Pornhub profit from trafficking of women and girls.

[SmileEachDay]

I’m increasingly frustrated with attitudes to porn on MN - there seem to be 2 main ways people justify it:

1. The liberal feminism defence: “It’s empowering, women are allowed bodily autonomy.

2. I enjoy it, it’s all consensual.

This is obviously bullshit. If you watch porn on a mainstream platform it is very likely that the woman you are watching has been directly trafficked and is being raped. If she hasn’t been, the woman or girl in the next clip may have been. You’re getting your rocks off to the filmed abuse of women and girls.

And that’s before we even start looking at how the commodification of women affects us more generally.

Please read this - it’s really eye opening

OP, do you not think any porn is acceptable regardless of how consensual it may be and how it is portrayed (i.e non-violent, everyone equally enjoying it, none of the 'passive vessels' that you mention earlier). If not, why not?

OP, do you not think any porn is acceptable regardless of how consensual it may be and how it is portrayed (i.e non-violent, everyone equally enjoying it, none of the 'passive vessels' that you mention earlier). If not, why not?

I feel as though you are getting at something here, but I’m not sure what?

I don’t know why you want my views on some imaginary sparkly porn situation when this thread is about real women and girls being trafficked and abused.

Oh wait. Yes I do know why:

That’ll be so you can say “See!! The OP wouldn’t like porn anyway, she doesn’t really care about women and girls.” There’d be the option of also calling me a prude I guess also 🤷🏻‍♀️

I outlined all my objections up porn in an earlier post.

Is spelling out T*RFs prohibited on Mumsnet now or something?

Oh hi Jing

Did you come back to explain your thoughts on the filmed abuse of women and girls?

Porn is a constant reminder to women that many men actively enjoy hurting us. The link-up of enjoyments is becoming routine. Banning it might not be possible, but neither is continuing even with this present level of increased threat, let alone this trajectory.

Porn is an incredibly varied and diverse thing. It can be filmed, animated, drawn, written, recorded. It need involve no actual performers at all. You can buy porn in your local Waterstones (50 Shades of Grey anyone?) or off the top shelf in almost any newsagents. And of the filmed porn involving actors, you can have any combination of 1 person (male or female) through to an entire crowd, if that's your thing. There are massive studios churning out everything under the sun and then there are niche indie producers, lots of whom are women and who market their porn as ethical and feminist (whether you agree with that is up to you - that's their description, not mine).

There's very little sense, to me, in saying "all porn is exploitative and bad" when that is blatantly not true.

Some categories of porn undoubtedly have problems with the rape, trafficking, and exploitation of primarily women and girls.

But I'll carry on enjoying the porn I like which I know involves no exploitation of any people.

If that is written ‘porn’ then you have a point. If you are talking, as the op was, about a site known to be hosting videos of actual rapes then you are attempting to justify torture of women. It is truly disgusting how many men are only too happy to do that.

I am totally against the porn industry. I have and would never watch it. There was a link shared on mn once (apologies I didn't save it) to interviews with women who'd worked in porn and it was horrifying. Agreeing boundaries and safe words that were then ignored when the camera rolled. Being locked in a room with no access to a shower or their clothes until they'd filmed the perky "it was great, I loved every second of it, I'm fine" outro convincingly enough for the directors to use, even when injured/bleeding. The porn stars being expected to 'service' the director/crew during their breaks. One story that stuck with me was one woman who recalled being on set for hours, finally food was provided and all the crew pissed over the food before the women could eat it (just why?!). And these were all stories from legit porn sets/films, the mainstream stuff that's all so supposedly consensual and "empowering". It's a violent, abusive, dangerous industry.

@KatnissK

Yep. I think I saw that. I also recently read an article about some of the horrific injuries women get whilst on set. And as you say, that’s in “proper” studios.

Hey OP. In your opening post you state 'it is very likely that the woman you are watching has been directly trafficked and is being raped.'
Are you able to substantiate that claim with empirical evidence?

I saw this story that was linked upthread too. You're wasting your time "saucy". Too many of us have too much experience of men to fall for it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51391981

@SmileEachDay

OP, do you not think any porn is acceptable regardless of how consensual it may be and how it is portrayed (i.e non-violent, everyone equally enjoying it, none of the 'passive vessels' that you mention earlier). If not, why not?

I feel as though you are getting at something here, but I’m not sure what?

