Is There Such a Thing As Ethical Porn Consumption? (Heck Yes!)
Curious about how you can support sex workers, combat harmful stereotypes, and find porn platforms that prioritize ethical practices? Read on.
People have been producing and consuming erotic imagery since the Paleolithic era. So-- irresoluble debates about the subjective line between tastefulness and obscenity notwithstanding-- porn isn’t new. In the age of the internet, however, it seems like smut is everywhere. Depending on who you ask, the entire internet is basically porn— or maybe it’s actually more like 5%.
Regardless of how much online content is in fact X-rated, as the World Wide Web extends its all-pervading tentacles ever further into every aspect of our daily lives, it’s undeniable that pornography of any flavor is increasingly available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Gone are the days of having to don a trench coat, wig, and oversized sunglasses to slink past your nosy neighbor into the backroom at the local video rental shop to snag a selection of steamy VHS tapes for your long weekend of solo spelunking.
As the explosive growth of online space has facilitated instant, free, and anonymous access to X-rated material, porn has become simultaneously increasingly normalized and increasingly contentious.
Is internet porn a bit of harmless fun— the contemporary incarnation of an ageless form of human expression? Or is it, as some of its most vocal critics claim, an unprecedented scourge on society which promotes violence against women, corrupts tender children, wrecks marriages, and kills heteronormative procreative boners?
Given mainstream porn’s generally warped portrayal of sex and often murky production processes and labor practices--- is it possible to engage with this industry ethically?
Our perspective is that ethical porn consumption is absolutely possible, but it requires us to be intentional about the sites we’re engaging with and how we engage with them.
In the same way you might choose Free Trade coffee or chocolate in an attempt to avoid unintentionally fueling demand for child slave labor in the Global South, making sure you’re not inadvertently supporting harmful practices through your selection of sexy media requires a little bit of conscious thought.
Let's explore.
What is Ethical Porn?
The word "ethical" gets thrown around a lot when discussing various aspects of the adult entertainment industry. However, there’s no established consensus on what exactly makes porn ethical.
In our view, porn can be considered ethical (or not) based on two factors: how it was made, and the content of the porn itself.
To the first point, sex workers deserve to be safe, respected, and well-paid for their labor. Therefore, for porn to be ethical it must be produced in a safe environment where everyone is of age, consenting, and happy to participate. Also, as in any other business, everyone involved in all aspects of its production must be compensated fairly.
Ethical porn, in other words, centers workers' rights.
As sex educator Evie Plum explains, in ethical porn, “[t]he performers’ pay, safety, and treatment is put first and is fair. Consent, sexual health, and credit are paramount.”
Dr. David Ley, certified sex therapist and author of Ethical Porn for Dicks, A Man’s Guide to Responsible Viewing, provides the following perspective:
“Ethical porn is a media where the performers are paid a fair wage for their work, treated with dignity and respect, not expected to engage in acts against their will, and where sexuality is recognized as a diverse, individual experience.”
This brings us to the second, more hotly debated element of ethical porn: the content.
For many feminists, porn that caters to the male gaze is inherently problematic. Further, it’s been frequently argued that mainstream porn may perpetuate harmful stereotypes about marginalized groups, create unrealistic expectations around bodies and sexual performance, and negatively impact viewers' ideas about consent, pleasure, and intimacy.
Many ethical porn sites are therefore founded on the principle of rejecting the male gaze by centering a diverse set of bodies and inclusive narratives that work towards dismantling the harmful myths and stereotypes that may be propagated by mainstream porn.
How Can We Recognize Ethical Porn When We See it?
In order to make sure the content you’re consuming, or considering consuming, is ethical, consider the following hallmarks of ethical porn:
· Fair wages and healthy working conditions for the cast and crew.
· Avoids proliferating harmful stereotypes.
· Inclusive (body size, age, ethnicity, etc.).
· Sex workers are performing scenes they enjoy; they have input on the script, their partners, etc.
· It’s real and relatable; a range of safer sex practices is incorporated.
· There’s transparency about the process of verifying age and consent of performers.
· If the site focuses on submissions from the public, there’s a transparent vetting process.
Supporting Sex Workers: How Your Consumer Behavior Can Amplify Ethical Porn Practices
Let’s be very clear about something. People who perform in porn are sex workers. If you’re consuming porn, and want to do so ethically, you should be asking yourself, “how can I support sex workers?”
The first and most obvious answer to that question is that you should be paying for your porn.
“Free” content can be pirated or stolen, and there are a lot of questions about extremely important issues--- such as consent--- that have been raised about content on many of the major free sites.
The bottom line? If porn is available for free on the internet, you simply can’t be sure it was produced ethically. And, even if it was produced ethically, it’s hard to know if it’s been made available for free with the consent of the people who originally produced it.
So, we can support sex workers by being informed consumers and making sure that our money goes to sites that operate in a way that reflects our values.
Here are some examples of ethical porn sites:
Of course, we’d be remiss not to mention OnlyFans. OnlyFans has revolutionized the way adult content creators interact with their audience by allowing them to define their own boundaries and monetize their own content on their own terms. Check it out, and remember to tip generously!
But--- hear us out.
The fact is, being an ethical consumer of porn goes far beyond just paying for your content and being a good tipper. With great porn comes great responsibility.
Say you’re paying for, and enjoying, ethically produced porn. We salute you! We now invite you to ask yourself, “what else am I doing to support sex workers?”
Are you working to decriminalize and destigmatize sex work? Are you creating, through your actions, a world in which it’s safe for your friends to tell you they engage in sex work?
By considering these questions, we can spark real conversations about what it means to make ethical porn more accessible and widespread and address the systemic issues that stand in the way of a Sex Positive Utopia.
Beyond how we vote with our dollars, it’s essential to fight for the rights of sex workers and create an adult entertainment industry—and a broader society-- that respects the safety and autonomy of all its members.
These conversations can be fraught. Since sex workers are particularly vulnerable to certain harms and forms of exploitation, some people, including some feminists, believe that sex work should be prohibited. It’s our perspective that no labor under capitalism is ever free from exploitation and that we should continue to make the world safer for sex workers and everyone else by advocating for ethical labor practices and fair treatment across all industries.
Be the Orgasmic Change
Ultimately, porn is a reflection of the larger society whence it emerges. There is both very ugly, and very beautiful stuff out there. We live in a white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist world order, and much mainstream pornography symbolically reinforces the uneven power relations that both undergird and permeate this global culture.
However, with the rise in accessible, alternative, ethical porn, it's both our privilege and our responsibility as viewers to make sure we're supporting sites and creators who embody our values.
Be the orgasmic change! Bring about the seismic shift! Give thanks for sex workers! Fight for their rights! And consume porn that looks like the kind of world you want to live in.
Are you a sex worker living in Massachusetts and seeking therapy? Reach out! We would love to hear from you!
Sarah Chotkowski, LICSW | Kink-Aware Therapist in Massachusetts
Based in Western Massachusetts, Sarah is a therapist who specializes in treating patients from erotically marginalized communities. She is queer, LGBTQIA+ affirming, kink-aware, pleasure-positive, and passionate about working with people who practice Ethical Non-Monogamy/Polyamory and folks who have been or are involved in sex work.
