What we talk about when we talk about “ethical porn,” and if we should even be talking about it at all
This is the third and final installment in a three-part series on ethical porn consumption in the aftermath of last month’s Pornhub controversy. Previously, industry professionals shared their insight on the best ways to pay for porn, and how to tell if the porn you’re watching was ethically produced. In this final segment, performers from various industry backgrounds address the biggest misconceptions surrounding society’s understanding of ethical porn, including who should be having those conversations in the first place and whether or not so-called “ethics” is something people outside of the industry have a right to police.
InsideHook: What do you see as the most common, or biggest, misunderstandings about what it means to be an ethical porn consumer? What do you want to make sure viewers understand?
Kate Kennedy: I don’t think most people think much about ethical porn consumption to begin with. Even the staunchest social justice warriors I know look at Pornhub for free. It just doesn’t cross their minds to think about the implications of what porn they’re getting and how.
[People also get hung up on the idea that porn is only ethical if performers feel great about every piece of content they’ve made.] Every performer in every realm of entertainment has at least one performance they didn’t feel great about. Porn performers sometimes take scenes they might not otherwise be super horny for personally because, at the end of the day, this is a job. Everybody goes to work on days when they’d rather do something else. Within the context of capitalism, equating ethics with willingness to perform a given task for an agreed upon rate is nonsense. If you want to see me, as a person, getting off exactly how I please, then enjoy some footage of me emotionlessly masturbating with my Hitachi with the occasional groan.