On porn, inequality, and consumerism: a dive into The Liturgists Podcast

By Wilson Huang

The podcast starts with this question: “What is your position on pornography?”

Even if you’re not from a conservative religious background, that question can come with a sense of shame or uneasiness. Despite the accessibility of porn, discussion around porn and its complexity are often ignored. I hope to combat this through dialogue with The Liturgists Podcast on porn.  

 To begin, two overarching (though not the only) discussions throughout the entire podcast is on how porn affects us and on how it affects women. While I do not believe I am in the best position to discuss the second point as I do not watch straight porn and am a cisgender man, I will start by raising a point made by one of the female podcast members.

“I fundamentally disagree with straight men watching porn.”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for people in a position of privilege over women to have to assess to women’s bodies as an object to consume just because women are saying that they want to do it in their own lives.”

 The background to this statement which everyone generally agreed to was on how the mainstream porn industry currently functions. It would be unremarkable to say that the mainstream porn industry is capitalist and uses people, particularly women, as a means to sell a product and tap into a consumerist mentality. 

Given this, the mainstream porn industry, as discussed, is active in the subjugation and objectification of everyone involved, especially women, playing into heterosexism, heteronormativity, and white supremacy. With this understanding, the notion that straight men should not watch porn comes from how the mainstream porn industry functions.

 Yet, even knowing this, there was general agreement with the idea that merely making porn illegal does not solve the problems. To put in one way, legislation does not affect what people think and if they internally objectify people. There was also a concern that it would drive porn ‘underground’ similarly to what has happened with drug prohibition, and they were also aware that not all forms of porn would necessarily be problematic. 

Indeed, a point raised was the idea that porn was not the only industry that could objectify people to sell stuff. A lot of our consumerist culture uses human sexuality to get people to buy things and arguably is this healthy for us? While it was mentioned that porn was not good for us physiologically, that could possibly extend to consumerism.

This leads to the question of whether porn is good or bad for us. While there can be concerns on correlation vs causation and what type of porn is being presented, it is generally understood that porn can have adverse consequences on body image (particularly on gay/bi men) and how we relate to other people (whether sexually or not). 

 A good point that was mentioned was that porn (and consumerism) facilitates supernormal stimulation including of unrealistic bodies which can negatively affect how we view ordinary people. When people look for the ‘right’ porn they can cycle through many sexual bodies, and that creates an over-stimulation which can function like an addiction. Sexual imagery and porn can be a powerful tool to combat anxiety, but it can also prevent people from seeking real help. 

 One important question was on choice and whether women who go into porn legitimately have that choice. It is clear that our background, including class and culture, can influence and reduce our choice in what we can do for a living. In an interview with a porn star, she said that no one goes into porn on their best day.

The start of her career was mixed with exploitation and substance abuse and being in (mainstream) porn only fuelled her substance abuse. However, she also talked about moving to become independent and forming her own website. To her, she is in a much better place with much more control and one of the things she does is help disabled people experience their sexuality. 

 From this, there was some advice as to how one might be able to use porn ethically. This includes staying away from PornHub and ad-driven sites, buying directly from performers, especially women, and doing your research on subscription sites on whether they pay their actors and are not involved in their exploitation. For the gay/queer community, there has been a move towards porn sites which democratise porn.

Finally, the last thing the podcast looks into is on gay porn. While the exploration of women is not a concern for the gay porn industry, there are concerns again in how it affects body image. Mainstream gay porn can be implicit in promoting an unrealistic body which more often than not is cis, white and muscled (or by experience at least ‘healthy’).

 Overall, while this is not meant to be comprehensive, I hope it has helped us understand porn better. As a society, we must be willing to understand how our (consumeristic) culture can lead to exploitation and inequality. Being sex-positive involves understanding how sex can also be exploitative, and we need to we better at understanding our sexuality in relation to our whole selves rather than as objects or as a separate part of us.