A critical step and potential solution to decrease and eventually eradicate nonconsensual pornography in America is the necessary process of normalizing the discussion of porn as not only a facet of explicit media but sex trafficking as well. It begins at the ground level with American citizens making an effort to speak out in favor of consensual pornography and against its dangerous counterpart. Awareness and understanding of both the risks and benefits of working in the sex industry is imperative to reduce the vicious stigma against sex workers in pornography and, subsequently, make actors in porn more visible to the public and accepted by the majority. With more of the public advocating for healthy, legal pornography, government officials will be persuaded to discuss the creation and distribution of explicit media at the state and federal level, leading to more effective legislation to protect both consenting and non-consenting actors in the pornography industry.
Along with increasing the discussion of pornography and encouraging the distribution of consensual porn in America, there needs to be an effort to reduce the pressure to watch pornography as a young adolescent. Much of sex culture in the United States consists of medically inaccurate sex education that misinforms young adults and forces students to feel guilt and confusion toward their own sexuality and increased teenage libido. Not only are adolescents pressured by their peers to discover pornography at a young age, they are manipulated by the American education system to be so poorly educated on the topic of sex that they have no choice but to look to porn as their only form of sex education. Unfortunately, much of the pornography created in America is distributed illegally and filmed with non-consenting adults or minors who cannot legally consent. With more accurate sex education that incites health and safety at its forefront, adolescents will be less inclined to search for pornography at such a high rate. Encouraging a conversation with young adults surrounding consensual pornography and effective sex education will decrease the prejudice against sex workers in America and reduce the victimization that is augmented by the vulnerability that the American public continues to perpetrate.
The most important aspect for sex workers within the sex industry is consent. Advocates and the public alike should support all consenting sex workers in their choice of work as long as it does not endanger any party involved. This includes situations in which a person is being coerced to create pornography or to be involved in other types of sex work. If someone is making a choice for another person without their knowledge or agreement, the situation is not consensual. Sex workers place themselves in innately vulnerable positions, emotionally and physically, through their work. In order to diminish and discourage the inherent danger of nonconsensual sex within the sex industry, the industry itself needs to be made safer for the workers. These men, women, and others need to be granted security and to be fought for by advocates and law enforcement officers to prevent such danger. Those working in the sex industry need the support of the public in the all too common event that someone harms a worker either once or continuously.
One method of advocacy with the intent of making sex workers feel secure in and outside their place of work is the implementation of support centers. There are numerous support centers across the country that execute outreach projects and provide shelter, counseling, and other resources if necessary. Some of these include the Sex Workers Project, the Society of Erotic Professionals in Action (SEPIA), the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), Shared Hope International, and the Desiree Alliance. All of these organizations accept donations and are always in need of funding to provide support centers for sex workers in need. Whether one involves oneself personally in an organization or simply opts to make a routine donation, one is contributing to the growing acceptance of sex work and the accessibility for support that such a business requires.
In addition to becoming involved and donating what one can, it is imperative that the subject of pornography and other types of sex work in America become common topics of discussion within governments and the general public. Sex work and pornography need to become nuanced, more popular conversations in cultures worldwide to remove the counter productive stigma against sex workers, the aggressive misrepresentation to which they are subjected, and the subsequent lack of support that they receive. The public should organize panel discussions and forums on college campuses and in communities to raise awareness. If the resources for such a meeting are unavailable, one can instigate a discussion with one’s friends on the topic of safety within pornography and the sex industry as a whole. It is only through discussion of these issues that the public will begin to understand that pornography and sex work is not inherently immoral, and that the immorality unfortunately arises when consent is ignored.
What harms the minds and sexual appetites of adolescents is the stigma toward any sexual activity and the pressure to distance oneself from sex until it is deemed “appropriate.” It is no surprise that teenagers seek out pornography when many across the country have no other method of learning about the significance of safe sex, consent, and the ability to separate pornography and intercourse in a real life setting. It would be psychologically beneficial for parents and teachers to explain sex to adolescents in an honest way that does not condemn them for simply having overactive hormones. Evidently, pornography is affected by American society’s fear of sexual exploration and inherent sexism, however these systemic issues are not the fault of porn itself.
