A few weeks ago, I spoke to students studying advanced criminal law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. I was there to humanize the polarizing topic of sex work—pornography specifically. Though billions of people a year flock to tube sites streaming explicit content, many harbor conflicted feelings about what they’re consuming, in part because the business of adult entertainment is less well-known than its historically-seedy reputation. Due to the nature of the work, it’s also complicated to study, and what few studies do exist are often biased propaganda that play into stereotypes.
Speaking to law students about the realities of the adult business grants an opportunity to our future prosecutors, judges or policymakers to ponder the validity of the sex business employing consenting non-coerced adults for the purposes of entertainment. Choosing to do something others may find morally repugnant, like sex work, should not detract from the legitimacy of that individual’s choice. And yet it does. We live in a society that continues to grapple with why women get into the adult industry, often assuming they’re naïve prey to the capitalistic derelicts who lure them with drugs and money, victims of the patriarchy, or worse: coerced and trafficked. Despite these nagging concerns, the ingestion of porn continues to grow, with approximately 115 million visitors a day to Pornhub alone in 2019.
Few of these consumers are as comfortable talking about it as they are watching it. So I was surprised when several students volunteered to speak with me after the seminar had ended about their preconceived notions concerning porn. They waited patiently as the Q&A wrapped up and then chatted with me individually and well out of earshot of one another, excited to share something in return.
A woman who identified herself as a fairly conservative person spoke about some of her preconceptions and why she’d only watch porn a few times a year, at most. “I know people who consume it but I was never really interested in watching it myself because of the fear that people were being abused. I didn’t know how regulated or professional it really was,” admitted the 32-year-old law student.
After hearing from a person who’d been in porn’s trenches for over a decade, she found the subject to be more liberating and relatable than she’d anticipated. “I was surprised by the professionalism aspect and that people are making a choice to be in it. It’s not like this is a desperate choice, as it may seem to outsiders,” she said. “I’m still a conservative person but those are the thoughts I had.”
After watching several documentaries about the porn industry, another student named Daisy began to suspect the people were paid to make positive statements, thereby planting doubt regarding their assurances. She spoke with me after the seminar about how those opinions had changed. “I had the perception that it was dark rooms, creepy people, dangerous and really exploitative, but now it seems a lot more above board than I expected,” says the 27-year-old law student. “It’s encouraging. It validates some of the things I wanted to believe were true. Though I was surprised by the race dynamic you brought up. I think that plays into a lot of old white guys’ fears about interracial relationships, so that was weird that it’s also fetishized, in a sense.”
Worried about the impact his pornography consumption might have on future expectations, MJ spoke with me later about how, in his early twenties, he shed his teenage habits after reading articles that convinced him porn leads to unrealistic assumptions about sex and relationships. “I assumed it would be exploitive of confused or lost young girls with maybe some overlap with human trafficking… and I don’t want to sound patronizing but I don’t really watch porn anymore,” said MJ, who found the restrictive company framework even more disturbing. “I’d heard that it had been centralized under a few companies. I didn’t realize it was to that degree, which kind of gives it a more sinister look with a monopoly. You always want there to be options so if the customer or performer doesn’t like what any company is doing they can go somewhere else, so it’s a little disheartening to hear its solidified under one group.”
Carly, who’s very open about her viewing habits, considers herself and her husband fairly regular consumers, with interests in the topic that expand into academia. “I have my master’s in public health and I studied pornography and public heath specifically and I’ve done some in-depth studies, so I didn’t have bad views of it but I wondered. I’d seen Hot Girls Wanted and I’d heard about abuses in the industry and problems with it, especially after James Deen and all that stuff came out,” says Carly, who found confirmation of the professionalism she suspected validating. “You think of porn directors as sleazy and gross but the way that you described it makes me more comfortable. I don’t want to consume something where I think people are being debased. I feel better about the industry as a whole and how it works. It’s definitely more professional than I thought.”
Perhaps one day these law students will become society’s change-makers, and instead of shame-driven legislation that harms the sex workers it purports to protect, we’ll see valid business regulations on par with any other work environment.
