Friday, May 11, 2018

Technology, diversity and money in modern pornography

The fashion section of the NY Times recently ran a story on how technology such as webcams has democratized the pornography industry, in part by allowing people to produce their own material:
‘Who Gets to Be Sexy?’
Technology has made it possible for just about anyone to shoot, direct and star in their own porn films. Women are leading the new guard.

The url is as informative as the headline:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/style/porn-women-nonbinary-queer.html

Given the concern about how monetary payments interact with various kinds of  transactions to make them repugnant (e.g. money is what turns sex into prostitution), I was struck by this quote, about money's coercive power:

"It’s harder and harder to argue that porn performers are desperate people lured in by easy cash and coerced into submission. There’s just too little money in it — and women have to work too creatively to make it — for that to stand."

The article--in the fashion section of the newspaper no less--is itself a signal of changing views about pornography as a repugnant market.

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