Why this year's Louis Theroux is hitting harder than before.

Like he is to every British person my age, Louis Theroux is a God. His frank treatment of taboo subjects entices us all and reveals the darkest corners of this earth from the comfort of our sofas. But, for the first time it has hit too hard, and I had to stop Louis Theroux's Dark States episode half way through. 

The second episode in his Dark States series was extremely difficult to watch, although some people might say the same about the first. Louis's documentary's have always been honest about the culture he investigates, but does anyone else feel like this time its even more revealing? The first episode we saw heroin's non-discriminatory way of capturing anyone and everyone, while last weeks focused on prostitution, referring to it as the brutal truth of sex trafficking in the U.S. Now I don't know about you, but trafficking is not a word I associate with the sex trade in America, and perhaps that was naive of me. I saw the term trafficking as the loading of young girls into a van and taken across borders to be sold (can you tell I watch Silent Witness), rather than what is revealed in Louis Theroux's episode on the subject. But I was wrong, trafficking happens even in a country we class to be developed. First world my arse, to be honest. 

When I discussed this with my sister afterwards she reminded me that prostitution, and the trafficking of sex, is one of the oldest professions, and so it will probably always be a thing. But what I didn't realise before watching the doc, was the extent to which simplistic misogyny remains at the heart of the problem. In an economically unstable society riddled with drugs, seeking the stability of a pimp and a profession such as prostitution can be explained. However, Theroux interviews a pimp who is now behind bars. This guy's response to why it still happens is that 'some women are just hoes'. Some women are just hoes. He then goes on to equate a woman's decision to sell herself for money to a man deciding he wants to be a race car driver. Let that just sink in for a minute. 

This short interview with this weedy, pathetic man behind bars reminds us that, at the heart of it, this still all comes down to gender hierarchy, and the ancient notion that men should and can control women. Sure a woman wanting to shag for money is the same as a man wanting to control an expensive vehicle. And at this point I stopped the episode for fear of throwing my laptop at the next man I see. Theroux enlightens to us here that in fact it's not drugs, or class or money that is the issue but the good old patriarchy. And whilst some people may say, well duh, this pimp's interview hit me hard because if a man behind bars for what he has done maintains that it is just because women are hoes (thus denying most of his own responsibility and blaming women for his imprisonment) then how the hell do we have a hope of changing anyone's opinion in the outside world? It's a testament to how entrenched this notion is, and it felt pretty hopeless. As always, I'm glad Louis Theroux has been honest and fantastic at his job, I just wanted to rant about how sad it is, and how it makes you wonder whether America, or the UK, deserves to be called developed at all. 

Picture source http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099wspk