This August I celebrate my 27th year of working in the adult industry. There's not much I haven't seen over the years and that includes a protest or two. But there is one particular group that has gotten some traction and done some damage. So just who is "Exodus Cry", the anti-porn organization waging war on porn? Most people have heard by now about the troubles that Pornhub has had with Visa and Mastercard but they aren't alone. Onlyfans and other platforms have faced similar issues and as of last week, that includes xVideos, the company that owns BangBros, ManyVids, and Penthouse. Visa and Mastercard have suspended processing payments for xVideos and their premium site xVideos red. This means that all content creators who had premium channels also had their incomes terminated. xVideos.com is a popular tube site that believe it or not is one of the most visited websites in the entire world. They get more than 3 billion visitors a month. Yes, that means they are even more popular than Pornhub. To give you an idea of just how popular xVideos is, some websites say that Amazon gets only 2.5 billion visitors a month. That means that xVideos gets half a billion more than that! According to Similar Web, xvideos is more popular than TikTok, Reddit, Netflix, and Linkedin. Credit card companies have been targeting companies like Pornhub and xVideos thanks to the anti-porn organization Exodus Cry.

Laila Mickelwait describes herself as someone who has been combating the issue of sex trafficking for about the last decade.

But what exactly does that means and is it even true? I say this because many years ago there was an organization known as the Aids Healthcare Foundation that on the surface seemed like they wanted to help -- as they cared about the adult industry and our testing standards. It turns out all they really cared about was making a stink so that they could cash in on all those anti-porn religious donations and boy did they cash in - and I'm talking millions here. So knowing very well that there is big money in being "anti-porn" I was suspicious of Exodus Cry and more specifically Laila Mickelwait. The first anyone heard of the group was in 2007. Back then, Benjamin Nolot initiated a weekly prayer group at the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a charismatic Christian enclave. At the meetings, Nolot spoke of praying for trafficking. Five years later, Nolot dedicated the first “restoration” shelter for human trafficking victims, called the LightHouse. He declared that they wanted to “put [the victims] in the right context.”

What came of the shelter is unclear. When asked about it, Nolot has said: “Since our inception Exodus Cry has been raising awareness about the injustice of sex trafficking, advocating for effective legislation, and assisting victims and survivors, and we continue this critical work to the present day.”

So in other words, lots of fancy talk that doesn't really tell us anything. IHOP, which was sued for trademark infringement by the pancake chain in 2010 (the case was later dropped), has been featured in films like the 2013 documentary God Loves Uganda. This documentary blamed the church for creating a culture of homophobia which led to the implementation of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda. Things changed in 2016 when this Benjamin Nolot decided it was time to re-envision the role of Exodus Cry. The first thing they did is separate themselves from "IHOP", but not before the church’s founder, Mike Bickle, claimed that gay people would face “flaming missiles of the Evil One,” that the “gay marriage agenda” is “rooted in the depths of Hell,” that Adolf Hitler was a “hunter” sent by God to punish the Jews, and that Oprah Winfrey is a foot servant to the Antichrist.

In a statement to The Daily Beast, Exodus Cry CEO Benjamin Nolot denied any association with IHOP. “Since our inception Exodus Cry has been an independent 501c3 non-profit organization,” he wrote, “and is not in a formal partnership with any other organization.”

But in 2018, Open Democracy reported that Exodus Cry had been listed as a “related tax-exempt organization” on IHOP’s tax filings in their most recent returns, that both groups shared a director, and that Nolot was listed as a “prayer leader” until 2017. And if that wasn't enough, When Exodus Cry relocated from Kansas City to Sacramento, IHOP held a goodbye prayer in their honor. These were made public through church announcements on June 9 and 21 of 2019. I don't know about you but that doesn't sound very "separated" to me. So just what is the goal of Exodus Cry? According to 2018 tax filings, the group amended its mission statement to include “abolishing sex trafficking and the commercial sex industry.” That is their stated mission. Let's never forget that. Exodus Cry and their sister organization NCOSE have been approaching adult performers trying to exploit them and offering money to recruit other adult performers. From what I understand, they are hoping that their cooperation will reveal some sort of sinister information about the underbelly of the porn industry that will get the whole commercial porn industry shut down. This doesn't just mean commercial sites like Brazzers or BangBros but also platforms like ManyVids and OnlyFans. They claim to want to help but what really are they doing? I mean can you name a single person in our industry they've helped? I know I can't. But I can tell you a whole bunch of people that they've hurt. Please be careful when talking to anyone from either of these organizations. I promise they don't have a true desire to help anyone but themselves. Being anti-porn is a way for them to get donations -- millions of dollars in donations. Do they actually do anything of value with that money? Of course not. But what they do want to do is "abolish the commercial sex industry." Please never forget that.