, the pornographers are never seen but remain invisible to the viewer. In fact, the viewer may never consider that it was pornographers who deliberately set all this up in the first place.

Step Twelve: In one way or another, the pornographer is benefiting financially from this viewer’s compulsive or addicted behavior and this will be ongoing. Of course, because of the thousands of pornography sites, many pornographers are thereby involved instead of say one or several traffickers.

If we look at this, even though being trafficked involves face to face relationships and viewing porn does not, does it seem possible to you that the end result has many similarities? Traps are laid and people get caught in those traps. It is all intentional and well thought out. In either case, the actual welfare and well-being of the victim is not considered at all. Both the trafficker and the pornographer have had to choose to manipulate a person’s life to the point that they gain total control and the person has been reduced to a helpless state. In essence, this means the pornographer has had to choose to perhaps ruin someone’s life in exchange for money to be made and possibly sexual opportunities also with those being viewed.

The Rape of Tamar by Her Half-Brother Amnon Who Fools His Vulnerable Dad, King David

There is a Bible story that gives us some similar understandings of how this process works. We find it in II Samuel 13. In this case the schemer not unlike the trafficker or pornographer is Jonadab. He is the one who skillfully formulates the plan to get what he wants which seems to be satisfying his own ego while staying behind the scenes. He is the architect of the plan but never gets personally involved in the action, remaining an invisible manipulator. Traffickers and pornographers work to stay out of the public eye as well. Jonadab has three people with strong desires to work into his plan. One is Amnon, David’s oldest son who it seems has a great desire to have sex with his half-sister, beautiful Tamar who is being kept in seclusion. Secondly there is King David, who has had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, leading her to become pregnant and bear a son. David’s desire to keep from being discovered as the father brings on two serious matters. One is he has her husband, Uriah killed.   Either he still wanted people to see Uriah as the father or he just didn’t want to deal with Uriah when he would have discovered King David had used his wife, Bathsheba for himself. The second matter is the son birthed by Bathsheba dies in spite of King David’s prayers.

So it has become obvious to Jonadab that King David, having lived through all this, is now in the position of wanting to serve people and look like a good leader again, restoring his reputation again. This makes him vulnerable to the ruse Jonadab sets up. So Jonadab has looked with realistic eyes what King David desires, what Amnon wants which is to be alone with Bathsheba so he can have sex with her. Now he also considers what it is that Tamar wants. She probably is bored stiff living in seclusion. She needs some freedom, something worthwhile to be doing. All of these desires of three different people give Jonadab the favorable ingredients to set up a scheme that will in this case be totally successful because it will be fulfilling the desires of all three people at one time.   Jonadab is crafty and he knows how to use people against themselves. Of course, he is so engrossed in creating his scheme that it does not occur to him or perhaps matter just what the outcome will be for the lives he is orchestrating or setting up to be jerked around like puppets.

So, let’s go through these twelve steps of the trafficker or pornographer and see how they line up with what Jonadab is putting together and causing to happen. We see he has already considered the interest, need, or desire of Amnon, King David and Tamar.

He now has Amnon pretend he is sick. This is a positive ploy for who would think that a sick man would be thinking of raping a woman. No red flags here.

Once Amnon tells King David that as a sick man, he might feel a little better if Tamar were to come over and bake him some bread. No threat to notice there.

Tamar is called and this sounds great because she gets out of seclusion, can use her baking skills and actually in some way help her brother get better. What an opportunity!

Tamar is totally enrolled, excited about this little adventure to get out and be useful.

Tamar now has choices to make. Does she actually take herself out of seclusion like her father asked her to do? Does she take someone with her or go alone? She decides to go and go alone.

Obviously, Amnon is not going to tell Tamar what his real intent is.

Initially Tamar is there baking the bread, enjoying being free from seclusion. She has no idea what major problems and consequences lay ahead of her.

When she arrives, other people are in Amnon’s house. It feels like a safe setting. Amnon has little control with all these people around. But then he has everyone except Tamar leave. He now has more control. He has her come to his bedroom, an inner sanctum and bring him the bread. Being larger and stronger than Tamar he now has total control and in spite of her pleas, he can do what he wants.

Tamar does not at first regard herself as helpless. She has good thinking skills and proposes wise options to Amnon after he grabs her. But they are all in vain for he has decided to rape her and she is helpless to change his plans. He is in total control.

Amnon is now the dominant one. Tamar is just a piece of meat, his possession.

