I feel that I should preface this article with a disclaimer.
The overarching argument of this paper is porn and sex-positive, so no need to jump to any conclusions or revulsions in the introduction. At the same time, I hope that disclaimer doesn’t turn you away either. Sex and pornography are an ever-present force within nature and society, so I think it’s necessary that we take time to analyze their presence and effects on us. Also, I stated in my last article that I would be addressing the issues of ego, but I’m going to take a little more time for research in order to coherently expand on that beast of a paper…now, on to the porn talk!
The beginning of the end commenced around 1990 when a teen in Brussels discovered he could profit greatly from providing free pornography to anyone with internet access. This was the end of the booming pornography production business in the San Fernando Valley and the beginning of a monopolizing tech company that now rules the porn industry.
Fabian Thylmann, the 17-year-old from Brussels, became an expert in computer programming and from there decided to buy out adult websites and production companies to create what is now known as MindGeek, an adult website conglomerate that includes Pornhub, Redtube, and YouPorn. These sites became the Youtube for pornography.
In other words, people could pirate or upload anything to the site for viewers to watch. This mass availability of free pornography poses threats not only to viewers but to the entire industry as well. The lack of money coming from consumers intensely affects real, respectable production companies and performers in this industry leaving them with little financial support. Meanwhile, discreditable, free websites like Pornhub.com profit immensely off of endless uploads, ads, and piracy.
If consumers paid legitimate production companies for pornography, industry workers could be justly compensated, would be able to create more diverse and representational videos, and ultimately protect viewers (minors specifically ) from being exposed to degrading and conditioning content.
Pornhub.com is the epitome of the many free adult websites included under MindGeek’s wing. It’s run primarily by tech-savvy people (males) who work in an environment you’d expect to see in any other office building. Cubicles, desks, no indication that the service they’re providing is pornography.
This also means most, if not all, of these men, have never stepped foot on a film set. They are completely disconnected because their sole initiative is algorithms. They create algorithms for the sites to optimize the search engine, handle advertisements, organize content, etc. It’s a tech company, they just happen to provide pornography.
The conglomerate’s rise to power has an obvious explanation. These sites provide endless free content. Statistics and common sense blatantly show that people like pornography and they like free stuff. 1/3 of all internet traffic is estimated to be pornography. Every 4th search request is someone googling for porn (Chen, 2010). People aren’t willing to pay for many reasons, but the main one nowadays is that they don’t have to. If donuts were free, would you go out of your way to pay for it? Probably not.
Out of the tens of billions of people viewing porn last year, about 3% visited a paid site. This portion of this industry, the real production companies that create quality films that viewers can pay to watch, is dying. On top of already low budgets, free sites have the ability to pirate content from the paid sites. Not much attention is given to this issue because pirated pornography isn’t the main concern any government official or politician.
People benefit without having to pay and that appears to be very welcoming to all. Unfortunately, this is robbery and destructive to people’s entire livelihood. Our capitalistic society depends on people paying for services. You want something, you buy it, it’s now yours to benefit off of. Everyone with a job depends on the fact that other people benefit, in some way, off of what they do. That’s how and why people get paid for doing a job. It should be no different with porn because the producers and performers are providing a service that a massive portion of our population benefits off of.
Someone might make the argument that it’s a service that is disreputable and therefore doesn’t deserve support from the public. The thing is, sex is an inevitable element of life and when 68 million people search to look at it every day, it’s apparent that people support it enough to use it. The workers putting in time and effort, therefore, deserve to be compensated for their productions. These people can’t achieve this if their work is reproduced on free sites and millions of people support these discreditable sites.
At first glance, the immediate assumption about pornography is the sexual context because that’s what it is, sex. That’s not all it is though. It’s a discourse on representation and a very powerful one at that. Pornography is a discourse about masculinity, femininity, and everything in between as well as the treatment of those involved. It reaches out to everyone from 11-year-old girls to 60-year-old men because anyone with internet has access.
However, the ones controlling the message of this conversation are the men in charge of sites like Pornhub. The ads, the top rated videos, anywhere on these sites you’re faced with the trends of men punish-f*cking women, pedophilia, derogatory labels of women, the list goes on. This is today’s leading representation of sex, and the main lesson being taught is objectification and belittlement of women and glorification of (abusive) men.
Women in these mainstream videos are there simply to fulfill the man’s desires. The message being displayed to those watching is one-dimensional because it’s heavily coming from a male perspective and a narrow one at that. It’s normalizing violence against women, represents a very limited variety of bodies, races, characterizations, etc., and often places male desire and pleasure above female.
All of these messages are conditioning the viewers that this is normal and/or right because it’s what is seen time and time again. In life, sex is (should be) about both involved, it includes all types of people, and requires respect. A lack of representation and respect of women leaves viewers learning that women need to look a certain way and can be treated in harmful ways. The mass support of free sites fuels these degrading messages, while companies that want to create respectful, creative, high-quality content struggle because they don’t have the budget.
Alongside representation is education, and the lesson isn’t just for those participating in sex. Children are watching porn before they have even had sex because it is a single click away. That’s an 11-year-old boy learning he can abuse women when he wants to be intimate with them. Or, an 11-year-old girl learning she has to endure violence when it comes to sex. What we see repeatedly conditions our minds to believe it is normal.
This is exacerbated with children because they don’t explicitly know that it’s not okay; they have little context to believe otherwise. So, they accept what they see when it comes to bodies, race, language, and actions. If millions of people viewing porn are consistently confronted with the sexual mistreatment of women, this tendency will continue and/or worsen throughout our society.
Sites that require payment are of little interest to children and if these sites were the driving force, there would be much less exposure to what free sites provide.
If viewers were willing to pay for pornography, quality would be able to go up and instant access would go down. The production companies that want to put time, effort, and legitimate thought into their work would be able to create this exposure with passionate, respectful films, and those involved would be paid fairly. As Erika Lust, a female erotic film producer, puts it: “It’s time for porn to change.”So, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying porn should go away, or even that free sites should disappear completely because sexual repression is not the answer. Exposure to something so natural to humans is necessary, but the overarching message and those in charge of it need to change. The only way to do that is to support the creators with an inclusive and respectful vision.
