If we had to use just one word to describe “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story,” it would have to be “haunting,” because it shows us the dark side of the adult industry. Even though sex work can be very empowering and good, this Netflix original basically shows how it can also be a gateway into the world of trafficking and abuse. Many people, including Laila Mickelwait, want sites like Pornhub to be shut down completely because of this. If you’re just curious about her, here’s what we know.
Who is Laila Mickelwait?
As a young girl, Laila became very interested in helping people who might not be able to help themselves. This led her to follow a fairly set path in her education. She got her Bachelor’s in Political Science and Government from the University of California-Riverside. Then, she went to the University of Southern California to get her Master’s in Public Diplomacy. She then seems to have taken a few years for herself before finding her true calling as an advocate against sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and sexual exploitation in every way possible.
Laila joined the controversial Christian non-profit Exodus Cry as the Manager of Policy and Public Affairs in early 2012, but she quickly moved up the ranks because of how hard she worked. In reality, in three years (February 2015), she had become the Director of Abolition, a position in which her main job was to push for changes in the law by being very visible in public. So, she spoke on behalf of the group at schools, universities, corporate events, and conferences. She also kept in touch with real lawmakers from all over the world.
But even though Laila’s success with Exodus Cry grew over time, she decided to leave them after a total of nine years so she could focus more on her own institutes and movements. She started New Reality International as a non-profit organisation in 2007 to help people who were poor, sick, or being treated unfairly. She kept running it until the end of 2020. The only reason she seemed to stop was that her Traffickinghub Movement was getting a lot of attention around this time, and in January 2021, she started the Justice Defense Fund.
Where is Laila Mickelwait Now?
Laila continues to fight sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and sexual exploitation in her roles as the founder of the global Traffickinghub Movement and the founder and CEO of the Justice Defense Fund. It’s important to remember that the only goal of the former is to shut down Pornhub and hold all of its executives accountable for allowing, spreading, and making money off of its illegal video-based abuse. On the other hand, the second group is said to be a non-political, non-religious group whose only goal is to get laws passed that stop online sexual assaults in any way possible.
Laila has been working in this field for more than ten years, and she has made it clear that she has no plans to leave until what she sees as real justice is done. She once said, “We’re trying to shut down [Pornhub] because anything else would be unfair to the victims.” “Giving Pornhub a slap on the wrist is like giving a slap in the face to the people whose lives this predatory company has ruined. So, we need to see real, full justice done, which means criminal charges, restitution for the victims, and laws that stop this from happening again. I think that’s what justice looks like.”
If you really want to know more about Laila’s research on this topic, you can look at her website, her social media, or any of the articles she has been in over the years. The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC News, CNN, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, CNBC, The Guardian, Fox News, and many more are among the publications for the second group. As for her personal life, from what we can tell, the author, activist, and philanthropist seems to be living in California with her own happy little family.
