Picture this. It’s the end of the day and you’re feeling a little horned up (can I get a hoii nhyeah?). You’re itching to get off, but a hook-up is not an option right now—it’s either that it’d take too long to scroll the apps, your fuck-buddy isn’t available, your partner’s mad at you, or you just want to be by yourself.

So, you pull out your phone and switch to your Alt Twitter account or incognito mode. You scroll through some of the hottest material the internet is willing to offer on a Thursday evening. And then, you start. And sure enough, you finish.

A lot of us watch porn to get off or for mere entertainment. But I wonder how often we think about the porn we’re watching.

No, I mean, how often do we really think about it?

But imagine this… On a fateful night, after a steamy session by yourself, you’ve got a phone in one hand, a whole lot of sticky icky mess on the other, a post-nut clarity arose and showed you the way of the world and suddenly you asked yourself:

What is ethical porn?

Like with many other products, pornography “can be ethically or unethically produced and consumed.” Ethical porn, otherwise known as “fair trade porn” or “feminist porn”, emphasises and prioritises the labour conditions and rights of performers.

You’re not alone in thinking that “ethical porn” could easily sit alongside terms like “corporate social responsibility” or “ethically sourced material”.

The term organically came about in the early 2010s when porn consumers started to question lots of differing opinions of what ethical porn actually means. Cliterally the best, a sex education site in the UK, notes that the term “has certainly become a buzzword and can be hard to define as it’s constantly evolving.” Some people in the feminist discourse surrounding ethical porn define it as porn that is inclusive and that centres a diverse range of people and bodies by rejecting the male gaze and phallus supremacy (elements that a lot of mainstream porn constantly caters towards).

Ethical Production vs Ethical Consumption

Many sites list how we can avoid porn that are potentially exploit or harm their creator. Cliterally The Best provides a comprehensive list, encouraging consumers to use their critical minds to question whether the porn authentically display various types of bodies, race, sexuality, without fetishising? Is the content contributing to harmful stereotypes? Who was behind the camera? Are the people involved paid fairly? You can find the full list of questions here.

But their main message aligns with an argument central to the ethical porn movement which industry professionals and sex positive sites seem to all echo is to “pay for your porn”.

I understand this is confronting. It was for me as well. But the more I dwell on it, the more I realise if we’re watching content for free without the creator’s consent, does it matter to people if the porn they’re watching is ethical if their consumption of it isn’t?

What I’ve learned in my weeks of dwelling and hyper fixating on the discourse of “ethical porn” is that we can’t be sure. Much like any other industries, there are always risks of exploitations.

But what we can be clear and sure about is our intention and action.

• Are we watching porn for free off a Google search?
• Are the contents we’re watching pirated?
• What systems of harm and exploitation might I be contributing to if I consume this content?

In my research “journey”, I found a blog written by a non-binary industry performer and creator, named Jiz Lee. They said:

How do we treat porn in our everyday lives?

Given the amount of porn a lot of us watch in our daily lives, I think we can afford to be more accountable. I’m not trying to take the moral high ground here; but as someone who’s recently been jolted by the fact that I may be contributing to systems of harms for sex workers and porn creators, I know I can do a little better.

Let’s look at how we think about porn. We describe Twitter porn accounts as “Alt Twitter” but why is that? Why do we clear our browser history right after watching porn, or watch it in incognito mode?

I’m not saying that any of this is wrong. Sometimes, it’s necessary to protect our privacy and our identity online, especially if you’re a content creator. But our porn consumption often reinforces a separation from our “real” lives—whatever that means – because it’s usually a private activity.

It means that we could let stuff slip through the cracks, not thinking about our consumption in the same way we think about the environment when we consume products or how we approach animal rights when we eat food. Because no one is there to hold us accountable of what we’re doing in private. No one there to tell us to stop when our hands are under the sheet and you're about to release the kraken.