Here is where this story has a very different ending than what we have been suggesting it might be ending like with a trafficker. Amnon becomes disgusted with Tamar. Perhaps forced sex was not as terrific as he imagined it would be. He calls his servant and has Tamar kicked out of his house, totally humiliating her.   Of course, no financial benefit is involved.

What are the long terms consequences that come out of this story? Tamar’s brother, Absalom has her come to live with him. We hear nothing more of her. It is suggested, however, that she will now live with stigma and stay in isolation.   Absalom waits for his father to deal with this horrible rape and with Amnon but he doesn’t. King David’s affair with Bathsheba and then having her husband killed has left him in a kind of paralysis where he doesn’t have the communication skills to come to terms with Amnon and so no reconciliation happens.

Seeing that his father has done nothing to deal with this and left Tamar to be forgotten, two years later Absalom takes this matter into his own hands and has Amnon murdered for what he did to his sister. Later Absalom leads a revolt against his dad and he ends up being killed. So crafty Jonadab brings great chaos and tragedy onto the family. Many people suffer because of what mischief and violence he was able to cause. Still, he is never tracked down and made to face the misery he caused. The remarkable thing is that somehow the writer of II Samuel became aware of Jonadab’s role in what happened.

What we see here are the schemes of the trafficker, the pornographer and Jonadab all skillfully carried out as though nothing destructive will result. Once older, if they have the opportunity to look back at how they were involved in ruining lives, they might actually reach the point of seeing that they were deceived. They deceived themselves by becoming so engrossed in fostering their own “success”! Still they may forever choose to deny the horrible outcomes they have caused, living out their lives caught up in the fantasy world they created.   But as we look at all three of these scenarios and the three victims involved, we see a common pattern where manipulation has led the victims into a miserable life pattern or prison they never anticipated.

Contact Info: Websites: https://adultssavingkids.org or https://parentsarise.org Phone: Office: 612-869-5450 Cell: 612-708-1875 Email: info.adultssavingkids@gmail.com Address: Adults Saving Kids 820 West 65th Street Apt. #1 Richfield, MN 55423
April 12, 2023
What a Father Could Say to a Trafficked Daughter
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By Alvin Erickson

What a Father Could Say to a Trafficked Daughter

© 2023 Adults Saving Kids

Two Stories First

These two stories tell of two fathers mentioned in the support group we had when my wife, Ina and I were dealing with a trafficked daughter. One father was an Episcopal priest who lived in the New England area. His daughter had been trafficked. His wife was in our support group. She worked for Honeywell. At this time the daughter was in prison in Georgia but was getting out. The mother wanted the father to get involved but he kept his distance. The reality for many young women in this kind of circumstance is they need a trustworthy man who cares about them. This might be the only hope they have. One they can rely on, who loves and treasures them. This father was not ready to be that person. Sadly!
The mother went to Georgia when her daughter got out of prison and brought her back to the Twin Cities. All was well for the moment, but the mother had to go to her job. Meanwhile the daughter was left alone. Either she or some man called on the telephone. This was before cell phones. After two days when the mother came home from work, the daughter was gone. She was back on the streets. Later the daughter had a baby somewhere on the west coast and left the baby on the porch of someone’s house and took off. My heart went out to her for all the heartache she experienced in her lifetime. Much later I heard the mother died How much agony can a person take? The mother was heartbroken by all these circumstances.
Another mother in our support group had a daughter who was trafficked to Chicago. Somehow, she got away from the pimping guy and came home. When the mother came to the support group, she agonized over the refusal of her husband to talk to his daughter. He thought that it was her fault for going to Chicago and getting herself into such a fix. Months passed but the dad would not forgive his daughter or talk to her. Finally the daughter took off, went to Las Vegas and got right back into the fix she was in before—selling herself. What a tragedy! Sometimes parents don’t understand either the vulnerability of our kids or the sophisticated scheming of the traffickers. Unfortunately they don’t realize how important their love, understanding and support is.
It is easy for a man in America to be a wimp, to not lead with strength, virtue and honor. Is not this one of the reasons the sex industry flourishes?
How can a father support a daughter and family after a trafficking situation? How can he be a hope and a support?
First of all, most fathers do not understand how choices are made inside of choices. A squirrel entering a trap with peanut butter on the far end is indeed making a choice. However, the person who bought the trap and put the peanut butter at the far end of the trap also made a choice. So the squirrel is making a decision to enter without realizing that some other being has also made the decision to entrap the squirrel. We can call this making a choice inside of a choice.
If a father sees this for what it is, then that father can speak frankly to his daughter and say, “You got set up by someone presenting to you what looked like a good thing but they had their own plans, pretty sure as to how you would respond. We never taught you about these things so we actually did not do what we could have done. We did not equip you to see through set-ups. We did not inform you of the kind of people who are out there. We did not take seriously how at your age you were inexperienced with the sophisticated schemes people have to take advantage of the unprepared. I choose to love you now as I always have in the past. I choose to stand by you here with all that’s happened. We are going to get through all the trauma you have experienced. You are important and valuable to me. You are still God’s child and that means God loves you. You will have moments of self-blame. You will have memories that create havoc in your mind and soul. This is not easy to deal with but here I am. I am for you, not against you. There will be moments where you might lose control. There will be moments where you will remember what the trafficker told you that your parents don’t care about you anymore. That is all baloney. Don’t let these thoughts get a foothold in your thinking. You are special to me, to our family. God forgives whatever there is to forgive. I forgive whatever there is to forgive. Forgive me for not preparing you. Will you do that? Listen to the words I am speaking. They are the truth, not the falsehoods and lies somebody concocted to get control of your mind. It might take a while. You are on the road to recovery and that is a good road to travel. Do you get what I am saying?”