Discrimination between the sexes is a systemic issue that has permeated cultures around the world for centuries and one that the American media has both adopted and encouraged. The American mass media’s use of softcore porn as a method of advertisement within a society which countenances the routine degradation of women both socially and sexually serves as far more of a threat to the stability of that society than pornography itself. There is no doubt that these specific issues influence popular pornography. Despite this influence, eradicating pornography and subsequently a method of sexual expression and education for many women would simply limit females’ role in society further and have no effect on the latent discrimination. Instead of eliminating gender equality, a ban on pornography “for the sake of women” would only create yet another field of work in which women are unable to rise to positions of power and take control of their own choices because they have been told that, regardless of what they might think, they have none.
Through this mono-focal lens, people of minority sexualities, the presence of mutual consent, and women’s sexual agency are all disregarded. Before making these assumptions about a woman’s choice to portray herself as a submissive partner in pornography should come the question of fair labor. Journalist, Melissa Gira Grant, of The Guardian asks, “Why [are] we so hung up on what’s on a model’s face and how it got there, rather than what’s in her contract and how she negotiated it?” Female sex workers need to be granted the right to freely express themselves in their line of work without being patronized for those choices, even if they involve performing submissive acts under a dominant male.
People can be attracted to both empowerment and disempowerment in sexual relations whether they are depicted by men or women. The reason submissive roles are more popularly filled by women in pornography is not the fault of pornography itself but the fault of the majority of society’s perspective on women and their sexuality. Consensual, and what is often referred to as “feminist” porn, remains difficult for sex workers to engage in because the pay is significantly lower. Feminist porn sites are not yet as popular as mainstream sites. As a result, men and women who are employed in the sex industry due to a lack of other options or low socioeconomic status cannot afford to be paid less even if it means better treatment in the workplace. Instead of the complete elimination of pornography and sex work to benefit women, there should be an attempt to create more options for women working in pornography. The systemic issue of gender inequality within society affects the way porn is produced, not strictly the other way around. It is only through education and political reform, not censoring, that this prejudice can begin to be eradicated.
Pornography as a form of sex work is not discussed nearly enough in popular culture, yet when the topic arises, the language directed at porn stars and their work is brutal. Regardless of whether the man or woman is engaging in consensual sex work, they are often subjected to harsh names, inhumane insults and harassment, or disapproving silence and a downcast gaze. Critics are eager to disparage the work of porn actors online, but once confronted with the topic as an aspect of legitimate economic and social discussion, they resort to ignorant silence and blatant refusal to listen. Exploited or not, all sex workers deserve a voice, and the shameful name-calling that occurs toward these men and women have the exact opposite affect.
“Slut” and “whore” are common examples of names used casually when speaking about female porn actresses. These labels carry negative connotations and dehumanize the woman by eliminating her name or stage name from the context of her work in pornography. The woman’s occupation is no longer legitimate – her personhood, no longer relevant. In a first person account of the verbal brutality aimed toward women in the sex industry, a student from Duke University and a current porn actress states that not only is she referred to with these demeaning terms, she is seen as “a little girl who does not understand her actions,” despite the fact that she chooses to create pornography to fund her college education. Critics of pornography demand on deeming women either victims of their own assumed ignorance or “sluts” who are overly zealous about sex. So regularly are these connotations attached to sex workers that they have become synonymous with the term “prostitute.” No longer can a woman consensually engage in sex work without becoming a “prostitute” and subsequently a “whore.” The contemporary label of “sex worker” is more inclusive of the versatility of careers within the sex industry and does not carry such an air of victimization and what many see as negative promiscuity.
