All About Ethical Porn

Here at Bright Desire we call ourselves ethical porn. It’s part of our wider philosophy that’s all about making porn that’s feminist, inclusive, fun and human. Every now and again you’ll get a media article questioning whether ethical porn even exists. This post is here to give our view of what constitutes ethically made porn and why it’s a useful label.

Unfortunately most mainstream porn still relies on sexist, racist and offensive tropes that can be a huge turnoff, especially for women. The desire to make a better kind of porn has led creators to label their content “ethical porn”. And this is also a handy way to search for it. This term is a very useful way to classify porn that is feminist, sex positive and independent. It’s not perfect but it’s still worth using.

Ethical porn can manifest in three ways: how it’s made, what it depicts and the guiding principles behind the entire production. Ideally, ethical porn embodies all three ideals.

How Ethical Porn Is Made

An ethical porn production seeks to make the porn in ethical circumstances. This means creating scenes in professional and consensual circumstances for all involved. Ethical production starts before casting and continues after the scene has been filmed. In practice this means:

• Planning the scene ahead of time so that it can be ethical. Even if the scene is “spontaneous”, it helps to have an overall plan for what will happen.
• Letting performers know what is expected ahead of filming, including sex acts they should perform. Being forthcoming with any information the performer requires including any contracts that will be signed. Giving time to withdraw from the scene.
• Ensuring the performer is over 18 and documenting this.
• Creating clearly worded contracts and documentation of the scene.
• Paying performers properly and paying them on time.
• Giving performers set time frames for filming, rest breaks and food, if necessary.
• Giving performers the opportunity to stop the scene if they are uncomfortable.
• Ensuring performers are respected by the crew and their fellow cast members.
• Upholding best safe sex practices on set. This can mean using a condom or other barrier methods, current STI tests or, in some cases, an attestation that partners are currently fluid bonded, STI free and have no other sex partners.
• Ensuring the performers are treated with respect in the final product.

The majority of mainstream porn productions adhere to at least some of these points. In the USA, legal porn production requires documentation of the age of performers, contracts and payment at the very least. So – paradoxically- simply making porn ethically doesn’t mean it fits into the phrase “ethical porn” as people currently understand it. You need to do more.

What Ethical Porn Depicts

An ethical porn scene also depicts sex, sexuality and the performers in a positive, ethical way. This is an acknowledgement that porn can be produced in ethical conditions but still reproduce sexist, racist, homophobic or sex-negative tropes. Porn that describes itself as Ethical often depicts the following:

• Consent is made explicit. This can happen via dialogue, physical movement (e.g. nodding) or as the scene is set up / as it finishes. Consent can also be made apparent through the scene description and via pre- and post-scene interviews with the performers or behind-the-scenes videos. Good ethical porn producers know that asking for consent can easily be made sexy. Producers of consensual non-consent BDSM / kink scenes ensure that consent is made apparent through scene-adjacent material (interviews, pre-rolls) and may use descriptions that help to depict that scene as fantasy, not reality.
• Scenes are put in context. This might mean creating a plot or reason for the sex. Or it might simply be providing a description that talks about why the scene happens as it does. Making the fantasy nature of porn explicit can be important.
• Performers are respected. Viewers are encouraged to see the performers as people, not sex objects. Even if the scene itself uses derogatory words as part of the scenario, it should be apparent that this is the fantasy, not the reality.
• Pleasure equality, or a focus on female pleasure. This is mainly important for heterosexual sex scenes which historically have ignored or sidelined the woman’s enjoyment of sex. Ethical sex scenes will ensure that female performers have an equal or greater amount of pleasure (unless the scenario requires otherwise with consent and enjoyment still apparent).
• Different perspectives. Ethical porn explores many different ways of seeing and different ways of having sex, including non-heterosexual sex.
• Different bodies. Ethical porn expands our understanding of what is “beautiful” by including performers with a variety of bodies, ethnicities and gender identities.

Guiding Principles

Pornography is often created as a commercial enterprise. It is, after all, entertainment and exists to make money for the producer. The commercial imperative also motivates some ethical porn producers. Porn is expensive to produce and it helps to be able to recover the money spent and perhaps make a profit. Performers should be paid for their work so making money is part of the process. Even so, being commercial doesn’t preclude porn from being ethical. And usually ethical porn producers have other motivations behind their work. These include:

