Everyone is addicted to pornography, yet it remains a taboo whose rules are not questioned in the slightest. Never before, sex is a commodity; pornography is the cheapest, but psychologically most devastating, emotional solution to avoid relating to the Other. In Eros in agony, the philosopher Byung-Chul Han speaks of pornography as "desecration" of eros: is there an alternative between uncontrolled pornography and bigoted obscurantism? Yeah, and it’s called ethical porn.
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What are the features of the content of the big porn mainstream platforms? The infinite amount of content and categories at first may seem to be synonymous with inclusion, with no prejudice; however, comparing them with ethical platforms, one increasingly realizes that pornography is a matter for the few. Underlining the masculine is not a habit of form, if one dwells on the fact that there is a certain heterocentrism in porn, where the point of view is predominantly male, in which the man dominates the woman. All accompanied by the predominance of performance over sensation: the icing on the cake that so much likes and feeds the dreaded performance anxiety.
If this is the state of the art, ethical porn moves in the opposite direction. One of the common denominators of ethical platforms is paid access to content. It may sound like a capitalist oxymoron but, as in any other service, gratuitousness or low prices are often not synonymous with quality and a fair and supportive supply chain. If these sites emphasize the importance of paid access as a guarantee of the dignity of creators and their working conditions, some questions about how the porn industry functions economically should be asked.
Another common aspect is the amateur: seeing real couples having sex reduces the conception of performance, the prerogative of the actors, and approaches the sexual experience of mere mortals. Platforms like Bright Desire, which only welcomes videos of real couples, makes it all more truthful and, in its own way, can be a way to reduce any anxieties.
The female point of view is often central, not only in terms of direction but also in content: it is the pleasure of the woman, the element around which the content is built. This is the case of Uniporn.tv, the first Italian platform dedicated to ethical and independent porn, born in 2020, which eliminates traditional aesthetic canons and leaves room for all sexual practices. Or Sssh.com, "female-led and female-focused" site, that reimagines eros and gives space to indie productions that, in other contexts, would have struggled to emerge. Sssh.com is even attentive to technological innovation: in fact, it offers immersive videos, created specifically for use through VR.
There are even those who make porn a tool of sexual and emotional education, and Afterglow by Lilly Sparks is an example. Subscribing to this service does not mean accessing only pornographic material: it is in fact possible to get in touch with sexologists and therapists, to take courses to increase the pleasure, alone or in pairs, to learn how to coexist sexuality and disability.
Someone wanted to give an ecological footprint to porn, like the Fuck For Forest project, "an ecological organization with a sexy touch" that starts from an absolute truth: you have to hide when you make love but you can destroy nature in the sunlight. FFF activists and activists have decided to produce pornographic material en plein air, the proceeds of which will finance environmental protection projects. Among them: the Kyiv animal rescue group, which since 2014 saves pets and strays throughout Ukraine; the reforestation of some areas of the Amazon; the livelihood of an ecovillage threatened by the mining industry in Mexico.
These are just some realities that carry on an idea of different pornography, more just for those who produce it and those who use it, proving that demonizing porn to live a better sexuality is not the only solution.
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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