From my experience trying to make sense of it all, it’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of how problematic the porn industry and how it relates to labour, fetishisation, exploitation, and outright discrimination. Though this can be confronting, it’s also outside our control. Instead, I want to to put the spotlight on us, as porn consumers. What have we been doing unethically, and what can we do better?

I think the first step is to ask yourself confronting and uncomfortable questions.

Am I actively looking for porn categories that are harmful? Do I know whether the porn categories I like fetishise or perpetuate harmful stereotypes about specific minority groups?

Need some proof? In my search for academic findings, I stumbled upon a study of “transgender and non-binary individuals’ experiences with pornography”.

The participants described how trans and non-binary representation in porn are rooted in stereotypical narratives that are harmful to real lived experiences. They described feeling objectified, fetishised, and “reduced to their bodies”. In other words, they feel as though they “are considered only for having specific body parts (i.e., genitals).”

Am I watching free content without the creator’s consent?

Did you know that there are “scraped” content? You might have already come across such content already, whether on Twitter, or other sites. These contents are illegally taken off of a website, or a creator’s OnlyFans, using a “scraper”—a web tool which automatically downloads all content (videos or images) from a webpage.

These contents are then sold or reposted across free porn sites, and it doesn’t take much effort to find at all.

Now that we know that scraping is a thing, but how do we know if we’re watching scraped or pirated content? A good rule of thumb is to watch content directly from the creator’s page or can easily be traced back to the original creator. For example, someone might have retweeted a spicy picture or a thread from an OnlyFans creator’s Twitter account.

If you’re on a website, a similar rule applies. Who posted it? Are there clear accreditations to performers, production studio, or creators?

Is it free and are you greeted by a lot of spammy type ads when you enter the website? If yes, there’s a high chance you might be on a pirate content site.

These are just a few things you can think about. So, my wish is for you to channel your inner digital diva and decipher for yourself what content has in fact been scraped or pirated.

If you’re unsure, just remember to watch original content from the actual studio or creator that produced it to ensure what you’re watching is legit.

Do I want guilt-free or conscious consumption?

This is probably the hardest and most confronting question I had to ask myself when trying to look for “ethical porn”. Am I looking for ethical porn to be an active consumer of porn who’s conscious about the way I could potentially harm/exploit performers and creators in the industry? Or am I just trying to get off without having to deal with the pang of guilt that arises every time I get post-nut clarity?

To know or not to know

To be honest, I don’t have easy answers to any of these questions. I also didn’t come (👀) to this dilemma overnight (full disclosure: I've been researching this article for a while now). But it turns out that this dilemma is what I need to stick with.

One article I found the most profound in reading about ethical porn was by a scholar named Karly-Lynne Scott, who writes that “rather than striving for guilt-free spectatorship granted by a false sense of certainty regarding labour conditions that comes with accepting ethical porn productions’ conventions as authentic, we may wish to accept that uncertainty is more ethically sound.”

What they meant is essentially rather than trying to find ethical porn to strip away the guilt of potentially viewing exploitative content, being uncertain about whether what you’re watching is ethical or not is the way to go.

That might sound counterintuitive. But think about it for a sec; constantly being uncertain forces you to proactively think about what you’re watching, it pushes you “to read and listen to what performers and other workers have said beyond the confines of the porn set, to be attentive to discussions about porn labour conditions, and to be active in their support of pornography performers’ rights” (Scott. 2016).

Trying to find ethical porn so we feel less guilt means absolving ourselves from our responsibilities as viewers. We should strive for ethical consumption just as much as the industry is trying to advance itself to become more ethical in its production.

So, go on, save money on those condoms or lubes, get them free from us and use that money to subscribe to your favourite content creator’s OnlyFans.

You might have come into this article expecting some tips about how to consume more ethically, but the reality is so much more complex. So, the next time you're in the mood for some ahem, external motivation, try leaning into this dilemma for yourself.

You might even surprise yourself and discover that contemplating the porn you're watching while masturbating can be fucking sexy (hoiii nyeahhh!).