Contact Info: Websites: https://adultssavingkids.org or https://parentsarise.org Phone: Office: 612-869-5450 Cell: 612-708-1875 Email: info.adultssavingkids@gmail.com Address: Adults Saving Kids 820 West 65th Street Apt. #1 Richfield, MN 55423
March 4, 2023
Deceit is Hard to Detect
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By Alvin Erickson

Deceit is Hard to Detect, Therefore Dangerous

© 2023 Adults Saving Kids

Most of us tend to believe we are above being deceived. For us, deceit is something we are good at spotting. It is not a big problem for us because it seems so obvious when it appears. Some of us might go as far as believing we are good at detecting what is going on, with situations, with people.   In other words, some might say I don’t need any help when it comes to deceit. My eyes are wide open.

Before we come to a final conclusion on our ability to sniff out deceit, there is a Bible story we need to come to terms with. It is one most people don’t know, maybe have never heard of in any way unless they have read the Bible from cover to cover. It is the story of a man of God who is never named and it is found in I Kings 13. When King Jeroboam of the northern kingdom had sinned against the Lord by building altars and appointing priests who were not Levites, he was confronted by this man of God of Judah who said these new priests would be sacrificed on the altar and the altar torn down. King Jeroboam then stretched out his hand and called out, “Seize him”. But his hand withered. The altar was then torn down. King Jeroboam asked the man of God that his hand might be restored and it was.

So, the king asked the man of God to come dine with him but the man of God said he was commanded by the Lord not to eat or drink and to return by another route. Having carried out his assignment, the man of God sets out to return home. Now here is where it gets tricky. An old prophet has him be intercepted and brought to the old prophet’s home.   The word from this old prophet is that an angel had spoken to him and told him to bring the man of God into your house that he might eat and drink. So, the man of God heard this and believed he could now eat and drink and so he did. At this time the word of God came to the old prophet and he said to the man of God, “Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you, but have come back and eaten food and drank water, your body shall not come to your ancestral tomb. When the man of God leaves and on his way home, he is killed by a lion.   He had been deceived believing the Lord had withdrawn his commandment to not eat or drink.

Here is how Martin Luther talks about deceit and it seems to fit this story of the man of God. “But how can we keep from being deceived, since some of the deceptions which come our way are very compelling. How can we keep from being misled? To learn such mastery or art requires that we truly be Christians. First of all, we must recognize that the devil is a very crafty and powerful lord-that’s why he is called lord and ruler of the world! – and that if our dear Lord and God does not counter and thwart his craftiness, -cleverness, and power, there would be no one on earth wise, strong, and holy enough to withstand and survive against him. That is to say, with his knowledge, smartness, and power the devil far exceeds all human understanding and mental power. If God, therefore, were to withdraw his hand, the devil would quickly contrive an apparition before our eyes and take us in before we know it.” From a sermon on the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.

The challenge of detecting deceit is shown clearly in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.   The Galatian Christians had come to believe that they as Gentiles could benefit by being circumcised as though this would enhance their acceptance before God. Paul severely warns them not to rebuild on an old foundation of law that would detour them off from the free gift of salvation he had proclaimed to them, that believing what Christ did for them on the cross was all they needed to have. To try to gain anything more would cancel out what had been given to them. So, they had been deceived and must not follow the declarations of people who were deceiving them.

