Red Light Exposé

Blake Lively, as well as dozens of actresses and crew members of the "It Ends With Us" film production, allege that systematic sexual harassment and coercion - often surrounding intimate and nude scenes - occurred at the hands of director and co-star Justin Baldoni and some of his friends and colleagues. Elly Arrow and Sybil Jo are joined by Brent MacLerie to discuss the allegations, how...

Screenwriter and director Diana joins Elly Arrow and Sybil Jo to discuss the reality of professional and independent filmmaking regarding nudity, sex scenes, and the treatment of child and adult actors by directors, producers, and other powerful men. The conversation also goes into the depiction of sexual exploitation and violence in cinema and TV from around the world. To tune in for our conversa...

Competing narratives surround the current First Lady of the U.S. after further Epstein Files revelations, which some say put Melania Trump in Epstein's orbit. In this livestream, Elly Arrow, and Sybil Jo discuss the various allegations against 90s modeling agents including Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and the hellish landscape they created for women and girls, which give us an indication as to...

In this episode, Andrea Heinz interviews Human Trafficking Detective Dan Hall to explore the realities of investigating exploitation, the challenges of building cases rooted in coercion and psychological control, and the misconceptions that often prevent the public from recognizing trafficking when it happens. Detective Hall shares insights into the complex dynamics that keep survivors connected t...

The messaging app Telegram promotes its commendable goal of data privacy to prospective users - unfortunately, this also makes it an excellent instrument for human traffickers, to the point that significant parts of the Nigerian sexual exploitation industry are now run through it. In this livestream, journalist Simbiat Bakare joins Elly Arrow, Savannah Severn, and Sybil Jo to discuss going underco...

From 2014 to 2020, Leeds City Council and West Yorkshire police designated parts of Holbeck, one of the UK's most deprived inner-city areas, as a site for an experiment with legal street prostitution. The policy permitted men to cruise the area for vulnerable women struggling with addiction and pay to sexually abuse them with impunity. What followed was an extreme drop in the quality of life o...

Red Light Exposé is now 2-years-old!! To celebrate the anniversary of our launch, Andrea Heinz, Sybil Jo, and Elly Arrow hosted an "Ask Us Anything" livestream where listeners got a chance to ask... anything. So we ended up talking about music, podcasts, orgs doing the work, exercise and how we recuperate from the exhausting parts of activism. If you'd like to support us financially,...

A group of 8th graders at a German high school got the task to design an "inclusive" brothel during their biology class in 2026. The task is taken almost word-for-word from a 2008 sex ed book that includes a range of pro-BDSM and sex industry messaging directed at school kids and has been used in a number of classrooms since publication. Elly Arrow and Sybil Jo discuss what this vision o...

Elly Arrow interviews Yagmur Uygarkizi about her years-long research into unethical medical trials conducted on sexually exploited women and girls in the Global South, the misogyny and racism that enable such experimentation, and how it all ties into the Gates Foundation’s work on HIV, even post the Melinda French and Bill Gates' divorce. Correction:  The Red Umbrella Fund only openly states h...

Elly Arrow and Sybil Jo discuss some controversial entries to the Eurovision Song Contest 2026: "Choke Me" by Alexandra Căpitănescu aestheticizes sexualized strangulation, "Superstar" features George O'Dowd aka Boy George who infamously assaulted and falsely imprisoned a man in escort prostitution, and finally, "Andromeda" by Lelek expresses the pain of Catholic C...

Sybil Jo is joined by her life-long friend, Sister Pauletta Duke, to discuss their shared experience of being brought up in a U.S. Christian evangelical context, the damaging patriarchal hierarchies and mechanisms at play lending themselves to controlling and manipulating women and girls, including into (commercial) sexual exploitation, and how ideas and powerful individuals from within the fundam...

Elly Arrow speaks to Kajsa Ekis Ekman about how the surrogacy industry turns women’s reproductive capacity, as well as infants, into commodities, subject to contractual conditions and market forces. They trace the history of surrogacy, explain its modern-day practices, its appearance in the Epstein case, exploring similarities and differences between surrogacy and prostitution, and finally elabora...

