The act of simply watching people have sex is itself morally neutral. That's all porn is.
it isnât, though. sorry if Iâm missing a joke here but⌠it really, really isnât.
It is. There is nothing wrong with watching people have sex. The morality of it depends on the context (buying porn from sex workers to watch is good, revenge porn is bad, for example), but watching people fuck? That's morally neutral. It's just watching some activities.
Almost all porn is abuse, you know that right? Most women in porn are drugged and then raped.
Even if she were paid, it would still be coercive, similarly to prostitution. You cannot buy women, or their consent. That immediately creates a coercive force that makes the consent invalid.
Ok so first of all you're lying. That is not how most porn works at all.
Regarding economic coercion, that's called having a job. But also I promise you there is a world of difference between trying to buy a person (for the love of fuck will you people ever aknowledge its not only women in porn and work conditions are a concern for EVERYONE involved) and someone making a career in porn.
Also re read what I said because you have said nothing that argues against what im saying AT ALL.
The way these people talk about sex workers genuinely makes me sick. Sex workers are not being bought, they are not owned by people paying them. They are compensated for their services or performance, like every other worker. They own themselves no matter what. They deserve dignity and respect and their work not being described in such horrible fucking ways.
And it's genuinely fucked up to tell people what they can and cannot consent to tbh? You don't get to choose that for others and then try to say you genuinely care about consent. You just want to control people.
Absolutely right. We are people, we own ourselves, we decide what we do and don't want to do. Honestly if I attach the criteria of pay and a camera to my consent, denying me that is no less fucked up than forcing that on me.
Puritanical christians/radfems and rapists/traffickers are two sides of the same coin and all ultimately working towards the goal of ruining people's lives for their own benefit.
Also, it needs to be repeated again that stigmatization of sex work leaves trafficking victims trapped. They are now in an even more socioeconomically disadvantaged position than before because no one will want to help an "icky porn star" who is being exploited.
To help trafficked and coerced sex workers we necessarily must end the demonization of sex work or else you are giving traffickers the literal tools to force unwilling people into it!
One of my family members was sex trafficked. Her case became a part of state legal precedent because her trafficker's conviction resulted in an expanded definition of one of the terms used to define trafficking (kept vague for the sake of my family's anonymity.) You know what one of the biggest barriers was to her getting help?
The fact that everyone she reached out to saw her as a stupid meth head "whore" and not a person who was fucking afraid for her life.
If society had shown sex workers some basic amount of decency, she might have had the social standing to get help sooner.
remember: a big part of what "sex work is work" means is "let sex workers have workers' protections"
I got to see a change in the criminal law, in real time, that shifted the window on how sex workers are treated in my state. Agencies that tended to treat them as perpetrators, even when they were victims, had their behavior changed the most. But even the more progressive police departments, and of course any number of labor- and benefit-related agencies, also got a few notches more understanding and accepting.
TL;DR: sex workers are people, sex work is work, and the road to utopia is paved with extremely boring legislation and administrative decisions.
Okay but what is missing here is consent and how murky that gets with visual media.
Porn is a filmed image of someoneâs naked body. An image that is being filmed for consumption and profit. That sounds obvious but it needs to be stated.
Actors and actresses in regular film have access to a full spectrum of consent over their image both when making it and after it is made. However even that broad scale level of protection does not fully protect them from exploitation from a media company or the public. You hear about terrible lawsuits all the time where big name celebrities have to fight to keep their image from being used in bad ways.
People working in the erotic film industry have less protection systematically because that industry is based on coercing people into exploitation in order to maximize profits. Pornography is a structure of capitalism. You cannot take the capitalism out of it. Exploitation is always going to be a part of a capitalist structure because the point of capitalism is to make as much money as possible. Dubious consent is a part of pornâs business model. Sex workers have less control over how the images of their bodies are made or how those are distributed or used even if theyâre âdoing it themselvesâ on a platform like Onlyfans. They donât control the distribution of their image even if they hit post with their own finger. We live in a world with Google, photoshop, AI and screenshots.
Weâve long established as a society that consent under coercion is not true consent. Weâve long recognized that fawn is a legitimate response to threat.