Here is the truth. We are suckers for being deceived whether we like it or not. We become helpless in our own ability to actually perceive all of what is going on. Satan, the father of lies, (John 8:44) is way ahead of us. That is why we need words from the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures that are a lamp to our feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 11:105). Jesus says in John 8:31: If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”   If we have been given the truth which we have, then that becomes our reference point from which we can discern what is false and deceiving.   There are all kinds of voices in the world like those of the old prophet.   They look good.   They sound good. But like the man of God found out too late, they are corrupting what God has given to us to believe and follow.

As an example of how this applies in the modern world, 68 % of young men in America are said to be going to a pornography website at least once a week.   Now what is happening here? Is there any recognition that these young men are being deceived? What if an Internet pornographer is actually an entrapper?   He is using a very special bait—attractive women with attractive bodies.   So, a young man who is turned on by what is visual is going to be wanting to look. But that pornographer has another advantage as well. Men have a certain fantasy that some good-looking woman will want them, want to invite them into an intimate relationship.   So according to John Eldredge in Wild at Heart, it does not take a lot to fool a young man into thinking that here it is. This woman is showing herself to me in a personal way. She is fulfilling my fantasy. Of course, when we stand back, we realize whatever woman the fellow is looking at has no interest in the guy viewing her on the Internet. In fact, she is probably disgusted with her customers, might even despise them.   After all she is being used and dehumanized. It could well be that she is there because she herself was deceived or trafficked. So here we have another case of Satan winning because every one of those young men are just that much closer to becoming sexually addicted or are already. They are like at the gate of a concentration camp checking themselves in. Their future spouses, marriages and kids are going to be that much more at risk. A great deal of unnecessary trauma and heartache is waiting in the wings.

Contact Info: Websites: https://adultssavingkids.org or https://parentsarise.org Phone: Office: 612-869-5450 Cell: 612-708-1875 Email: info.adultssavingkids@gmail.com Address: Adults Saving Kids 820 West 65th Street Apt. #1 Richfield, MN 55423
March 2, 2023
David Sherman on What It Takes to Win
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By Alvin Erickson