Sybil Jo and Elly Arrow discuss a Guardian opinion article by an anonymous 15-year-old girl reporting what she sees every day going on apps frequented by her peers, how boys her age talk about women and girls online and offline and what it means for the present and future of humanity. Sources: The article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media...

Elly Arrow and Savannah Severn discuss a new trend in soft porn and sexualized humiliation of women: Men secretly filming and photographing women on their night out - a documented phenomenon in the UK, Japan, and South Korea. These videos are then shared online and increasingly monetized amassing audiences of millions of men. It seems a global "My Life Is Not Your Porn" movement is sorel...

Merly Asbogard, Sybil Jo, and Elly Arrow return to the subject of substance use - joined by Caroline Pugh-Roberts and Izabella - this timeto discuss possible healing pathways, particularly for women and girls traumatized by men in commercial sexual exploitation. Caroline Pugh-Roberts on Facebook: ⁠ https://www.facebook.com/aliceded Izabella's organization "Talita": https://en.talita....

Andrea Heinz speaks with Tim Lennon, a clergy abuse survivor, author of Stand Up Speak Up, and a longtime leader within SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Together, they explore how patterns of institutional cover-up, denial, and protection of perpetrators within the Church echo the experiences of children and adults harmed in the commercial sexual exploitation industry, and how...

Elly Arrow and Sybil Jo discuss the increasing decriminalization of physician-assisted death and what it means for anyone who cares about traumatized, disabled and/or impoverished women and girls. They go over how concept of autonomy and even empowerment are used across the sexual and reproductive exploitation industries all the way to assisted death, and why these arguments fall flat for the vast...

Merly Asbogard, Sybil Jo and Elly Arrow turn again to the subject of drug use in the context of sexual exploitation, going over classes of drugs one by one, with a particular focus on the active role of pimps, sex buyers, drug dealers and other exploiters intentionally using substances and addiction to exert control over victims. Sources: "Cover Story: Power Trip" a podcast about drugs u...

Sybil Jo and Elly Arrow speak to Derrick Jensen, co-founder of Deep Green Resistance, about the parallels and connections between the exploitation and destruction of women and children’s lives, as well as the natural world at the hands of violent men, the trauma and disembodiment this violation imperative causes to victims and perpetrators, and how to remain kind to oneself and others in the face...

Merly Asbogard, Sybil Jo and Elly Arrow discuss the societal view of women in prostitution who drink or use drugs, common assumption as to why they consume and the invisibility of the myriad men profiting and consciously using alcohol and drugs to exploit. Due to technical problems during the livestream some parts have been cut.

Caroline Pugh Roberts joins Merly Åsbogård, Sybil Jo, and Savannah Severn in a conversation on the Epstein abuse syndicate, the way it functioned, how it mirrors the dynamics inherent to commercial sexual exploitation, its ripple effects now, and what it says about our society. Find Caroline Pugh Roberts on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aliceded

Sybil Jo and Elly Arrow will discuss Louis Theroux's recent "Manosphere" Netflix documentary about men who prey on male youth's insecurities and young women's economic vulnerability to often fashion themselves into modern-day influencer-pimps. Catch the next livestream live on Twitter, YouTube or Facebook at Thursday 18:00 UTC! Sources: Netflix documentary "Inside The Ma...

Elly Arrow speaks with Silvia, an anti-sexual exploitation activist from Germany, about the Pelicot case and how Dominique Pelicot and his co-perpetrators' behaviour is mirrored in the actions of pimps and johns and directly inspired by trends in online pornography and BDSM culture. They also go into the histories and take a critical look at the culture of France and Germany, respectively, to...

Sybil Jo and Elly Arrow discuss the increasing trend of female celebrities using strip clubs (and in one case, escort prostitution). Is this a way to signal status? To bond over the objectification of other women like men do? What if the celebrity is an actress researching for a movie role or if the woman is an ex-dancer herself? What does it mean for the rest of us when the (American) elite decla...

Elly Arrow speaks with Caitlin Roper about “nudify” apps, AI girlfriends, and the new culture of men and boys’ digitally facilitated sexual terror against potentially anyone female, from school girls to ex-girlfriends to feminist campaigners. They go into how these practices compare to what men have been doing to so-called “sex dolls” in the shape of women and girls for years, and the targeted dee...