People have been debating the concepts of “ethical porn,” “feminist porn,” and “authentic porn” the entire time I’ve been in this industry. It’s a constant push-and-pull within the queer, sex-positive, and feminist communities. Is porn an oppressive force, or an avenue for change and exploration? (Depends.) Is “male-gaze” porn hot, or problematic? (Depends.) Is what happens on porn sets always fully consensual? (Sadly, no.)
The concept of “ethical porn” is somewhat elastic and subjective, but it’s always interesting to see how individual people and companies choose to define this term for themselves. Sex toy brand Bellesa recently launched Bellesa Plus, their new porn subscription service which they’re calling “the Netflix of porn.” It features not only sexy videos but also interactive sex education and 600+ written erotica stories. Since ethics is a major focus of the work they’re doing, I thought it would be cool to expand on this concept a bit, and ponder the morality of smut.
Here are some basic benchmarks for what I would consider ethical porn:
• Performers are treated well. I mean, of course! They should be provided with snacks and water on set, able to take breaks when they need to, and valued and respected by everyone involved in the production. To me, this also includes implementing health and safety measures that help keep performers safe, like STI screening requirements (which Bellesa Plus, like most porn studios I’ve heard of, enforces), and having lots of lube available on set.
• Performers are paid well. As a feminist, I believe in pay equity, pay transparency, and fair payment for services rendered. Porn performers work incredibly hard and deserve compensation that reflects that, for each and every scene they do.
• Performers have agency. When I’ve performed in porn for indie companies, I’ve always been encouraged to choose scene partners who I genuinely like, trust, and want to have sex with on camera – which made the experience much more comfortable for me. Bellesa Plus is doing the same thing: their performers all choose who they want to work with, so the chemistry you see on-screen is based in real desire. Their performers also have veto power vis-a-vis what kinds of storylines they will or won’t perform in, and what kinds of sex they will have, and they can call an immediate end to the scene whenever they want, should something go awry.
• Everything depicted is consensual, and anything that appears non-consensual is properly contextualized. Unfortunately, some porn producers and performers are unscrupulous, and various forms of sexual assault do sometimes happen on porn sets. Truly ethical pornographers would immediately fire and blacklist anyone known to do shit like this, and would encourage (or require) a pre-scene negotiation between performers to establish ground rules for the scene. Bellesa assures me that 100% of the sex you’ll see on Bellesa Plus is consensual, and was filmed consensually. That said, many, many people have fantasies that involve some degree of non-consent – “rape” fantasies and other kinky power-exchange scenarios remain very popular in polls about such things – and those people should be able to access that type of material if they want to, although I think it should always be paired with some indication that the performers are actually consenting to what they’re doing. I’ve mostly seen that done via pre-scene and post-scene interviews with the performers about their fantasies, expectations, and limits.
• Content warnings are provided for each scene. We have them for mainstream movies in the form of MPAA rating descriptors; why not have them for porn, too? As a porn viewer who has certain triggers and squicks (which almost everyone does, to some extent), I often get frustrated when I put on what I think is going to be a hot scene, only to find that it contains some of the things I can’t handle or just don’t want to watch. A brief list of content warnings would help enormously, especially if timecodes were provided so I could skip past the stuff I didn’t want to see.
• Diversity of performers and filmmakers is prioritized. There is, frankly, more than enough porn made by straight cis able-bodied white guys out there already. They can and will keep doing their thing, but I’m much more interested in porn made by people from marginalized groups: people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, etc. etc. etc. Much of the porn on Bellesa Plus is directed by Jacky St. James, a legendary female pornographer, whose gaze and approach differ substantially from those of typical mainstream porn.
Bellesa Plus is doing some other things I think are awesome, too:
• They offer sliding-scale pricing, so that people who want to watch porn can access it for as little as $1/month. Paying more gets you cool perks like free sex toys, but if you just want cheap smut, they’ve got you covered. This is terrific news for people who care about supporting pornographers financially but don’t have much spare cash with which to do so.
• Director Jacky St. James has a “no fake orgasms” policy. I actually think fake orgasms can sometimes be hot, in the same way that I’m not mad when Meryl Streep cries in a movie despite not really being sad because she’s so damn good that it’s affecting regardless – but the prevalence of fake female orgasms in mainstream porn does contribute to culture-wide misinformation about sex and pleasure, so it’s cool to see some companies deviating from that norm.
• Their porn focuses on storyline and chemistry, rather than being all about closeups of tits and pussy and cock and ass. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good genitalia shot, but I also hear from readers/followers of mine pretty regularly that they wish porn had more of a story arc, relationship development, real chemistry, and so on. As a demisexual person, I totally get that for some people, it can be hotter to watch sex that’s been put in context emotionally, rather than just depicting a detached fuck in an unexplained location.
What about you? How would you define “ethical porn”? How do your tastes in porn relate to your values and ethics, if at all?
This post was graciously sponsored by the folks at Bellesa Plus. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.