Let’s be honest, at some point in our lives, we have tried to learn what real sex looks like.
When searching for pornography online you may be using keywords like “lesbian”, “MILF”, “step mum” or “cartoon”, but are you checking for signs what you are watching is ethically produced?
They are, by the way, some of the most common search terms, according to 2015 PornHub data.
According to those in the industry, ethical porn is not likely to be the first thing you’ll find and probably isn’t free.
Ethical porn can be defined as that which is made legally, respects the rights of performers, has good working conditions, shows both fantasy and real-world sex, and celebrates sexual diversity — just to name a few.
It is an accepted belief that abuse against women is a major problem in the porn industry. Adult film stars including Jenna Jameson have shared their horror stories, but research on the issue is limited.
What are the ethics of watching porn? While we speak openly about whether certain clothing lines support slave labor, if we’re morally obligated to buy cage-free eggs, and whether pirating Taylor Swift’s latest album (hey, it’s no longer on Spotify) makes us bad people, we shy away from discussion of the ethical consumption of porn.
In part, that’s because a vocal contingent maintains that the most ethical consumption of porn is the consumption of no porn at all, while others believe it means no consumption of porn that hasn’t loudly been declared to be of the “feminist” variety.
After all, that woman can’t actually want to be doing that sex act, can she? Those hapless 18-year-olds must have been lured into the business under false pretences, right?
Web 2.0 was viewed as a chance for more engagement, and its acceptance of user-generated material was lauded for its democratizing potential. Since Web 2.0, the internet porn sector has seen the rise of autonomous pornographers and alternative pornographies, which resulted in talking about a monolithic porn industry harder than ever.
It’s more difficult than ever to talk about a monopolistic porn business. Marginalized groups were involved in the creation of pornographic storylines and aesthetics with the goal of achieving honest, respectful, and powerful depictions of women and queer people working in a traditionally male-dominated industry.
Moreover, the rise of alternative economies challenged the capitalist mode of production and the distribution of pornography.
In this context, there emerged a new take on labor and pornography. The new view centered
on revealing hidden labor conditions and consent in the production process. Thereby giving
birth to a conception of ethically produced pornography.
More and more, workers of the porn industry called for consumers to pay for their porn to ensure the industry workers’ labor rights are granted and to combat piracy and stealing.
Because ethical porn is a relatively new idea, different actors interpret and problematize it differently. Within academics, it was identified as an alternative economy, namely the fair-trade economy, which thrived throughout the Web 2.0 period or as a component of feminist pornography.
Whereas proponents of ethical porn say that it exists outside of genres. In addition to the mismatch between academic knowledge and the conceptualizations of the porn business, there is a dearth of organized knowledge based on actual data on the ethical porn scene.
In any case, in a world where mainstream porn objectifies and views the bodies of women through the male gaze, ethical porn allows for a lot more. Ethical porn allows for the centering of alternate discourses and experiences. In a climate where discourses around comprehensive sex education continue to still be shunned, in school systems and other spaces, porn becomes the learning ground for sex.
Ethical porn when sought then allows for affirming body positivity, that all bodies-fat, disabled, brown, and more are entirely capable of pleasure. That pleasure does not mean stimulating specific parts of the body but that the entire body is home for pleasure. When women, brown, black, disabled, fat, queer, and trans bodies are seen as having pleasure, pleasure takes on new and liberating meanings.
When kink is shown with the care and nuance that it really deserves then the discourse is richer and more telling of the joy present in a variety of different ways one may experience a pleasure. One must discern though that this is still a frame, the frame of pleasure as pleasure and ways to offer and experience it and that it may not capture fully the lived experiences of people and how they experience a pleasure.
For instance, the experience of people on the asexual spectrum does not get captured via pornography. Sex and pleasure are intimately associated with our emotions and connections with people. It is intricately connected with how we understand people and what space people make for us in their lives and our own. It also is intricately connected to how we understand ourselves.