TW: Rape, sexual violence
ItÔÇÖs been a disastrous year for Pornhub. Until recently, criticism of the porn site, which is the tenth most visited site worldwide, had only cast quiet ripples in the media. But when US police discovered Pornhub videos of a missing fifteen-year-old girl in October last year, the floodgates burst open. By March, a Change.org petition by anti-exploitation group Exodus Cry called for PornhubÔÇÖs outright abolition, reaching two million signatures. Harrowing testimonies of Pornhub refusing to remove footage of abuse victims lined the front pages of The Guardian and The New York Times. Accusations of Pornhub portraying sex destructively to developing teens gained momentum. After a year of catastrophic press, Pornhub responded with a new modus operandi, from mandatory verification to a revamped Sexual Wellness Centre. It will never be enough, but itÔÇÖs a start.
On the face of it, sympathy for PornhubÔÇÖs management seems reasonable given the siteÔÇÖs enormity. Users upload six million videos per year, and even after outsourcing content moderation to fingerprinting software giants like Vobile, perhaps filth is destined to seep through the cracks eventually. After hearing Rose KalembaÔÇÖs testimony to the BBC, any such sympathy vanishes. Kalemba was fourteen when three men forced her into a car at knifepoint. They raped her for twelve hours, stabbed her leg, filmed the atrocity, and left her bleeding on the pavement. Months later, peers from school tagged her in MySpace posts which linked to the footage on Pornhub. The title: ‘teen crying and getting slapped aroundÔÇÖ.
As she witnessed the footage, Kalemba not only relived unimaginable trauma: she realised that of the 400,000 eyes whoÔÇÖd seen it, everyone she knew counted amongst them. When Kalemba pleaded with Pornhub to remove the videos, she received no response. When she tried again from a new address, this time posing as a lawyer, Pornhub deleted the videos within two days. Kalemba is just one of the countless women, families, and communities whom Pornhub failed, profiting from their suffering all the while.
Pornhub deserved the flak. There is no recourse for the incalculable trauma its lawless platform wrought upon abuse victims. Whilst the past is rightly indelible, and whilst there is certainly no room for apologism, we must also reconcile with the truth: Pornhub is going nowhere. When Exodus CryÔÇÖs #TraffickingHub petition reached full stride in March, Pornhub enjoyed unprecedented levels of pandemic traffic worldwide. As of today, Pornhub averages 2.8b visits a month; its premium platform alone attracts 107m. Widespread public awareness of PornhubÔÇÖs transgressions has not curtailed its growth.
Although activism has brought Pornhub no closer to its downfall, it has radically altered its conduct for the best. The emergence of testimonies like KalembaÔÇÖs caused enough of a storm for Mastercard to abandon all cooperation with Pornhub, with Visa going a step further to sever all ties with its parent company, Mindgeek. As of December, all unverified content has been removed from the site, and only verified content creators can submit content to Pornhub. To become a verified model, creators must satisfy security protocols, such as a high-resolution selfie containing the modelÔÇÖs face with ÔÇÿpornhub.comÔÇÖ written physically in the same image. Further measures are to be introduced next year. The changes have introduced their own economic challenges. Visa and MastercardÔÇÖs withdrawal ruptured the incomes of many legitimate performers, but perhaps it was a necessary wake-up call to action. Pornhub is undeniably a safer platform after its revisions.
Indeed, hope is not lost; it simply needs finer crosshairs. PornhubÔÇÖs would-be abolishers pursue a noble cause with an impossible and misguided endgame. In truth, eliminating Pornhub outright achieves little in the way of detoxifying the climate of online porn. Even if we entertain the ludicrous scenario that Pornhub is somehow abolished by whichever authority, its consumers will not cease to exist. They will merely look elsewhere, and those whoÔÇÖve peered into this alternative space will know that the most convenient ÔÇÿelsewhereÔÇÖ is a far crueller and disreputable space than present-day Pornhub.
A cursory glance at the indexes of almost any free porn site is enough to disturb even the most passive moral sensibilities. PornhubÔÇÖs most popular alternatives do not care for bad press. They make no public statements, acknowledge zero social responsibility, and shine a shameless spotlight on whatever drives clicks. It is gruesomely trivial to find child abuse and rape on these sites; on many it is just three clicks away. These nexuses arenÔÇÖt on the dark web. TheyÔÇÖre on the first page of a Google search result.
The comparison between Pornhub and its alternatives is not mere whataboutism. It is a compulsory consideration we must make if we hope to build a more constructive space for online porn. For all PornhubÔÇÖs dreadful history, it is a necessary ally to the cause of progress. Not because a self-serving corporation has magically recognised the folly of its ways, nor because it deserves forgiveness, but because Pornhub is both inevitable and malleable. Activists cannot simply wish Pornhub away, but they can, have, and will continue to influence it. If young people meandering onto the most popular porn sites is inevitable, perhaps it is best we attempt to shape those environments, rather than create an impossible void.
