Can Porn Be Ethical?

There are enough stigmas and misconceptions about porn to write entire books. There arguably might be more stigma around porn than there is around sex itself. Sex work has been a topic of debate for years, but it is still an industry that has ethical and unethical practices. Just as media and sex are complex, so is porn. It’s truly impossible to stereotype an entire category of entertainment. Instead of generalizing the porn industry, it’s important to evaluate the way that companies approach adult content and how we, as consumers, utilize it in our lives.

What Porn Is and What It Isn’t

Porn is entertainment, plain and simple. It is not inherently created to be educational or even accurate. But it can influence the ways we perceive and develop expectations around sex. Think of it like the plot and characters in a movie. We know that the chances of our lives playing out like Rocky or Apollo are slim, but elements of those movies stay with us, whether we know it or not. That’s the point of entertainment and media. Porn is similar. Porn is often a scripted performance done by actors that shows sex in a manufactured way. It rarely shows the behind-the-scenes consent, boundaries conversations, or agreements around protection, and at the end of the day, it’s someone’s job.

Porn is an awesome tool for individuals and couples, but it’s not a guide to sex in the real world. These are professionals – their jobs are to last longer, moan louder, get into more flexible positions, appear to orgasm harder, and have less “awkwardness” than you might experience. So, whether you decide to watch porn or not, remember to use it as entertainment and not as a gauge of your own sex life.

Can Porn be Ethical?

In recent years, there’s been an uptick in conversations around porn. However, it’s important to note that the advocacy and demand for ethical practices by sex workers started long before the increase in public awareness of it. The more we acknowledge that sex work is real work and support sex workers in the way they want to be supported, the better. 

But the question remains if porn can be ethical in the first place. The short answer is — yes. Nearly anything can be done in an ethical or unethical way and that includes business and politics. It’s about the way in which things are done that makes a difference. Here are some of the key components that make up ethical porn and where you can access it for yourself. 

Watching People Who Want To Be Watched

Although there are plenty of people who choose sex work as their career for any number of reasons (schedule flexibility, autonomy, money, enjoyment), there are people who have been forced into sex work. The key difference here is that those forced into doing sex work are not sex workers. Similarly, porn that involves people who were forced to film it, is not porn. It’s just as important to advocate for the rights of sex workers as it is to advocate for the protection of those forced into it. Ethical porn only includes performers who are there without manipulation, force, or threat. Sex work is real work, and we should watch people who are choosing it as their work. It can be challenging if not impossible to tell who did or didn’t want to be there solely based on watching a video itself.

Paying People What They Are Worth

One of the biggest aspects of ethical porn is ensuring all participants, but especially the performers, are paid fair and living wages. Sex work is a career for a lot of people, and they deserve to be paid what they are worth. Sometimes performers can set their own rates, sometimes they accept or decline scenes depending on the proposed rate, and sometimes they have a manager who coordinates on their behalf. Although we can’t often see how much a performer made from a scene before we watch it for ourselves, there are a few indicators that can help differentiate between a video that paid fair wages or not. 

The best way is always to go right to the source. Sites like OnlyFans help ensure that the performer will get a majority or all of the money. You can also explore or subscribe to sites that explicitly detail their commitment to paying fair wages – we included a list of those sites at the end.

Although there may be videos that were filmed ethically on platforms like PornHub, anyone can upload videos there, so it’s impossible to know if unethical practices were happening off or even on camera. You get what you pay for. Even if some sites offer free ethical videos, to ensure people are getting paid, you must pay.

Seeing Real People

Have you noticed that most readily available porn videos are of white, able-bodied, cis-gender, thin, heterosexual couples? Ethical porn ensures greater diversity than what’s typical. It is constantly working towards the goal of showcasing performers from a variety of identities so that anyone watching may be able to see their own identity represented. This is also vitally important because there are endless stigmas around the identities of people and how those identities relate to their sex lives. All people and identities are equally as important — specifically when they are embodying their own pleasure and sexuality. This leads us to our next point.

Pleasure is Centered

Although porn is work, that doesn’t mean that pleasure exits the room. Performers should be able to choose and participate in what they find pleasurable. Conversations about boundaries, fantasies, what people like, and freedom to explore should happen before any scene. We don’t often get to see those conversations as viewers, but there are companies and performers trying to change that. @erstiesofficial on Instagram and TikTok does a phenomenal job of showing what their discussions look like before any scene. Their director, Karyn Hunt, is often shown leading these conversations with those who will be participating that day. She goes through the details of the scene and then asks each of the performers to engage in dialogue about what each of them enjoys, wants to try, have as off-limits, the ways they like to be touched, and more. Bellesa House usually records interviews with performers before starting a scene. These interviews cover anything from why they wanted to work with the other performer(s), how they got started in porn, what they like, and more.

Consent is Key

Just as in everyday sex, consent is 100% a necessity in porn. Just because someone is a sex worker does not mean that everything is on the table. They are entitled to their own boundaries and working preferences. Consent also has to do with comfortability. Performers should feel comfortable stopping a scene, having a safe word, pausing for water or a bathroom break, or shifting positions. Consent is a shared responsibility of everyone involved in shooting a scene. It is not only up to the performers, but the directors, producers, and assistants to create a culture of consent. Consent also encompasses where and how content is shared. Anything filmed should only be distributed in the ways that a contract or agreement states. Just because a performer filmed a scene, that doesn’t mean they want it posted across various sites. Consent extends from the beginning to the end of anything that goes into creating and producing a scene.

All Sex is Good Sex

Porn is a great way to explore fantasies. It can be used as a tool to see something your partner suggested trying, learn about your own interests, and destigmatize turn on’s that people have. Many porn sites focus on specific genres, such as Kink.com, but the key is that ethical porn should never stigmatize a type of sex. Just as we want porn that is filmed for all gazes and pleasure, we also want to have porn that showcases a wide variety of sex. If there is something you’re interested in, there’s probably content that appeals to you. Ethical porn celebrates the sexual liberation, freedom, and pleasure of all kinds of sex. The sex that you are or want to be having is good and normal, and if you are consuming porn that is similar to that, it should make you feel that way too.

Transparent Practices

We should be holding companies accountable for being transparent. Don’t shy away from sending a company a DM on Instagram to ask about their practices or better yet, use the list below to find companies that we already know produce ethical porn.

How Performers are Treated

A lot of the points we’ve discussed ultimately point to the working conditions and treatment of those making porn videos. There should be processes in place that keep the performers safe, including, but not limited to: regular STI testing, birth control methods and protection, freedom to have autonomy in a scene, and reasonable working.

There are many other industries where we advocate for quality working conditions, inclusion in marketing, anti-fatphobic and anti-racist practices, and more. We support these practices through consumption practices. We can be doing the same thing with the porn industry. First, it’s vitally important that we recognize the legitimacy of sex work as work. Then we can support companies that are committed to producing ethical porn.

Ethical Porn Sites

• Bellesa House
• Afterglow
• Lust Cinema
• Make Love, Not Porn
• Spit
• Joybear
• Lustery
• Pink Label TV
• Kink.com
• Bright Desire
• Crashpad Series
• Royal Fetish Films
• Dipsea
• Emjoy
• Quinn
• &Jane