So a sex worker saying âHaha idk what youâre talking about, I love doing this!â is not a legitimate endorsement of the morality or ethics of the industry they participate in. Of course theyâre going to say that. They have bills to pay and this is how they currently pay them. You are hearing the coercion in front of a live audience. It doesnât mean that they have fully and truly consented to everything that is going to happen to their image or that they truly consented to the image that was made.
So sorry but no youâre not just watching two people have sex. If you want to do that you need to find two people who want to have sex with each other who donât mind being watched, ask them politely if you can watch and schedule an appointment.
If youâre watching porn youâre watching media that was made with coercion as a core ingredient and you donât have true consent to be doing it. Yes even on Onlyfans. Yes even if the porn star cam girl/boy/they says you can. Youâre a peeping Tom with extra steps and voyeurism in most societies is a crime. Crimes donât stop being crimes just because a lot of people do it and people turn a blind eye to it.
And itâs not pearl clutching prudishness to say that. Itâs just the harsh cold truth. Porn is not and will never be an ethical form of sex work.
Sounds like someone needs to read the post again
Yeah you. Acknowledging your lack of reading comprehension can be an inside thought. You donât have to click several buttons to tell us. You can just read it again dude. No one is stopping you.
Your comtempt for sex workers is already apparent enough dear, no need to double down
TL;DR Summary: All I said was that sex workers are being disrespected and treated unfairly and gave an example of that. I stated that the fact that they are being exploited makes the industry unethical to consume as a consumer if you care about the fair treatment of sex workers. So why the f*ck are you fighting me this hard on this dude? Sus as hell. Major side eye. đ
Actual response:
My contempt is for you specifically because you take pride in your ignorance and you paint yourself as an advocate for sex workers when you are actually a direct obstacle to their ethical treatment. Sorry not sorry babe but itâs not a particularly hot take for me to point out obvious flaws in your industry. Clearly having to think about hard things makes you uncomfortable but thatâs not my problem.
If you truly want a world where sex work is respected as an industry and workers in that industry are well treated you have to have a frank conversation about the ways that they currently arenât. Singing Kumbayah with your pants down doesnât help anyone.
You need to talk about coercion. You need to talk about financial abuse. You need to talk about human trafficking. You need to talk about multi-million dollar media companies and how they exploit peopleâs content and images. Those are real issues plaguing the industry. They donât stop being a thing just because you or someone you like is making money and thinks they have agency over themselves.
If you as a sex worker are complicit in a system that exploits people, which porn does, and you contribute to the perpetuation of that system then youâre not an advocate for your community. You can say ârespect sex workersâ or âsex work should be de-stigmatizedâ all damned day but those platitudes are meaningless swill if you openly contribute to the disrespect and the systems that create stigmatization. This industry is stigmatized because it has centuries of financial exploitation and human rights abuses baked into it and youâre not going to get rid of that until you get f*cking honest about reality and dismantle the whole thing. There is no way to preserve the status quo.
I actually respect sex workers (not you obviously because youâre more than likely merely LARPing as one). I respect them enough to research their work thoroughly. I see the entire industry clearly for what it is. A cluster fuck of labor exploitation that needs to be addressed and rectified now.
So Iâll be crass and rude now. An uppity little ninny with a delusional blindfold on with an insipid AI generated profile picture of tits can spew bullshit as much as they like but itâs not going to stop me from saying what needs to be said. Porn in its current state is not ethical. It just isnât. It is a capitalist nightmare and if you donât see that itâs probably because you donât want to see it because you benefit in some way from the system either as a content creator or in your case a consumer and that makes you a bad person. Keep making and spending your money however you want but donât play pretend that you care about other sex workers when youâre trying to preserve a system that systemically harms them.
I frankly hope Iâm upsetting you enough to actually think about the industry you claim to be a part of and the part you play in it. Do better because this absolute pile of nothing isnât doing jack shit but making you look like an exploitative ass trying to justify a corrupt system. Respect sex workers is an empty hypocrisy when you fight this hard to silence someone pointing out that theyâre not being treated fairly or respectfully.