• Sex Positivity. To be sex positive is to see, have and to show sex in a positive way, without the shame and baggage that have long surrounded sex and sexuality. Sex is overwhelmingly a good thing, to be enjoyed freely (with mutual consent of course). There is no slut-shaming, no shaming of body parts or body types, no shame about masturbation, no negativity about sexual practices or preferences. Sex is something people have together, not something they do to another person. It can occur casually or in a relationship without judgement. It can be intimate and connected or purely about momentary pleasure. It’s all good.
• Feminism. Some ethical producers consider making alternative porn to be a feminist undertaking. Given that so much porn has excluded women and women’s voices and experiences, feminist porn seeks to offer an alternative vision, one that centres the non-male or non-patriarchal perspectives. Given that some branches of feminism are opposed to all porn, feminist porn creators offer the opposing view: that porn in and of itself is not anti-feminist and that depictions of sex can be a force for good.
• LGBTIQ+ Rights and Visibility. Many ethical porn creators have been motivated by a desire to show queer sexualities on film. Mainstream porn can be rigid in how it defines sex and what it shows; genres are restricted to straight, gay and “lesbian” and often only feature one type of body and a stereotypical type of sex. Ethical queer porn has expanded the range of what LGBTIQ+ porn looks like and who can star in it. It has also made queer people and queerness far more visible and helped people to explore and expand their own sexuality. At a time when LGBTIQ rights are under attack from right wing forces, queer porn is part of the fight. It refuses to be censored and takes a stand for queer rights.
• Sex Education. There is still so much ignorance about anatomy and how to have good sex. A solid subset of ethical porn producers make sex education videos or make sex education a feature of their work. Though porn should primarily be enjoyed as entertainment, viewers still learn and pick up ideas from porn. Filming realistic sex or including useful information about sex as part of the work is a way to raise awareness and educate about sex.
• Sex Work Rights and Visibility. In many places around the world, sex work is still criminalized. Performing in porn is sex work. Many ethical porn producers believe that sex work is work and should be treated as such – decriminalized and subject to the same rules as other businesses. Ethical porn seeks to fight for sex worker rights and reduce the stigma surrounding sex work. A number of ethical porn creators have made their films specifically about sex work because of this.
• Anti-Censorship. Porn has long fought against morality police who see to corral sex and sexuality and make it invisible. Many porn producers are fervently against censorship and speak out against laws which inhibit freedom of expression. Porn is the canary in the coalmine of free speech; those who seek to repress it usually want to silence the voices of women, queer people and others.

Paying For Porn Is Ethical

Many porn producers and performers argue that the best way to support ethical porn and see more of it get made is to pay for it. This is especially important because piracy is so endemic in porn and people think it should always be free. This ignores that fact that porn costs money to produce and ethical porn needs to pay its performers. Most people who make ethical porn don’t want to be out of pocket when creating their work. When you pay for porn, you reimburse the people who went to the effort of making the porn you like and encourage them to make more.

Criticism

Some feminists insist that there’s no such thing as ethical porn. Their criticism lies within a larger ideological framework that is ultimately conservative. One aspect of this rejection is the idea that sex work is inherently wrong and exploitative. They argue that because porn performers are being paid to have sex, they apparently aren’t fully consenting to the sex. This interpretation ignores the idea that, under capitalism, everyone is paid to use their bodies to produce a product of some kind. In this system, being paid is part of the transaction, an exchange of services for money. Sex work is no different.

This leads to the criticism that because it’s sex, it’s not the same. Anti-sex-work feminists thus bring a moral argument that relies on the belief that sex is special and rarefied and should be something only ever done for free. Unfortunately this ignores that sex can be transactional in many ways, but also that people who do sex work are freely making the choice to use the sexual parts of their bodies to make money.

Those who criticize porn often rely on generalizations about what porn is, what it looks like and who watches it. The existence of ethical porn undermines these generalizations, which is why so many seek to deny it’s existence. In truth, depictions of sex and sexuality are not inherently wrong or unethical. The existence of ethical porn shows that pornography can be a legitimate reflection of this part of humanity. It should be celebrated, not denied.

Where To Find Ethical Porn

There’s been an explosion of alternative, ethical porn creators over the last few years but it can be hard to find it. Search engines still give priority to tube sites which are often sexist and offensive. It’s worth trying a few different search terms and burrowing down the list of results.

There’s a few ways to see if a porn site or producer wants to be identified as ethical. Many ethical porn sites include a statement of ethics which lists their beliefs and production guidelines. They are often a member of industry bodies and support performer groups. They often have behind-the-scenes videos and interviews on their sites. You may also want to check the social media profiles of those who are making the porn and see if they’ve been interviewed in the media. Many are vocal about their beliefs and ideals. You can also look at the social media profiles of performers who appear in ethical porn. They typically have good things to say about working with ethical porn sites.

Of course, Bright Desire is an ethical porn site so you’ve already found it! Please consider joining and supporting this site and its ongoing mission to create smart, feminist, ethical porn.