Your Offspring Will Be Outsmarted, Maybe You Too

© 2022 Adults Saving Kids

The America of today provides many opportunities for clever people to snag unaware and unprepared people into doing something or becoming focused on something they were not ready for. This paper will help us look at sophisticated subtle evil and how it works. We are not talking about obvious evil on the front end and that is why we might get caught in something without realizing it. This article might even help us see what we could be doing or doing better to have nasty, hurtful and misery-making traps be avoided.
David Sherman was one of many strip club managers with a successful plan. He knew how to get young women to dance in his club. Now most of us would believe that our own daughters would never do such a thing. We believe we have raised them to not strip down naked in front of a bunch of leering customers. We might say to ourselves in no way could this ever happen to our daughters. And believing that, we might then just leave well enough alone and go on with our lives
But this is where we fail to realize how sophisticated and subtle scheming actually works. What David did was done in a step by step process which raised no major red flags. First of all, he went over to a college campus and advertised for waitresses, disk jockeys and bartenders. He was promising great pay. So young college women would show up at his club ready to apply for a job like waitressing. When they entered the club they encountered three realities. First, the building and setting had some class—an inviting place in which to work. Then they noticed some of the dancers and realized nudity was there in this atmosphere. Thirdly they met David, the manager—a normal looking white man in a suit. He looked like a regular business man.
So observe the set-up. This young woman took the initiative to obtain a job. She came to the place of employment and now was going to be talking to the manager who had the power to hire her. She was on his turf. Two things looked safe and normal: the quality of the club and the ordinariness of the manager. Only the nudity raised concerns. However, this young woman had made the effort to be there and the manager was right there so before walking out and leaving, it seemed she needed to hear what he had to say.
Truth to tell, she now was walking into the starting point of a well-rehearsed hidden agenda. Totally unbeknown to her, she was not unlike a squirrel entering into a trap with luscious peanut butter at the far end. David was fully trained to counter her qualms and negative reactions. He knew what she might be thinking and how he could speak to any questions or concerns she might have. So he talked to her about waitressing, the $150 to $200 she could make with tips in one shift. He stressed that the dancing was over there but it would have nothing to do with her. She would be serving food. Or being a disk jockey or bartenders if she preferred. He knew she was probably mulling over her need to make some good money to be able to pay for her college costs. So his job was to reassure her that he cared about how this was going to work for her and that she would be safe and unaffected by what else was happening in the club. He was putting himself forward as a caring friend. In other words, she was not going to lose a thing on this appealing deal.
Besides all of this, he spoke firmly. He really needed a waitress and wanted her to start on this date at this time. So as he presented it everything was good to go. She had the job, no more questions asked. Think about this for a moment. At this point, how many young women would be ready to walk away from this and never come back? How many 19- or 20-year-olds would go home, consult with their parents or a wise friend before taking such a job? We might also ask how many parents would see through the set-up she was facing and turn her away from the money she could make? According to David this initial encounter with a young woman did the trick almost 100 percent of the time. She would come back and start working as a waitress. What she didn’t know and probably would never realize was David was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He knew exactly what he was up to but she had no clue what that was. There was a good chance she was not thinking this opportunity is too good to be true! She was probably not asking why the great pay and why did he not have to know more about me.
In most of life there is in the background, people we are or could be accountable to. Report cards are given in school telling us how we are to be evaluated for the academic effort we accomplished. When children go someplace at night, most parents expect they will be home by a certain time. They are held accountable for keeping that curfew. When young people go off to college, they may find they are not accountable to anybody as far as their private lives are concerned. However, if a parent has declared early that I am your protector, making sure you stay safe this could possibly help in this situation. Especially if the parent and the child have had fruitful conversations about being wise, how to avoid trickery. All of this might have this young woman call home and run this opportunity past her parents. Unlike most college students, she might respect having a relationship where she is still accountable to someone like her parents who want the best for her. But, chances are, this will not happen if all has been left in the unsaid. Then being accountable becomes vague, maybe nonexistent. How many college students live their private lives as though they are responsible to someone and would be willing to tell their parents and/or grandparents, for instance, how they are conducting themselves? The answer to that would probably tell us what kind of relationship to those people and expectation is already in place.
So she showed up and started working. David now had this young woman just where he wanted her. He was her trusted employer and he would make sure she was paid well. Secondly, she was now going to be getting used to other women dancing in the nude. After a month or so, this would no longer be shocking but begin to seem pretty normal. She was being desensitized. Gradually she was going to find herself being influenced by the atmosphere and culture of the club. Her inner perspectives were being shifted by the daily encounter and routine of being there so much of the time. All of this was happening without her even realizing the transformation taking place in her. Women taking their clothes off was no longer a big deal. Along with that, he would have the dancers, the bouncers and other employees treating her like a queen. In the practice of the cults, this is called “Love-bombing”. He would also give her long hours so her major relationships would be at the club and not at her college. So the club provided her with her primary community.
Adding on to all this was another factor in David’s favor. A 19 or 20 year old female (or male) still has some years to go before the pre-frontal cortex of their brain is fully developed. This means their ability to notice and judge a situation for what is happening is still limited. A researcher at the University of Minnesota says they still do not have the wherewithal to say, “On second thought”. In other words it might well be harder for
a young woman at this age to discern and sort out that the initial appeal of making lots of money needs to be countered by the potential risk she is taking on by working in such an environment. But that would take seeing through something that is presenting itself as positive. That probably would take more maturing of the brain than she would have at her disposal at her age.
