Free Porn vs Good Porn

What are the consequences of an explosively growing acceptance and use of porn for the industry and for the viewer? CNN editor and licensed psychotherapist Ian Kerner wrote a controversial article about free porn vs. good porn.

Pornography is easily online accessible, just a few clicks away. What a difference that was a generation or two ago, when curious rookies had to secretly look for old Playboy Magazines. According to the American Psychological Association, numbers of porn consumption vary between 50% and 99% among men and 30% to 86% among women.

PornHub alone serves roughly 2.4 million visitors per hour, which is 6000 per second(!) 

A large part of this will consist of free material. That makes it even more accessible and therefore more ‘normal’. Many Millennials describe porn as an accepted and healthy part of their sex life. Which is good news, you might say. There’s a huge amount of material that you don’t have to pay for!

At the same time our tolerance, or immunity, to moderate material is growing due to the huge offerings. On average, we watch 9 minutes of pornographic material at a time, but we spend much more searching for the things that appeal to us. The needle in the haystack.

The offerings on free sites is based entirely on ad sales: what we click on, makes money and will be made more available, which is then clicked on again. A vicious circle. Moreover, the origin of free material is often unclear, let alone the way the actors are treated.

A huge amount of material. It doesn’t costs any money. Result: a lot of bad porn. 

As a counter movement Kerner notes is a phenomenon that he calls Ethical Porn. Just as organic meat and Fair Trade coffee made sure we shop for food differently, ethical porn ensures the world of pornography will look differently, he predicts. The demand for materials produced by humane standards, with legal actors that are treated nicely, is growing. Which has nothing to do with soft and romantic, it can still be hardcore sex, but with respect for the actors.

Ethical porn has to do with an ethical way of consuming as well. So enjoy it as an addition to your sex life, but have a good understanding with your partner and keep your promises. And watch porn that’s produced ethically. How do you know? There is often no guarantee, but you can start here, at Dusk. Yes, you have to pay for it, but you can enjoy great material with a clean conscience at a reasonable price.

Source: edition.cnn.com