by Calico Rudasil at Sssh.com Porn For Women
“Is there such a thing as ethical porn?” asks the headline to an article on The Guardian penned by Zoe Williams.
“Oh great,” I thought when I spotted the headline, “another article about how ‘ethics’ and ‘porn’ are fundamentally inconsistent with each other.”
Imagine my surprise then, when what I read wasn’t hopelessly slanted against the notion of “ethical porn”, and wasn’t a scathing indictment of everything the adult industry has ever done! I almost can’t believe these words as I type them, but the article actually seems to be objective, which is a sadly rare thing in journalism of any kind these days, and all the more rare when the subject is porn.
Perhaps most impressive, Williams clearly listened to the people she interviewed as they emphasized a couple things about ethical porn, items I really hope people take note of. First, to be “ethical”, porn does not necessarily need to be “feminist,” as well; and second, ethical porn needn’t be gentle or timid in terms of how it depicts sex, or in its choice of sex acts depicted.
Pandora Blake, the operator of DreamsOfSpanking.com, represents herself and her profession very well in the article, particularly so when she explains why porn doesn’t have to be feminist in order to be ethical.
“Feminist porn is explicitly focused on women’s desires and sexuality. So, for example, the belt-whipping scene where I got the life thrashed out of me, that I would say is feminist, because it’s about my journey and my sexuality,” Blake explains, adding she thinks it possible to “produce male-gaze porn in an ethical and fair trade way,” as well.
“That means complete respect for performers, for their boundaries and consent,” Blake says of the true meaning of the term ‘ethical porn’.
“If someone says no, you don’t ask again, you don’t ask last minute in the middle of a scene,” Blake adds. “You don’t trick them into doing stuff. You pay them. It’s not only all of those principles, but also communicating that to your audience.”
For her part, Zoe Williams seems to get it when it comes to the fundamental appeal of ethical porn, summarizing it thusly: “This is the sophistication of ethical porn: without exploiting or harming the participants, it allows you to explore what you’re into. You have a right not to be ashamed.”
Yes, that’s it in a nutshell: Ethical porn is porn you can watch without having to wonder if any of the various horrible porn industry stereotypes they’ve heard (you know, the performers are all on drugs, have daddy issues, and come from broken homes, an obese, wealthy and overly-hairy producer eats their livers with a side of fries when the shoot is over, etc.) are true of the porn on your screen at that moment.
As Nina Hartley observes in article, people who are suffering from sexual guilt or shame need someone to tell them it’s OK. “Their suffering is as real as a broken leg, it’s as real as cancer,” Hartley explains.
“They need someone who can tend to them. Who will say, ‘Your sexual desires don’t disgust me, they don’t freak me out.’”
For those wondering what “purpose” porn serves (other than the obvious one of being inspiration for masturbation), this article answers your question.
Porn is here to say “Your fantasies are OK” when nobody and nothing else is going to say it. Granted, some of those fantasies, were you to act them out in real life, would not be “OK,” whether that means under the law, or in the eyes of the people who might be the objects of your fantasy, but that’s true of other types of fantasies, as well.
Do we freak out every time a revenge fantasy movie like Taken comes out? Do we rush to Congress and tell them that such films should be banned, because they encourage people toward unbridled vigilantism? No, we just line up to buy tickets for the silly thing, and maybe snicker a bit about the idea of Liam Neeson being a total badass, gun-toting, neck-breaking, ex-CIA motherfucker in the mold of Steven Seagal.
(OK, we might freak out a little when Taken 12: Taken Yet Again comes out, because for Christ’s sake, why do this guy’s family members keep getting taken hostage by Albanians who speak heavily-accented-yet-fluent English? But that’s another kind of complaint, altogether….)
What’s my point?
For some reason, while we’re all willing to give the makers of Taken the benefit of the doubt and assume that nothing fundamentally unethical went into the making of their film, despite its fantasy plot involving quite a bit of unethical activity, like kidnapping, murder, human trafficking and Liam Neeson-groping, to name a few, for some reason, we’re not willing to give a similar benefit of the doubt to the people who make Her First In-Church Interracial Gangbang Vol. 7.
Maybe ethical porn can change that equation. Maybe, someday, the porn industry really will be seen as just another entertainment sector.
We’re probably still a long way from that day at the moment, but if Zoe Williams’ article is any indication, there’s definitely change in the air, and it is ethical porn that’s driving the change. Whether word of ethical porn’s arrival is found on a porn site or a mainstream one, it’s finally some good news for the future of porn.
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[…] on ethical porn (on which more later, but meanwhile you can read my first impressions here). Erotic Scribes: “Porn is here to say ‘Your fantasies are OK’ when nobody and nothing else is […]