I don’t know why you want my views on some imaginary sparkly porn situation when this thread is about real women and girls being trafficked and abused.

Oh wait. Yes I do know why:

That’ll be so you can say “See!! The OP wouldn’t like porn anyway, she doesn’t really care about women and girls.” There’d be the option of also calling me a prude I guess also 🤷🏻‍♀️

I outlined all my objections up porn in an earlier post.

It's exactly that and you know why I asked it and why you refused to answer it.

You outlined your objections to SOME porn earlier (the stuff which I agree is deeply problematic and unpleasant) but willingly refuse to believe that all of it isn't like that in order to suit your narrative. Pornhub is not the totality of porn on the internet (by a long way).

You raise genuine concerns, but in the end, for you, they are just a hook to hang the fact that you just don't like porn and you don't like the fact that other people do like it. You'd ban it whatever it was and whoever was making it.

Your 'all or nothing' approach only alienates people who would otherwise be sympathetic and actually harms the cause of reducing exploitation in the porn industry.

Notthemessiah

You may not give a shit about women. I do. Your dismissal of my “valid concerns” as a hat to hang my dislike of porn on is bullshit. Completely unsurprising, but bullshit.

Look at how much you had to strip out the of the current porn situation in order to attempt your transparent gotcha. You had to make it totally unrecognisable.

Ask yourself this: why is porn like it is, and not like your imaginary sparkly porn? Why is the porn industry so rife with abuse and exploitation.

Can't believe that some people are still trying to justify this as being ok. See no evil, hear no evil.

""But I'll carry on enjoying the porn I like which I know involves no exploitation of any people.""

But how do you know which ones don't involve real victims? If there was even the slightest smidgen of a chance that what you are watching was a real person in pain or suffering, would you be comfortable with that?

This isn't a women only issue, lots of young men and boys are also trafficked and abused. I'm not saying "what about then menz" but drawing attention that this isn't about a single sex.

I agree with you OP, but you can't just state people agree with rape when they watch porn without alienating them to your cause

@starray well since the porn I enjoy is mostly written and usually involving entirely fictional situations and people, I think I'm fairly safe.

Greysparkles

You know what? Sometimes I agree that a gentle approach is better. For this? I think people need the grim reality in a big bright spotlight, everywhere that filmed pornography is available.

The simple fact is that on Pornhub, there are trafficked, abused and raped women and girls.

I don’t know how to sugar coat that, and nor do I want to.

Then you will continue to alienate against the cause, people just don't want to be confronted with things like this.

It would be better to campaign for more regulation within the industry, to try and filter abuse out at source, because you're never going to get it taken off the Web entirely.

When I say regulation within the industry, I also believe that prostitution should be legalised so that it can be regulated. So it won't be so easy to traffick and groom young women into the life

Then you will continue to alienate against the cause, people just don't want to be confronted with things like this

No, they don’t. But as part of a strategy they need to be.

It’s certainly been a useful one when I’ve used it in RL working with groups of teens about porn. Because actually- most people aren’t ok with rape or exploitation.

How are you supposed to speak about the abuses in the porn industry without naming the abuses.

When I say regulation within the industry, I also believe that prostitution should be legalised so that it can be regulated. So it won't be so easy to traffick and groom young women into the life

There are long and tortuous debates about this, they used to crop up regularly on the feminist boards.

The bottom line for me is that while what you believe may be true in principle, it never is in practice. Somehow in practice legalising prostitution normalises it, and legitimises it. It normalises the commodification of women for men. It leads directly to poor treatment of women from men. Always. We see it in Germany and we see it in Leeds.

There's naming abuse, and there's shouting at people telling them they're basically no better than a rapist.

If you can't see how that would get people's backs up 🤷🏼‍♂️

The bottom line for me is that while what you believe may be true in principle, it never is in practice. Somehow in practice legalising prostitution normalises it, and legitimises it. It normalises the commodification of women for men. It leads directly to poor treatment of women from men. Always. We see it in Germany and we see it in Leeds

But is it not the lesser of 2 evils? You're never going to save them all. Unpalatable fact, but fact all the same.
If you could save some, surely that would be better?

I watch porn and the people I watch are consenting adults. I follow some on social media and they give look ins to how things get filmed. I'm not ashamed to masturbate to porn and I wish more women would be honest in watching in themselves.

I am happy there is a hide option on threads like this.