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Money Shot's big lie

The film begins with a cutesy complilation of porn stars sharing their first experiences with porn. A number of these stories are pre-internet, meaning they do sound quaint in comparison to what kids see now, at ever younger ages, online. We’re talking 80s Playboys and fairy tale-themed “erotic movies” on Cinemax.

Even I found such things confusing and disturbing when I accidentally encountered them as a kid, but apparently people think this stuff is cute and kitschy nowadays — ah the fond childhood memories of adult sex.

Though the documentary can claim to show “both sides,” the narrative is shaped by industry advocates disguised as “independent sex workers.” One interviewee, Asa Akira, is in fact Pornhub’s spokeperson and brand ambassador.

No one working directly for Pornhub is going to admit the company and the industry as a whole profits from trafficking, exploitation, rape, and child porn.

Missing from the film are women who have left the porn industry, now free to tell the truth about their experiences; researchers who might offer data and insight into who goes into porn and why, mental health, STDs, and addiction in the industry; psychological or physical impacts on the women involved; and trafficking victims themselves.

Like many debates, the porn debate is treated as two-sided: there are the “sex workers” fighting for the right to sell sex legally, free from “censorship” (the little guy), and then there are the moralistic, anti-sex, religious conservatives who wish to repress sexuality and are campaigning against the little guy’s freedom.

We are offered “choice” or “no choice.” “Freedom” or “North Korea.” Pro-sex or anti-sex.

In truth, porn is a multi billion dollar industry that uses a few “happy hookers” as politically convenient representatives to speak on their behalf, disguising the dark truth behind the sex trade.

Talking about men’s choices to consume abusive and dehumanizing pornography, or porn that sexualizes “teens” or childern is almost always left out of the conversation.

The “let adults do what they like” almost always applies to women, except when framed as “policing people’s sexualities,” which implies a form of thought policing, but conveniently excludes the fact that porn is not relegated to people’s imaginations.

Perdue claims the “teen” category “doesn’t necessarily refer to teenagers,” and that “it’s more in reference to a body type” — a rather genius defense, because it ignores the fact that sexualizing minors and encouraging men to masturbate to their degradation creates a market for actual teen porn and encourages men to view teen girls as sexual objects.

By carefully presenting performers as “independent, empowered sex workers,” the film’s producers construct a conversation about “free choice,” and are able to avoid the fact porn sells abuse, objectification, and exploitation, regardless of “consent.”

And that within that “consent” — those contracts signed, what happens on set involves a hell of a lot of coercion.

When we talk about porn, we aren’t talking about independents — we are talking about a massive, multi-billion dollar industry.

The intent behind Money Shot is to argue that porn is a clean, happy industry full of enthusiastically consenting women, and that the “dark side” — child porn, trafficking, and nonconsensual content — is completely separate from that and only a tiny minority of the industry...

The happy hooker fantasy has always only represented a tiny minority of women, and usually doesn’t tell their whole story anyway.

MindGeek, the company that owns Pornhub, was sued by numerous plaintiffs who accused them of distributing and profiting from child pornography and nonconsensual sex videos. The company was undoubtedly aware that this content was displayed on Pornhub, as numerous women and teen girls had emailed them, desperate to have their images removed from the site...

Nonconsensual videos would stay up for months after complaints were filed, and when they were removed, they would immediately pop up again on the site.

...there was still no age or consent verification required for the women featured in the videos. Anyone with an ID could still upload what they liked.

Realistically, I don’t believe we can end porn or prostitution entirely. But we could make it impossible for companies like Pornhub to exist, make profiting from porn illegal, and ensure a porn set must comply with labour standards, including health and safety standards and laws against sexual harassment and assault...

...thereby rendering everything that happens on a porn set illegal.

The idea that the horror of the industry should be accepted because one woman managed to buy a house with her earnings is not good enough for me.

這篇文章作者和其他人談同個議題的影片

What "Money Shot" left out