The Importance of Creating More Ethical Porn
This week on Sexvangelicals, we talk with Kara Haug of Reframing Our Stories about the sexual health principle of honesty.
In summary, our inability to talk effectively and honestly with our kids and teenagers about sexuality increases the likelihood of sexuality being an undiscussed secret, which has devastating implications on long-term relationships.
One of the most common sexual secrets in relationships is porn consumption.
The fifth deadly sexual sin according to the EMPish (Evangelical/Mormon/Pentecostal) communities is “Don’t watch porn.” And we find two significant outcomes of this deadly sexual sin.
Residents in Bible Belt states are the highest consumers of pornography in the US, according to Pornhub.
Religious folks are much more likely to identify as “porn/sex addicts” than non religious folks, which seems to communicate the amount of shame connected with porn consumption, and the horrific emotional/behavioral cycle of “shame—> porn consumption—> shame.”
In episodes 67 and 68, Cayte Castrillon talks about her research on the impact of porn consumption on young adult women’s self-perception and relationships with men.
We summarize these episodes:
“We're not at fault for our social conditioning, but we are responsible for it. We have to reflect on how we have developed as sexual beings, how that impacts us and our relationships, and then ask ourselves, am I content with who I am as a sexual person? Or do I want to be more intentional about who I am, who I want to be, and for the sake of our conversation, what I want to consume?”
Cayte’s research involves a myriad of dyadic conversations between herself, as a sexual health educator, and individual young adult women.
What happens if we put a group of young adults in the same room and get them to talk about how they would improve the production and consumption of pornography?
Kate Dawson, Saoirse Nic Gabhainn, and Padraig Mac Neela of the National University of Ireland in Galway did just that with Irish youth. In their 2020 article “Toward a Model of Porn Literacy: Core Concepts, Rationals, and Approaches,” the research team created focus groups to discuss how porn might be produced and consumed more ethically and responsibly. The focus groups named eight categories:
Reducing shame and increasing acceptability of porn engagement. The young adult focus groups suggested that encouraging open dialogue and accurate information about porn consumption, without moralizing it, might challenge the negative impacts and showcase the positive outcomes of porn use.
Discussion of sexual communication and sexual violence. They described how scenes with sexual violence, coercion, and engaging with sex with actors who play minors “trivializes” and makes it harder to discuss sexuality. They asked for porn sites, like Pornhub, to put warning labels on non-consensual porn scripts. And they encouraged producers to create more scenes involving asking for and giving consent, anatomically accurate language, and the process of negotiating different scenarios.
Body and genital image. The focus groups discussed how pornography commonly reinforces Western standards for beauty around thinness, hairlessness, and specific configurations of genitalia and musculature. They suggested a diverse casting allows for a diverse representation of genitalia and bodies.
The realities of sex. The focus groups asked producers to include the humor, awkwardness, and disappointing elements of sexuality. Show us some bloopers. Except don’t call them bloopers.
Pleasure and orgasm. They described how enactments of pleasure and orgasm were over the top and “too easy.” They encouraged producers to film and produce an expanded, prolonged buildup into a sexual experience.
Physical safety and sex. The focus groups noted that porn scenes commonly portray pain as pleasurable. And while pain may be pleasurable for some folks, there’s psychological and emotional implications that don’t get discussed in porn scenes that could be helpful to bear witness to. They also encouraged writers to include dialogue that named accurate language for anatomy and physiology, and to discuss diverse ways of moving through the sexual response cycle.
The role of pornography as an educator. The focus groups reflected something that we’ve shared on Sexvangelicals: Porn is designed to be entertainment, not education. But in the absence of comprehensive sex education, porn doubles as entertainment and education. School systems and nonprofits must improve in their ability to provide comprehensive sex education.
The sexualization and fetishizing of the queer community. The focus groups named two significant themes. First, there’s a significant inequality and underrepresentation of the trans community. And second, the representation of lesbian sex typically is created for the straight male gaze. They encouraged producers and consumers to explore the origins of these stereotypes of queer folks.
Transformation happens when we get groups of people together to talk about change. We are in the early stages of developing groups of people to discuss the impact of abstinence-only sex education on folks who grew up in religious communities. Stay tuned for more information in late 2023 and 2024!