Many people contact Fight the New Drug to share their personal stories about how porn has affected their life or the life of a loved one. We consider these personal accounts very valuable because, while the science and research is powerful within its own right, personal accounts from real people seem to really hit home about the damage that pornography does to real lives.
This Fighter's story shows that the finished product of what porn consumers see online is very, very different from what happens in reality behind the scenes.
I’m from México so, sorry for my English. I’m going to tell you when I realized that the porn industry is full of rape and human trafficking.
I’m the founder of a small marketing agency. Not long ago, we had a client from L.A. and we were editing some product videos for him. He was paying us really good money to do so.
After 2 months of working together, he told us he was willing to pay us twice what he was paying us to edit porn videos. (This job would have been way easier than what we were doing.)
Related: This Anonymous Performer’s Reddit Post About The Realities Of The Porn Industry Is Chilling
We accepted. He sent the files over, and let me tell you what we saw. The raw footage with uncut scenes is totally different from what the world looks at in finished products on porn sites.
Behind the scenes of the finished product porn consumers see online, there are literally screams of the girls between scenes often saying things like, “Please stop,” and, “I said I didn’t want to do this,” and, “Please, this hurts,” and, “Hey, don’t do that.”
The videos the world watches hides the abuse of the performers, and you would never know that they don’t want to do some things or anything at all in the video.
I personally decided to give this guy his money back, and of course, he was really surprised. I was kind of scared to tell him why, but in the end, I told him that this was not just against my beliefs, but that “I don’t feel comfortable being part of such a horrible crime.”
He told us that it was fine, that “there are plenty of people willing to do this job.” I spoke for the agency and, respectfully, told him to never contact us again.
I never used to watch porn, and with this experience, it was more than enough for me to never even think about watching porn.
I feel that nowadays it’s not enough just to avoid porn. We need to stand up and point out that the porn industry is horrible and full of crimes.
The world needs to know the truth about the porn industry.
–M.
The myth of porn sites only having consensual content
At best, nonconsensual porn is abusive, and at worst, it’s human trafficking caught on tape.
Would you support a business if you knew that they abused some (but not all) of their employees? Pornographers don’t want you to think about it, but even if some of the humiliation, degradation, and sexual violence you see in porn is consensual, some is not.
Related: More Than 80 Men Were Sexually Exploited And Secretly Filmed For This Guy’s Porn Site
Think about this: how do we know for sure that anyone in any porn content gives their consent for what happens to them?
Defenders of pornography make this argument all the time, that no matter how someone is treated in porn, it’s okay because they gave their consent. But what if he didn’t? What if she really didn’t want to be painfully dominated, humiliated, and sexually used for the world to see? The truth is, there’s often much more going on than what you see on the screen. That is, perhaps, the porn industry’s biggest, darkest secret: it’s not all consensual.
And if you’re not convinced content on mainstream sites isn’t all consensual, read this Jezebel.com story, this story on Daily Beast, this story on Complex.com, this Rolling Stone story, this Daily Beast story, this Bustle.com story, this story on CNN, this NY Post story, this Gizmodo.com story, this BBC report, this Florida Sun-Sentinel report, this Daily Wire story, this Buzzfeed News profile, and this UK Independent story for further proof that the mainstream porn industry features nonconsensual videos and videos of trafficked individuals. And yes, this includes videos on Pornhub and other mainstream porn sites.
Not clicking isn’t always easy, since porn is everywhere and so many people struggle, but it’s an action that we can all take, and it’s an action that matters.
One final thing…
The point is, when you consume porn, there’s no way to know what kind of “consent” the actors have given. You can’t assume, just because someone appears in a porn video, that they knew beforehand exactly what would happen or that they had a real choice or the ability to stop what was being done.
Related: Can The Line Between Consent And Coercion Get Blurred During Porn Production?
We’re not claiming that all porn is nonconsensual. We’re simply pointing out that some of it is and some of it isn’t, and when you watch it there’s no way to know which is which.
So, would you buy from a company if you knew that some, but not all, of their products were made with child labor? Would you support a store that abused some, but not all, of their employees?
How can it be ethical to say that “porn is okay because participants give their consent,” when we know for a fact that some—probably much more than you think—do not?
