In the internet era, porn has a massive influence on how overarching ideas of what sex is or should be like are being shaped.
Porn is so ubiquitous online that anyone growing up with internet access will likely chance upon porn, whether deliberately or inadvertently, by the time they are ten to twelve years old, if not earlier. And in the absence of comprehensive sex education in schools, as well as a reluctance to share information about sex at home, whether we like it or not, porn is, no doubt, currently serving as the stand-in.
India is one of the world’s largest consumers of internet porn. And while the stereotype is that only men watch porn, women watch porn too. In fact, according to data from Porn Hub, at least a quarter of India’s users are women.
Is porn good or bad? Helpful or harmful?
On the one hand, porn provides the viewer with an experience of arousal (or pleasure minus any possibility of infection, accidental pregnancy, or even rejection. Porn certainly has the potential to be a healthy and helpful outlet for our sexual needs and curiosities.
Watching porn can help people feel more comfortable with their sexuality when they see their desires normalized and validated. There are studies that indicate that when porn is watched by couples together, it is often correlated with increased sexual satisfaction and higher levels of intimacy. It can also improve your communication with your partner around sex—like ‘ooh, let’s try that!’ or ‘woah! I would not be comfortable doing that!’
But despite some of these benefits, many free porn sites can also be extremely problematic. There’s often a lot of ambiguity when it comes to consent—and surely, as a viewer, you do not want to be supporting or participating in the violation of someone’s consent. Can you be sure that the act was consensual? Was it consensually filmed? Was the clip consensually shared on the internet?
Also, even when it’s a professionally shot clip made by a big studio, where consent has been explicitly given by the actors, the stereotypical ‘porn star’ aesthetic and imagery remain very much created by and for the straight white male gaze, much like the dominant aesthetic of movies, magazines, music videos and most forms of mainstream international pop culture over the last many decades. The misogyny and violence, the hyper[1]idealized body types (big dick, big boobs, no body hair), the fetishization of certain races, ages and identities—all of this can exacerbate body-image issues, reiterate regressive gender roles and stereotypes, and provide a very narrow and often unrealistic purview of sex and desire.
You see this even in the way that clips are titled and categorized on mainstream porn sites—it all too often takes the focus away from people experiencing pleasure and reduces them to their gender, size, age, race or body type, phrased in ever-more shocking, violent, ‘clickable’ ways.
So, how can we shape our relationship with internet porn to ensure that if we do watch it, it influences healthier, more positive sexual experiences, instead of gender-unequal and violent ones?
Several indie adult filmmakers—many of whom are women and queer folk—are already trying to provide a solution to that conundrum by creating ‘ethical’ porn.
What is ethical porn?
It’s porn that seeks to mitigate many of the issues with mainstream porn. There’s a focus on consent, on more gender-equal and diverse representations of sexuality and pleasure, and on safer sexual practices. Diversity is represented respectfully and authentically rather than in crude, disrespectful ways that reiterate damaging societal prejudices and stereotypes.
The vision is also to create a safe and professional work environment for performers—all performers are necessarily 18+, their health and rights are protected, they’re paid equitably, they have a say in who they want to work with and what scenes they are comfortable carrying out.
Ethical porn seeks to produce porn ethically, as well as to portray sex as an emotionally and physically nuanced experience of pleasure, intimacy and discovery, for people of all genders and sexual orientations.
If you enjoy watching porn, learn which production companies are driven by ethics. Look for ethical porn and watch only porn that you know is ethical. And understand that for porn to be made professionally and ethically, actors and filmmakers need to get paid equitably. Pay for ethical porn just the same way you’d pay for any other product you enjoy consuming ethically.
If you’re wondering where to watch ethical porn, SexSchoolHub.com, and MakeLoveNotPorn.tv are two great places to start. Erika Lust’s Xconfessions.com is also fun—here people from all over the world submit descriptions of their sexual fantasies anonymously, and these are turned into erotic short films each month.
There are also several other sites that feature only ethical porn. Once you start looking for it, it’s not that hard to find. So, if you do like to watch porn, think about what you choose to watch. Stop watching porn that might be non-consensually or exploitatively made. There’s better porn out there already—you just have to make the right choice.
If you’d like to think more critically about porn, its history and its place in our lives, particularly in the Indian context, Peppy highly recommend reading Cyber Sexy: Rethinking Pornography by Richa Kaul Padte.
