A NEW film aimed at battling prostitution and trafficking had a somewhat controversial airing in London last week.

Buying Her, the latest product from US non-profit organisation Exodus Cry, focuses on men who pay prostituted women. Both the film and its director, the charity’s CEO Benjamin Nolot, use the term “sex buyers” — wording that was hotly contested by some of those gathered at Leicester Square’s Vue Cinema.

I spoke with a dozen or so audience members after the showing and while most were pleased to see a spotlight shone on punters, there was discomfort and even annoyance at some of the men’s stories.

But firstly the film.

It’s inappropriate to offer a review, as such, but it’s important to mention some of the production values at work.

Individual men are filmed recounting their introduction to porn, journeys to strip clubs and massage parlours, to procuring women via escort agencies or on the street. In one case, a man is led to a decision to abduct and rape a woman.

There are survivors here, too: Bekah, who says of the men: “They don’t care how we feel; we’re not a human being to them,” and Angela who knew that if punters were aware that she’d been trafficked, “they wouldn’t have cared — not at all.”

The starting point for some of the men’s narratives is notable; one is bullied for being small, another craves affection from his distant father and wants to be “affirmed.”

These dramatised scenes in Buying Her feature boy actors depicted as lonely figures searching for and finding solace in porn magazines.

As adults, they enjoy the power to use money to meet their demands. One complains that his pregnant wife seems to no longer love him. Another husband — as most punters are — feels spurned when his partner refuses the kind of sex he regards as his “need.” 

One eventually confesses to his wife, and lyrically describes lying on the floor, holding on to her feet, and weeping.

He tells the camera, sadly: “She was not impressed by my tears.” This elicited laughter from the London audience. I distinctly heard a woman behind me hiss: “Tosser.”

There’s a big theme in this well-meaning film, perhaps related to the perspective of the charity behind it.

On their website, a statement aimed at “setting the record straight,” reads: “Exodus Cry’s pursuit of justice is rooted in Jesus’ call to “love your neighbour as yourself,” as demonstrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan found in the New Testament (Luke 10:25-37).”

As the confessional interviews proceed, several men reveal they have surrendered themselves to therapy for their “sex addiction.”

The dynamic created seems designed to rely on our contemporary tendency to feel sympathy for those suffering an addiction.

Added to this, the nature of film, as with theatre, invites a response from viewers. Here, we are required to forgive them. Confession and absolution; it seems a very neat narrative.

Buying Her has been on a “world tour,” with Notold speaking alongside Exodus Cry’s “vice-president of impact” Helen Taylor. Screenings so far have all been in the US, with London as the stop-over event before a number of European countries. 

It may be that the charity misjudged the reception afforded by a British audience. A panel of speakers after the film was mainly welcoming, while viewers who expressed dissent during the hour-long documentary went largely unheard, as the discussion was not opened to the floor.

An injection of much-needed reality came from survivor and activist Fiona Broadfoot, who said: “I was involved in the sex trade for 11 years, and I’ve been an activist now for almost 30 — and this is the first time I’ve attended an event where we’ve talked about the men.

“However, I still struggle with a lot of the representation, and I found it victim-blaming in parts… the language — they never ‘bought sex’ from me; they paid to rape me. They might have this fantasy going on, that they’re having sex with a woman… but my idea of sex is an intimate, beautiful thing between two consenting adults.”

Broadfoot, who runs the Build a Girl project, supporting vulnerable girls and young women, had watched the film alone before coming to the screening.

“To be honest, my head is swirling… I was just taken straight back. Men seem to come out of it and skip away, with their support, and their wives, and their families, and communities, and churches, and schools and jobs. And we don’t. We’re still crawling, all these years later… for most of us, it’s our whole lives.”

Responses from women leaving the event centred on two key themes: did the men interviewed feel shame, or guilt, or realise the harm they did? And why was this framed as addiction, with the men portrayed as victims of porn, as if this was a form of entrapment they were unable to resist?

A different take came from Anna Fisher, chair of Nordic Model Now!, who felt the depiction of the trap of an addiction was authentic, and deserving of consideration.

She also said: “The former ‘sex buyers’ interviewed in this film confirm everything that we at Nordic Model Now! have been saying for years: that they are not buying sex as a mutual engagement between consenting adults.

“They pay for her to endure him acting out porn-induced, often violent, sexual fantasies on her body — she has little or no practical say in what happens. 

“And the interviews with women survivors of prostitution confirm what so many women who have exited the industry tell us — that it was something that had to be endured because they couldn’t see an alternative or a way out.” 

The film, and the wider work of Exodus Cry, seems laudable, and survivors may or may not care who offers a helping hand.

But as one woman told me: “I know they had to do those interviews separately, but I’d love to have seen those men actually confronted by the survivors.” 

It’s a thought, and an idea for a different film, perhaps — one that draws on the principles of restorative justice.

If the men are seen as “sex buyers” rather than offenders and rapists, then surely this sanitises their role. They control their narrative, and move on towards healing. Their victims, meanwhile, continue to live with trauma. 

The Buying Her film will be online later this year. For more information visit exoduscry.com, facebook.com/BuildAGirlUk, nordicmodelnow.org.