Secondly, brain development researchers have discovered that the pre-frontal cortex of the brain in its immature state does not offer adequate consequential thinking. So, in this case the young student is probably not going to ask herself, “Where is this leading, what kind of consequences could come out of such a job as this down the road? What am I getting myself into?” A mature adult has a better chance of making decisions based on two questions: “What is the cost to me if I go ahead with this?” and “What is the payoff for me if I go ahead?” So, if a strip club manager like David can provide the incentive for her to have a positive response to his initial affirmation, chances are the young lady will not think seriously of what aftermath might ensue once she takes the job.
Putting all these pieces of the puzzle together, we can see, can’t we, that such a person as David is going to win almost every time? Unbeknown to this certain young woman and her family, there is a set-up brewing for which none of them have considered or prepared for. In other words, nice, moral, well-behaved and even a Christ follower as she might be, she still has very little chance to escape the evil planned for her with such a camouflaged trap. This is the kind of circumstance for which she and probably her parents have even considered would ever come up. Her morals, her values are being eroded, unraveled as she works in the club. Frankly, she is a sitting duck, fair game, totally unprepared and ill-equipped for the game being played on her. (If one of our daughters ever would become entrapped like this, it might embarrass us parents and congregations when we thought nothing of the kind could happen to one of our own. We might come to recognize how little we ever did to prepare our daughter for such an under-the-radar kind of scheme as this is.)
So, now working in the club, she gets to know some of the workers as friends, is treated with respect by her manager, starts making a lot of money, possibly begins to depend on a regular check. This feels pretty good. Maybe some of that money starts paying off her loans, buys her some clothes, raises her sights as to what making good money can bring her. At this point the manager knows it is his time to make his decisive move. David is like a shark which smells blood in the water. It is time to attack.
One strategy is to gain a special favor from her. By now she is not only David’s employee but also he is like a friend. So he takes her out to lunch and pays the bill. Here we have a favorite ploy of connivers. Develop some sense of obligation. I did something for you. How about you doing something for me? Of course, he doesn’t say that but he knows her feeling the need for some kind of payback is now in order. So he makes his proposal, really a request. “Tonight is amateur night and I need another body up there on stage. You don’t have to take your clothes off or anything, but if you would willing to get up there, I would really appreciate it.” Now what is this responsible young woman going to do? Is she in any position to refuse her boss, her friend? He has always had her best interests at heart. Yes, it is catching her off guard but she doesn’t know what to say. She is not ready to risk losing her job. Besides he is asking in a nice way for her to accommodate him just this once. What she doesn’t realize is how vulnerable she will be in carrying out his request. After all, she is going to be doing this in a strip club where customers come and pay to see young women take their clothes off. This is not as innocent as he has made it sound.
David knows the drill. When she gets up there either the customers or the other dancers will talk her out of her clothes. That is just the way it works. And when that happens, this new dancer is going to go home and be upset because of how she exposed herself.
She is very apt to begin to self-medicate. The chemicals will feel good and bring her relief. They will also be needed and used in the future as well. She is now caught in the trap that has been set for her all along. She never saw it coming and will have a hard time explaining to anyone how it is that she is now stripping. Because once she starts she will not be stopping. From now on she will be, to say it positively, an exotic dancer as her way of making a living. As far as she is concerned it is all back on her. She chose to do this. David has worked his strategy to perfection and in her mind, he bears no responsibility for what happened. It was her decision, right?
There was also a second strategy for getting a waitress or disk jockey or bartender to take this major second step into being a dancer. Once she is used to having a lucrative job and depending on the money, possibly buying a car or getting an apartment, the hammer comes down. Her position is no longer needed. There will be no more paychecks, no more money to support her new lifestyle. She is being fired. But, of course, it doesn’t have to end this way. She could take up dancing instead and that pays even more money. Why wouldn’t she just transition into dancing? That way she would not have to give up anything, her car, her apartment, her friends at work, basically her new way of life. Why give up the familiar when it is working? Besides she has now been acclimated to the club’s atmosphere and other women taking their clothes off seems normal. Confronted by all these looming realities, how easy would it be to just stay put? But, of course, as she will discover, once she has crossed that line, there is basically no turning back.
What we have happening here is the prime ploy of the sex industry or we could call it the way human trafficking works. It is for all accounts and purposes the key factor needed to torpedo young lives. We can call it “getting-your-foot-in-the-door”. This metaphor helps us understand what happens to many young people. Think of it this way. A person comes up to a front door and rings the doorbell. Inside, Jane hears the doorbell and runs to answer the door. But Jane is a little skeptical so she just opens the door a crack. The person outside gives a warm greeting. “Hi, my name is Bill and I am doing a survey for the school district. Could you give me 2 minutes of your time? I would really appreciate it. Just two minutes.”
As Jane is thinking about it, she becomes aware that Bill just slid his pointed toe into the crack in the door. She cannot shut the door now even if she wanted to. Suddenly Jane finds herself in a helpless position. By opening the door even barely enough to be able to see Bill, Jane has now found herself at Bill’s mercy. If she tries to run to the phone, he will be able to swing the door open and catch her before she is able to make a call. What she thought would keep her safe, just barely opening the door now turns out to be an irretrievable move on her part. She has lost all power to protect herself.
Now at first we might not see the connection between what Jane did and what the young woman did who decided to waitress at the strip club. It all looks very different. However, in reality what has happened is they have given over the control to the other person, to the person at the door, to David at the strip club. Their chance of regaining any semblance of control is very slim. What chance do you have if you slip on the ice, your feet are way off the ground and you are in free fall? This, it turns out, is the reality that comes into play here, a reality they never foresaw. Yes, the new waitress might think to herself that she can quit anytime but basically that is simply unrealistic. Why? Because in that first month or so, she will find no reason to quit. At the end of that time, all of the mind control techniques she is facing will have done their job. A foot is in the doorway of her life and she is only kidding herself if she thinks she is still in control.
It is important to observe what is going on in the minds and hearts of schemers. Once they are in the mindset of carrying out the targeted objective of their strategy, they lose the ability to care. We see this in II Samuel 11. When King David hears that Bathsheba,