Pornography has undergone massive, exponential changes since its rise to popularity in the 20th Century with the creation of the magazine Playboy. What began as magazine covers developed into VHS tapes, soon to DVDs, and today, has transformed to accommodate mobile smartphones. The increase in pornography’s availability has created a growing supply for the viewers, and the demand continues to increase. According to a study conducted by Juniper Research, the use of porn on mobile devices through subscriptions and videochats amounted to 2.8 billion dollars in 2014. Despite the incline in demand for online sex, the immediacy of porn is making it feasible for sex workers within the porn business to end their contracts and become independent. Over the next decade, businesses that create and distribute online sex will become less lucrative as more pornstars decide to sell themselves apart from the corporations that dominate the industry.
The idea of independent pornography is a relatively novel one. No longer will viewers have to buy subscriptions to major porn websites or watch the same general clips that many others on the internet partake in. Instead, people are able to engage through various apps on their smartphones and private web cams with online sex workers. One app in particular, Snapchat, has become exceedingly popular for the exchange of pornography. With Snapchat’s new feature, Snapcash, users are able to send money to other Snapchat users in return for photos or videos. This feature has made it especially simple for interested users to have a more intimate experience with another person for sometimes as little as $1.00 – $5.00. The direct contact with the viewer places the control into the hands of the sex worker who can now easily work for themselves. They are able to record themselves at their leisure without a director or corporation dictating how they are required to portray themselves sexually. While these apps such as Snapchat and Kik do not free those who are forced to produce pornography against their will, they provide safe options for the individuals who choose to produce their own online sex for a living. Not only does independent pornography promote the fair treatment of the workers, but it stimulates the economy, creating a multitude of jobs and distributing wealth easily from one person to another.
The newfound intimacy within pornography is an improvement for the viewers as well as the creators of the footage or photos. The detached form of viewing that occurs on most websites for online sex can now be replaced by a live webcam of a person engaging in sexual activity or someone who the viewer has been required to contact and ask for explicit content. Aleks Krotoski, a writer for The Guardian, relates this newly discovered form of online sex to sexual education and depicts it as “sexual enlightenment rather than social destruction.” It creates the opportunity for viewers to explore their sexuality while lowering the amount of sex workers operating below omnipotent industries. At the heart, these developing forms of pornography are generating options, a basic right to which every sex worker is entitled and should be granted.
Since the creation of the Internet, the availability of pornography in and outside of the United States has risen exponentially. There are advocates within the Sex-Positive Movement, a movement encouraging sexual freedom and expression with a consenting partner or with one’s own body, to support pornography. Some argue that watching or making pornography is a method of sexual expression, and that if someone is aroused by porn, they should be able to watch it as a form of sexual exploration. Others claim that this outlook discounts the aspects of pornography that remain non-consensual. Everyday, men and women are forced to videotape themselves having intercourse for the pleasure of others and with little or no pay. There is a large population of sex workers who choose to create pornography and find a sense of empowerment within it, however individuals partaking in porn by choice and who are paid significant sums for their efforts amount to a small minority. The small minority of men and women who consensually engage in making pornography does not mask the majority who are coerced into the industry, below the age of consent, or have few or no other options but to work in a business that determines how they are allowed to express themselves sexually.
Pornography in America has become a multi-billion dollar business. Because of this, sex workers in pornography are forced to higher expectations as the viewers grow tired of the latest fad. The increased availability of porn has the potential to harm the sex workers emotionally and physically whose employers value them less as porn raises in popularity. Porn can be detrimental to not only the workers, but the viewers, who suffer psychological repercussions from constant access to exaggerated and often brutal sex. It is necessary that more options are created for those interested in pursuing a career in the sex industry in order to abolish human trafficking within and outside of the major corporations.
This image depicts a young child smashing bricks from a kiln with what appears to be a bone. The child is covered in dust, but he has clothes and does not appear to be emaciated. Because of these factors, a person may not assume that the boy is enslaved but merely working by choice. Many children who are coerced or born into enslavement do not appear to fit the stereotype that is connected with child labor. This photo conveys the message that one cannot assume a child’s, or anyone’s, position because of their clothing or cleanliness. It is a common strategy of slave owners to keep their workers in healthy physical condition, so they can continue to work and not be questioned.
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