TW: SA, mentions of abuse
For
You have an internet connection, an incognito tab, and 10 minutes (8? 5? 2?) on your hands. Put aside the guilt your Catholic primary school instilled in you, and remember to disconnect from your flat’s Bluetooth speaker.
Modern society doesn’t love to chat about sex – beyond your mate who makes a suspicious number of piss kink jokes – but porn helps shed some light on what happens in the dark. There’s a whole world of queer sex online that lots of young people don’t understand until they see it. It’s also an opportunity to explore what gets you going and to feel less alone about your kinks, from the safety of your own twin bed! Porn can even help you upskill, and expand your repertoire beyond missionary – put that on your CV.
Sure, there is some marginal (sometimes bordering on criminal) content out there. But you can at least try to find the good stuff — turn off Pornhub and check out individual creators on platforms like OnlyFans, or indie sites like AORTA films. Just be prepared to cough up the odd fee (a small price to pay for some fair-trade bean-flicking).
And to address the elephant in the bedroom – porn is pretty sweet! Uni students talk about sex way more than they actually have it, but a quick climax goes a long way in brightening your day. So while giving up porn entirely isn’t necessary, surely you give up the stuff that promotes rape culture and funds the exploitation of literal assault (touch wood).
Against
You have jizz in your sock, and blood on your hands. Maybe you wash your hands once it’s over (pls) but as all women know, blood stains linger.
The porn industry is run by men, for the male gaze. Even lesbian porn is primarily consumed by straight men, perpetuating the fetishization of queer women. Women are overwhelmingly portrayed as subservient objects that are choked, slapped, and degraded to get you off – but it’s fine, because they’re like, totally into it right? Maybe you shy away from this content at first but eventually you – along with everyone else – give into the trending ‘Step-Sis Gets Punished’ videos on the homepage. Then, when you hook up with someone (if you can even get it up without your iPhone), that’s just what you think sex is.
And the worst part of it all? The way that actors are treated on-screen is only the tip of the iceberg compared to what happens when the cameras aren’t rolling. Behind the airbrushed skin, the BBL, and the prepubescent hairlessness is an industry rife with exploitation, abuse, and human trafficking. Watching “ethical” porn might alleviate your guilt, as long as you ignore that we can never verify whether or not it lives up to its claims. If you dig deeper, you uncover even more sickening cases of victims who could never consent.
But you don’t dig deeper. You close the page, clear your history, and forget about it – until tomorrow. So next time you’re in the mood, try something else. Find some mediocre erotic fiction, or some surprisingly well-written fanfiction – god knows your reading skills could use the practice. Or better yet: you’ve got an imagination. Use it.