the woman he had sex with is pregnant, his mind goes immediately to how he can make this seem like it was her husband, Uriah, who impregnated her. Nothing else seems to matter to this godly king except finding a way to solve his dilemma. He thinks he must exonerate himself at all costs. So he brings Uriah back from the battlefield hoping he will go have sex his wife and then think he is the father. He is very friendly and pretends concern for Uriah. However, when Uriah does not go home to his wife as David desperately desires, finally David sends him back to the battlefield with a letter telling his general to put Uriah in the very front lines where he is sure to be killed. Here is the point. No matter how much a schemer fakes love, concern, helpfulness, it is all a sham. When one is scheming like this, there can be actually no care for the victim. The welfare of the victim is no longer considered. When a person is seeking to take advantage of another person, any concern for their future welfare gets blacked out. Jesus states this very succinctly when he admonishes us in Matthew 18:10 “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.” Con artistry and true love are never found in the same package.
So what happens if a young woman becomes a dancer? She now finds herself in the position of attracting money from customers. So David and his team of co-conspirators train her to manipulate the customers as she herself has been manipulated. She now must assert herself, sell herself with attentiveness to the customers as though she really likes them. To make money she needs to please them. This is going to get them to spend more money, buy more drinks, maybe even reach a point of thinking this young woman is the customer’s girlfriend. She is putting herself forward and showing real interest but it is all a part of the game, the fantasy she is creating. The customer will become enthralled, maybe even want to marry the woman. But what will happen if that customer’s money dries up? It will terminate their relationship completely because the young woman knows the whole relationship was based on money and manipulation, not on actual caring. This is a dog-eat-dog world. True intimacy and caring have no part in it. All feelings of compassion and concern have to be left behind.
So, in reality no one is now looked up as human. Rather they are pawns. Several of these women strippers lived in a second story apartment in Minneapolis. They asked some of the bouncers in the club to come over and help them move. When the bouncers got up to their apartment, one of them opened the window, then picked up a box of dishes and dropped it many feet down to the ground. How is anyone going to develop any respect for each other in the manipulative atmosphere described? People become hardened, deceitful, manipulative, unable to take in what love is all about.
What David has done is turn a young woman into a gold-digger. Now she is further into the trap than ever. Every time she goes to work, she will have to psych herself up to once again be ready to manipulate, act the part, create the fantasy and deceive herself into thinking this is her career and the best way for her to make money. Every day she is being dehumanized that much further from what God intended her to be. By setting all these processes of depersonalizing a female woman, David, himself, is undermining his own humanity. He is caught in the cycle of deceiving and hurting others as he deceives himself into thinking this is somehow a legitimate way to live. When he goes to buy groceries, he might turn on a Christian radio station completely disconnecting what is going on in the club from what he might regard as good on the outside. It is this kind of disconnect that has such a hold on him. It is like a person who is underwater somehow kidding himself that he can still breathe there. Any sense of true reality has been hijacked. Satan has taken over. Deception and self-deception now rule.
But as we are seeing, sadly it is not just the dancer’s life and David’s life that are being misled and undermined. It is also the customer’s life. Let’s face it. Most customers at strip clubs never think they are supporting human trafficking. For them, in most cases, they are participating in a financial arrangement where they are paying to be entertained just like one pays to go to a concert, a game, or a play. Hey, the dancer is making money, the club is making money and the customer is paying so everyone is satisfied with what is happening, aren’t they? What they don’t realize is they are participating in a drama of destruction that is taking place, including the manipulation of not only others but of their lives. They are being used with mind control techniques to spend more money, jeopardizing their relationship; to their family or future family. What started as “too good to be true ” is now beginning to be a habit built on denial, deceit and lust. In a word, they have been “hoodwinked” by a treacherous fantasy world that is captivating their lives.
We have surely seen this before in the 1930’s with Adolph Hitler and the Nazis as they seduced the German people with their message of having Germany be strong and respected again. In the process, most Germans were willing to overlook what was happening to their Jewish neighbors. After all, the economy was doing better and they were getting longer vacations. This is all good, isn’t it? Well, let’s look at the outcome. Here are a few figures that probably are near the truth. German military had 4.3 million dead or missing at the end of the war. Russians killed or missing were over 26 million people. Between 5 and 6 million Jews were killed in the holocaust. Once evil gets its grip, it doesn’t let go.
That is true of the parents and family of this young woman. They are going to realize this is not the daughter or sister they have known and loved. Some serious change has happened in her life. She might not see it herself for she does not really understand what has happened to her and sees little reason to get help. Some of her humanity has been extinguished. She does not receive love that easily any more. How she relates to family is through manipulation. The family finds itself like walking on egg shells. Normal interactions are hard to come by. Plus it is really hard for her to be around and comfortable with family members. An invisible wall has been built up but nobody understands exactly how it got there. Fear and anger operate at unseen levels. Empathy, for the most part, has disappeared. The family is in a world of hurt and so is their young dancer whether she knows it or not.
Unforeseen and tragic consequences keep coming. What started out as the recruitment of a young woman has now expanded out to affect everyone involved pulling them in like quicksand. As the club flourishes, the secondary effects are felt in the debilitating decay of the community around it, the influence it has on property values, law enforcement, family breakdown, compromised politicians and media. For instance, if a newspaper planned to publish a negative article against his club, David would just hand them $50,000 under the table and they would not publish that article. If we examine the culture of modern America and what each of us are dealing with everyday versus what we find to be the truth in Jesus, what do we discover?
David Sherman and the approach he had as a strip club manager gives us some ability to notice how subtle, sophisticated evil works. So when we see how this process plays out in a young woman’s life and in the lives around her, we can well ask ourselves some questions that can help us examine what and how we deal with opportunities such as this that might take us down a destructive road.

