Why would anyone pay for porn? After all, you can find free porn all over the internet. And despite the million pop-up ads and some slightly disturbing cartoons crowding your screen, it’s all more or less the same, isn’t it?
It’s easy to think this way when you’re behind the screen and it’s one a.m. All you want is a video of two (or more) people having sex, so you can unwind from a long day.
Now, what about the people inside of your screen? They have also had multiple, long days. Those days have been spent shooting porn, their job, but somehow millions of people enjoy their labor while providing no monetary compensation.
Porn is almost synonymous with PornHub, RedTube, and XHamster; porn tubes that carry millions of free porn videos with zero accountability or responsibility for their performers' wellbeing and rights.
In April of 2020, health journalist and researcher Michael Castleman gathered metrics for the world’s top 100 porn sites. The data showed that these websites showed 14.5 billion views from 3.3 billion unique visitors in a month. If you were to do the math, 3.3 billion times an average of a 5-dollar monthly subscription would generate 16.5 billion dollars per month.
That's only a month’s worth of data and more than enough money to pay workers and improve both the quality of the content and working conditions on and off set.
Unfortunately, that’s not the reality for mainstream porn. Most websites such as PornHub or RedTube aren’t charging consumers directly, paying their performers properly, or safeguarding a safe work environment. But if you look beyond the big porn tube names, there are ethical porn platforms rewriting the rules of pornography. With a growing digital media world and slow but steady improvements in the sex work industry, there are new, easy ways to watch ethical porn.
“Ethical porn can be defined as that which is made legally, respects the rights of performers, has good working conditions, shows both fantasy and real-world sex, and celebrates sexual diversity,” stated the article, “Ethical porn — does it exist and who makes it?” by Kellie Scott, published on ABC news.
Three companies producing collective ethical content are Bellesa, Quinn, and Erika Lust Films. All three are women-run and founded on different niches - video, written word, and even audio erotica (to spice up those boring commutes). These companies strive to run a space where their workers feel comfortable and their viewers can feel confident that the porn is shot in the safest and most equitable environment possible.
Quinn is an audio erotica app and website that invites creators to submit voice memos, which are then selected by the Quinn team. These audios strive to please different niche fantasies and kinks. They have it all, from the girl next to a bad boy taking you for a motorcycle ride. Most importantly, all creators submit content themselves without pressure or shady contracts and get paid if their audio is selected. Listeners get unlimited access for 4.99 a month. Breaking it down, that’s a little over a dollar every week.
Quinn founder Caroline Spiegel explains that creators can earn as much as $5,000 per month by submitting stories.
“Spiegel and her staff curate the audio submissions from creators, Ariel Zilber in her article 'Erotic App Quinn, founded by Snapchat CEO’s sis, has 300 subscribers.' "While the creators have autonomy over the final product, they are not permitted to violate company rules banning anything that promotes non-consensual sex or rape, incest, sex with minors, or zoophilia,” she wrote for Fox Business.
Bellessa, a video platform where creators fully control the scenes they shoot, offers viewers multiple subscription plans. The company allows subscribers to choose what they want to pay, from one-dollar plans to premium 35-dollar subscriptions.
CEO and Founder of Bellessa, Michelle Shnaidman is passionate about providing consumers and workers with a pleasant experience, whether it’s making or watching porn.
“There’s an ethical porn renaissance happening," she states on Bellessa's website. "Society is evolving, and people are starting to become aware about the kind of porn they are consuming and about the importance of protecting sex workers." Bellessa's ethical porn is part of that renaissance.
Now if you’re looking porn that takes from artistic and indie films, Erika Lust Films might be for you. The Swedish filmmaker is known for highly produced art-house pornography. "Porn is always going to exist," Lust told SHAME last year, "So it's clear that the real solution to bad porn is not a ban but making porn with clean values and from diverse perspectives."
The filmmaker’s website also includes a magazine titled LustZine, the uncensored mag, focusing on sex and entertainment.
If you’re broke and love to consume written erotic content, there are free ethical alternatives. The site Smilemakers houses a section dedicated to free written erotica based on fantasies and real-life experiences produced by regular people. Another free erotica website is Literotica, featuring stories submitted by anyone with a literary streak, hosted on a nostalgically designed website. BERLINABLE, the place for artistic and diverse erotica, also offers some free erotic written and audio literature on its website.
The real question is, how can you be sure that the company you’re supporting is ethical? For the most part, like most things, it comes down to money. If you’re paying a sex worker for their content directly or have a monthly subscription to a company that is transparent about how they produce content, then you’re most likely alright.
What are you paying for when you pay for porn? If you’re still asking yourself that question, I’ll give a quick, simple answer. You’re paying for higher resolution videos, fewer pop-up ads, more options, and most importantly, you’re paying people for their work and time.
Perhaps your first instinct isn't to go directly to one of the aforementioned websites, put in your credit card number, and vow to exclusively pleasure yourself to ethical, honest porn in which you can be sure that the performers are having just as much fun doing the deed as you are watching them.
That's okay. We're not here to hold your hand (especially not now that it's sticky) and make decisions for you. All we ask is that you think about your options and consider the choices you're making. Maybe next week, you can look through the Bellessa videos before opening PornHub or subscribe to the Erika Lust Film newsletter to get sexy suggestions in your mailbox. Who knows, maybe the clean values of ethical porn will prove to be the biggest turn-on. It's worth a try.