As with any addiction, the brain always wants more, harder, more intense. Saying that one can actually change the likings of the enormous mass of consumers towards a kind of porn that is non-violent and non-sexist, is a lie.
Image of the promotional video of the 2018 Barcelon Erotic Salon.
“In a society lacking sexual education it is mandatory that porn changes”. Faded to black and then the the last words emerge: “Now we are in charge”.
For years, the salon has been sponsored by a brothel, and was famous for recruiting ‘voluntary’ workers that in exchange could attend live performances. A celebration of the most aggressive sexual neoliberalism, where fans have the opportunity to see the actors and actresses of their dreams in flesh and blood (and oil) with their own eyes, doing all kinds of “performances”, and giving interviews amongst the different stalls offering the latest in robotics and sex toys.
In the advertising video, the minute and half message loaded with hypocrisy, marketing, and false morals is summarised as follows. Seeing that male Spaniards (and more and more females too) are sexually educated through sexist and misogynist porn, and there isn’t really a serious alternative at home or at school, the porn industry has taken the lead in reformulating itself. From now on, porn will work on transmitting the values of good sex, which is feminist. And doing so it will achieve changing attitudes towards sex and therefore prevent future cases like the ‘Wolf pack’ one in Spain.
By means of a skilful window-dressing strategy, the porn industry is expecting us to believe that it has converted to feminism and is offering itself to educate young people sexually in a better way so that we can move towards a more fair and equal society.
Nevertheless, here are my four reasons why porn doesn’t need to be feminist, but rather has to disappear.
1. Porn is an industry, not an NGO. As any devouring business, the sex industry is governed by the laws of supply and demand, not by values such as justice or dignity. In a hyper-globalised society, with an unbridled capitalism that has lead us to the verge of collapse (the poor are poorer, the rich, richer than ever), the last thing we should be expecting from an industry such as the porn one in Spain, are lectures on ethics, and even less, sexual ethics.
Many of those reading this will know that there is porn to suit everyone’s tastes. It comes in all colours and sizes, in groups, with family members, with teenagers, with children. With people of all nationalities, animated, with fancy-dresses. Nowadays, it is feminism that sells, so let us pretend that it is possible to be feminist and consume porn, and let us add that category to all the other ones that can be found. Wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. Let the cobbler stick to his last. Let the pornographer stick to his banknotes.
2. Porn moves masses. The porn industry has changed its model: we have gone from DVDs, magazines or pay-per-view HD content to “free-of-charge” porn pages where it is quantity that matters, not quality nor the nature of the content. The more terabytes of videos you are able to offer, more people will see them, more traffic will be generated, and more money will be earned from advertising. The key to the business is to attract huge numbers of users.
For quite some time now, hundreds of thousands of people all around the world have been watching content that is neither feminist nor just. What we all know but the industry fails to mention (neither on the erotic salon advert nor on their online platforms) is that porn creates addiction in the brains of those who watch it - there are kids that have been watching this kind of content on their screens since they were 8 years old.
As with any addiction, the brain always wants more, harder, more intense. The same dosage isn’t enough for the kid that looks for “breasts” on Google than for the fifteen-year-old that has been more than five years obtaining his ration of sexual arousal from the Internet’s endless source.
Expecting to change the tastes of all these consumers so that one day they only watch non-violent and non-sexist porn, is rather naive. But the truth is that this is isn’t a real goal for the industry. Many of the actresses that produce “feminist” porn, also do mainstream porn scenes (hardcore and sexist, that is), because they can earn more.
3. Porn is prostitution. Etymologically, the word pornography comes from two greek terms: Porne (prostitute) and graphos (writing). We are not talking about art, nor cinematography, nor erotica, nor celebrating sex. The only thing that is celebrated, just as its etymology reveals, is prostitution: the commercial power of the one who pays over the one who is penetrated.
Prostitution in itself is incompatible with a fair and equal society. Porn and the progressive mentality (with its social justice discourse), don’t stick together even with Super Glue.
4. Porn feeds human trafficking. As of 2018, the are more slaves in the world than ever before in history. When we say slaves, were are not only talking about people picking cotton, harvesting cocoa or building great big structures in Dubai, but we are also talking about forced begging and forced labour, and especially here in Europe, sexual exploitation.
Human trafficking is a business that rubs shoulders with arms and drugs trafficking. Although it is tagged as legal, on too many occasions mainstream porn conceals abuse, threats, violence, fraudulent medical care, manipulation, drug abuse and suicide. In fact, it has been proven that some of the porn we see on the Internet, is actually video recordings of traffickers raping their victims in order to “domesticate” them.
In the clubs and brothels in Spain, there is porn 24hrs, so that women in prostitution know how they should act to please customers, which are coming through their doors with more and more perverse fantasies in mind: ones that they don’t even attempt to carry out with their partners.
We must and should set up more awareness events, conferences and walks for freedom, to denounce the humanitarian crisis human trafficking is generating, but what we are clicking on in the privacy of our bedroom or bathroom cannot contradict the words coming out of our mouths.
CONFRONTING THE PROBLEM
The advert for the Erotic Salon is an event in itself. Something like the classical Christmas advert for the most expensive perfume. In 2016, it was starred by the spokeswoman of laundered porn Amarna Miller, and the videoclip was awarded the Silver Lion of Cannes. Back then, the message was different : “You all watch porn, even though you pretend to be religious, conservative and decent. Stop being hypocrites.” Sadly enough, she was right, many of us are hypocrites.
We are dealing with a demagorgon with its tentacles well imbedded at the hearts of our families, schools, churches and communities. No one is free from it, this monster affects our pastors and people in positions of responsibility in the church; parents, young people and children from all backgrounds. But in the meantime we are looking the other way, because let us be honest, who is the brave one that is going to cast the first stone?
We need to wake up, leaving behind all the destruction pornography drags with it. Educating our children in healthy sexuality (it is never to early to start talking about it!), being more open and daring to talk about it, speaking up against the injustice in porn, prostitution, and human trafficking.
David Pérez Aragó, husband, father, teacher. Abolitionist.
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