Questions to Ask:

Are we evaluating this opportunity from the point of view “is this too good to be true”? Measuring any opportunity by this standard is a wise practice to help us discern what is really going on?

Is my intuition telling me there are some red flags here? Am I listening to my intuition?

What is being stated up front about the long term effects of this venture? Is this being presented and identified or is the eventual outcome or consequences not being addressed?

Am I being taken in by a person or appeal where I need to examine the motivations of the person or appealing group for how much they care about me versus how much they simply want to satisfy a goal of their own?

Just because the initial action that I will take will lead to a positive result, is there any guarantee, the latter influences I will have to deal with will continue to be positive?

How much of my time and commitments will be devoted to what is being proposed? Will I actually have some control over that?

Am I letting my pride “I can handle this just fine” direct my choices here?

Does this opportunity fit into who I say I am in Christ, as a baptized child of God, or am I stepping away from my own identity to become someone who is controlled by another person or fantasy?

Who really cares about me and has my best interests at heart? Am I ready to listen to their perspective and input as those who know me, love me and want the best for me?

Am I engaging with someone whose bottom line is making money and if they are not making money off me, will they be ready to ditch me at a moment’s notice?

Who is holding accountable the people who are proposing something to me and what exactly does that accountability look like?

When encountering a circumstance which appears on the front end to be such a godsend out of the blue, am I willing to weigh this before the Lord and also consult with wise people and Christian counsel before moving ahead?

Have I really checked out what I am getting into doing my due diligence with outside parties and also with people already living within the reality that I might be taking on? Am I pressing in to confirm what I am undertaking?

Am I acting on impulse or peer pressure in making my decisions or is my faith giving me the courage and wisdom to say “No” if that is the wisest step to take?

Have I prayed about this and asked the Lord for guidance? As a disciple of Jesus, loved and accepted by Jesus, forgiven and cared for, am I willing to pray as Jesus did, “Your will be done, Lord, not my will. Show me the road you would have me take & give me the strength to take it.”

Satan attacks when a person is particularly vulnerable and needy. This was the state Jesus was in after he had fasted 40 days and was hungry. It was then Satan offers him the opportunity to turn a stone into bread. We are especially vulnerable when we have a need, when we are lonely, need friendship, money, are tired, depressed, feeling rejected, unloved. Do we allow awareness of that awaken us to what might be presenting itself?

Contact Info: Websites: https://adultssavingkids.org or https://parentsarise.org Phone: Office: 612-869-5450 Cell: 612-708-1875 Email: info.adultssavingkids@gmail.com Address: Adults Saving Kids 6501 Woodlake Drive, #814 Richfield, MN 55423
November 1, 2022