Ethical porn — does it exist and who makes it?

By Kellie Scott.

When searching for pornography online you may be using keywords like “lesbian”, “MILF”, “step mum” or “cartoon”, but are you checking for signs what you are watching is ethically produced?

They are, by the way, some of the most common search terms, according to 2015 Porn Hub data.

According to those in the industry, ethical porn is not likely to be the first thing you’ll find, and probably isn’t free.

Ethical porn can be defined as that which is made legally, respects the rights of performers, has good working conditions, shows both fantasy and real-world sex and celebrates sexual diversity — just to name a few.

It is an accepted belief that abuse against women is a major problem in the porn industry. Adult film stars including Jenna Jameson have shared their horror stories, but research on the issue is limited.

Bright Desire, a Queensland-based pornography company started by a former librarian, promotes itself as feminist porn which is ethically produced.

The husband-and-wife team say they pay real couples and “f*** buddies” to be filmed engaging in sexual acts of their choice.

“I make feminist, female-perspective porn. It’s main intended audience is straight women, but I also have a strong male audience,” Ms Naughty, choosing to maintain her anonymity, says.

The documentary-style clips contain a mix of categories including BDSM and vanilla sex.

“It’s an attempt to capture more realistic expressions of sexuality,” Ms Naughty says.

Ms Naughty was inspired to create feminist porn after finding the bulk of what was available to her as a viewer “sexist and negative”.

“I didn’t like that female performers were called sluts and whores … on top of the other issues with ethics like not showing negotiation.

“Mainstream porn is primarily for a male audience and has a very narrow idea of what sex looks like.”

She says feedback from her male viewers is usually relief to see porn that is respectful to women and shows real people with natural breasts and cellulite, for example.

People want content that reflects their sex lives: porn actress

Australian adult film actress Lucie Bee has worked with Ms Naughty during her career and says demands for porn are changing.

“People are seeking content that not only caters to their fantasies, but also better reflects their sex lives or what they’d like their sex lives to look like,” Bee says.

“It’d be naive of me to say that the mainstream porn of the past hasn’t given people bad habits, so I think the fact that we’re creating stuff that reflects more the joy and intimacy I’d like to see people enjoying, is working towards correcting some of that.”

Bee says in the early days of her career she “tried everything”, but now only shoots content she personally enjoys.

“It’s important to me now to be aware of the impact of what I’m shooting could have on the fan base.”

Accessibility to positive content can however be an issue.

“It’s a source of constant frustration that Google forever gives the free sites priority,” Ms Naughty says.

“If a consumer doesn’t give a damn, are looking to jerk off to the first thing they find, they may think there is [no alternative] out there.

“For someone like me it can be hard to get the message out. We are competing against a massive amount of free content that is often pirated — you don’t know who made it and how it was made.”

Bee says porn users’ habits often prevent them from finding ethical porn.

“People are very used to have porn on tap via tube sites [which] often have content donated to them by companies or have content that’s been stolen and uploaded by users,” she says.

“People are very used to paying for certain products and entertainment and porn, unfortunately, is not one of them.”

Ethical porn ‘just a selling point’

Not everybody is buying into the idea of “unproblematic” porn.

RMIT research fellow Meagan Tyler is writing a book on the ethics of commercial sex and says there are questions around whether or not an industry which fundamentally trades in the sexual objectification of women can ever be ethical.

“The claims about ethical porn, at this point in time, are more industry propaganda than anything else, and are — what would elsewhere be rightly recognised as — corporate whitewashing,” Dr Tyler says.

“It’s a selling point, like a lot of ‘amateur porn’, most of which is not amateur at all.

“It’s for a small segment of consumers who would like to think that their pornography consumption is unproblematic and they would like to think that what they are doing is totally different from what others are doing when, in reality, it all feeds the same commercial sex industry.”

She points out that the industry is difficult to regulate, so even if content was in theory ethically produced, it would be hard for a user to identify.

“These kinds of debates about ‘ethical consumption’ have often been around food and clothing, two things that we need,” she says.

“But no-one needs pornography. So if there are consumers out there really concerned about the conditions of performers, I’d suggest not using pornography.”

Can kink be ethical?

But if you accept porn can be created ethically, you may still be wondering if kink porn — featuring extreme sexual practices such as bondage and sado-masochism — can fit into that genre.

Dr Anne-Francis Watson from the Queensland University of Technology says the fact some porn may include sexual acts some people don’t enjoy watching, doesn’t necessarily make it unethical.

“As long as there is clear consent, which a lot of kink porn includes, and the performers are enjoying themselves — increasingly in a lot of kink porn they will check in with the performers on camera to show that they are enjoying themselves — then people who aren’t into those kinds of things should not be dictating what other people should or shouldn’t enjoy.”

She says it is important not to demonise people who enjoy kink porn.

“Porn is just fantasy made visual. There are many very healthy people with deeply disturbing fantasies.”

Ms Naughty agrees consent must be shown.

“I think there are people who enjoy the nasty language, seeing the degradation, and it’s not my job to say that that is wrong — they are entitled to that sexuality,” she says.

But Dr Tyler says we’re kidding ourselves if we think kink porn doesn’t do harm.

She says there is credible research showing the proliferation of porn, particularly that which shows “physical aggression”, is linked to issues including harm to performers, damage to intimate relationships and even an increase in sex trafficking.

“The reality is we live in a culture where violence against women is still a serious problem,” she says.

“Pornography alone does not, in and of itself, create or cause this problem. But the high rates of violence and aggression in porn certainly reflect the problem and, further, often glamorise and eroticise it.”

‘Vote with your smartphone’

Psychologist and author Dr David Ley writes in his book Ethical Porn for Dicks (A man’s guide to responsible viewing pleasure) that people need to recognise porn is vulnerable to being “harmful, exploitive and misused”.

“Porn for better or worse, is here to stay,” he writes. “But porn can be better than it is.”

Dr Ley says ethical porn is not just about who makes the porn or how it is made, but rather how it is used.

“When you watch porn, you are voting, as it were, for that type of porn, that style of porn, and for the people who made it.”

He says porn enthusiasts should “vote with our smartphones” for ethical content.

Paying for porn is also a key way to encourage ethical production, Dr Watson says.

“These people are doing a job and earning a living like any other person, and they deserve the same kind of respect and safe and equitable working conditions as in any other profession,” she says.

“If people really want porn that is ‘good’, then they should be willing to pay for it.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.