Pornhub has done more than ramp up moderation ÔÇô theyÔÇÖve also relaunched the Pornhub Sexual Wellness Centre. The Centre is a nexus for constructive sexual discourse, with features and video from sexual health educators and professionals on a variety of subjects.
Some detail the basic anatomy of genitals, whilst others delve into deeper aspects of sexual development, like consent, fetishes, and even the psychology of infidelity. Whilst it offers credible tuition, its themes may be too sophisticated to reach the people who need to see it most: teens without access to proper sex education. And, whilst there is a link to the Wellness Centre on the top of every page on the Pornhub.com domain, the site could do more to bring those educational values into the forefront, as disclaimers on the extreme end of porn videos. PornhubÔÇÖs present state, then, should be celebrated and expanded upon, even if work remains. Pornhub isnÔÇÖt just a healthier place for porn consumption than its monolithic contemporaries ÔÇô tragically, it provides better sex education than many of the wealthiest nations on Earth offer to their children.
There is a reason why Pornhub became the sole subject of a viral boycott campaign, and it is not because its organisers are na├»ve. Exodus Cry, spearhead of the #TraffickingHub campaign which propelled PornhubÔÇÖs exploitative practice into the public eye, is a multi-million dollar Christian lobbying organisation based in Missouri. Its founder, Benjamin Nolot, claims that Exodus Cry is ÔÇÿcommitted to abolishing sex slavery through Christ-centered preventionÔÇÖ. It is anything but. Nolot has condemned gay marriage as ÔÇÿan unspeakable offence to GodÔÇÖ and compared abortion to the Holocaust. In his alleged crusade to heal victims of sex trafficking through Christ, Nolot travels to third-world countries with missionaries from the International House of Prayer, where he lobbies for authoritarian social policy. In Uganda, the International House of Prayer, with which Exodus Cry operates locally, lobbied for the successful Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014, which made homosexuality punishable by death.
Exodus CryÔÇÖs #TraffickingHub campaign is a reprehensible attempt to hijack the trauma of abuse victims for oppressive gain. Its agenda is as myopic as it is disingenuous: the abolition of all sex work. Indeed, Exodus Cry doesnÔÇÖt object to Pornhub for its various offences: it objects to the concept of porn sites, or any sexual commodity, existing at all. Evangelicalism has no regard for the consequences of criminalising sex work. Academics have repeatedly found that criminalising sex work drastically increases the spread of sexual diseases and endangers women in the sex trade by depriving them of legal human rights protections. Exodus Cry doesnÔÇÖt want a better space for sex workers. It wants momentum towards their eradication.
We should not disregard the benefits of the #TraffickingHub campaign. Without it, stories like Rose KalembaÔÇÖs may not have gained the momentum required to force PornhubÔÇÖs hand. But challenging the aims and arbiters of the movement is important. Exodus Cry is a disingenuous hate organisation with a tenuous grasp on the world and a disregard for science. We should not look to Evangelical hate preachers for solutions, yet theirs has become a leading one.
Another grave consequence of painting porn with too political a brush is that we deny its value as a resource of personal development and innocent recreation. What began as a campaign to boycott a porn site that profits from abuse victims has since spiralled into a prudish, puritanical crusade on what sort of porn should exist, and what dynamics porn ought to represent. Kink-shaming has no place in the discussion. Any porn that is consensually produced with appropriate safeguards for its performers should be legal. There is a place in the world for extreme porn, BDSM, and taboo roleplay, including consensual non-consent. Persecuting ethically produced porn, however distasteful you may find its theme or its representation of groups, is not social justice: itÔÇÖs curtailing the sexual exploration and expression of people from all groups. 62% of women have non-consensual fantasies, and roughly 25% of porn searches by women specifically target violence towards their own sex. This sort of porn isnÔÇÖt just a plaything for malevolent boys, and its non-male enjoyers should not be patronised as victims of internalised misogyny.
Exodus Cry offers shallow external solutions to complex internal problems. We will never sanitise and improve the climate of online porn by waving pitchforks at porn sites and sex workers for existing. Sexual violence, deviation, and repression are not consequences of porn. Porn wields hegemony over the sexual development of the young because the old refuse to speak of it. When society declines to educate children about sex beyond preaching abstinence, as evangelicals do, its young people will find construe truth in pornography. The very necessity of PornhubÔÇÖs Wellness Centre is a sad reflection of our societyÔÇÖs failure to talk about sex. We should not have to outsource the correction our cultural failures to private porn businesses.
There lies the heart of the beast. Pornography is fantasy, and fantasy only becomes personal truth when itÔÇÖs the only truth around.
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