Ethical Porn: What You Don’t See on Screen

With just a quick glance at the shocking headlines and documentaries all over the media, you can see that few institutions paint a positive image of the pornography industry. Sensational and polarizing, these representations are rarely accompanied by a favourable judgment. Can pornography be ethical? This is the question I asked Sam, Nadia, Isabelle, and Dominic, who work in this industry.

Nadia Louis-Demarchais is finishing her bachelor’s degree in film at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) this year. She became interested in the world of pornography, particularly in the profession of pornstar, in the context of a documentary that she made in Prague when she had just finished her first year of studies.

“Directing Rated X allowed me to understand an industry against which I too had many prejudices. Since there are pornstars who make money doing a job they enjoy and in which they feel comfortable, I think their points of view are legitimate and that they should be listened to.”

Giving a voice to porn artists who do it by choice

Nadia chose the topic of her documentary with the aim of giving a voice to women who have chosen to build their careers as pornstars, notably Luna Corazon and Charlotte Sartre.

“There’s always a man trying to save me. Even among my friends, we always have a story about the guy who tries to save you to make you his housewife. Apparently, your life will be better if you’re a housewife.” – Luna Corazon, in Rated X

The idea of “saving” a sex worker is ingrained in popular culture. People like Edward Lewis, the character played by Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, who mistakenly think they are the saviour of a “victim” of the sex industry, are nicknamed “captain save a hoe.” However, many people have chosen to pursue this career, and this is what Nadia wanted to illustrate in her documentary.

“About 95% of the people I met during those years told me that they loved their work and felt super valued in their workplace. They are all people with a very developed sense of entrepreneurship,” says Dominic, who worked for ManyVids, where he photographed hundreds of people over a period of three years.

Dominic nonetheless deplores how the exit interviews are carried out and their overall lack of ethics.

“I’ve been around a lot of people in this industry, and I’ve heard stories about some people not feeling safe or comfortable reporting sexual violence during their exit interview for fear of not getting paid.”

Consent and fair pay as a starting point

For everyone, the basis of ethical pornography lies in it being shot under ethical conditions, that is, conditions that respect consent and are favourable to pleasure and fair pay. All of the interviewees spoke of the rigorous practices they follow or observe on film sets in terms of consent.

“I think that, for this industry to be more ethical, it should start by ensuring that pornstars get paid more and that their work receives the recognition it deserves.” For Dominic, it’s inconceivable that people who choose a career in this environment are viewed differently than those who make the same salary but in a different field.

“For the porn industry to evolve, I think that we, as a society, have to start talking about it more and create space for it,” says Sam (pseudonym). Although Sam has been working in the industry for less than a year, she’s always had an interest in it. As an editor, she’s in charge of uploading videos online, titling them, and creating ads and trailers, in addition to doing light post-production work. Convinced that consent must be given beyond the filming stage, she explains that a person who has done pornography should always have the right to be listened to and respected if they one day wanted to have their video taken down.

“For me, ethics in pornography also means understanding that there are many hard-working humans involved and that videos shouldn’t only belong to big production companies,” Sam said.

When it comes to the ethics of pornography, many people’s questions also concern the types of storylines that are depicted.

So what about the stories that are told through porn?

One only has to skim through the different porn categories to see that many videos featuring problematic power dynamics, such as sex between an adult and their grown step-child (to name just one example), are among most viewed on free porn sites.

“There’s many layers of problems within this industry, but the biggest problem is that there’s a tendency to blame and stigmatize the people who work in it, when, in my opinion, it’s rather the fact of excluding them from the conversation that creates the problem,” explains Nadia, who believes that the root of issue is a lack of sex education.

“We have so little sex education and so many taboos related to sexuality that, for many people, pornography becomes a sort of sex manual.”

For Nadia, pornography should clearly be seen as a show, and sex education would allow more people to understand that many of the behaviours it portrays can’t or don’t need to be reproduced in real life. This notion is also supported by gay porn director Isabelle Hamon, also known as “The Lesbian Director.”

“I think that if everyone understood that pornography is fiction, they’d ask far fewer questions.”

Isabelle emphasises, however, that we shouldn’t judge a porno by its cover. A porno might look super ethical because of its storyline, but then the actors haven’t been paid or didn’t fully consent.

“As a director, I don’t really have the power to change a script. But what I can do is make sure that everyone on the set is having fun while they’re there,” she says.

And the more we have women and people of colour behind the camera and in positions of power, the less porn will be based on stereotypes and the more they’ll take up space within the broader conversation, making porn more ethical. 

“Sexuality, in all its forms, is always going to be a part of us. Might as well do it well. I think that by regulating this industry more, we’d allow more people to feel good about it,” concludes Sam.

If reading this article has piqued your curiosity, there’s an episode of our podcast, À quoi tu jouis?, that tackles the myths and realities of pornography (available in French only).

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE