You should read the book ‘The Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn’ written by Former Pornstar ‘Shelly Lubben’.
You will cry your eyes out after reading about the realities of the Porn Industry.

Why not treat it as an industry, with proper labour laws? Many sex workers do, or at least try to, and they ask the rest of us to treat them as workers, not (im)moral agents.

Again, I think your extension of Mike’s argument is really about being unsettled about the morals of pornography. I hear you about exploitation but why is one kind of exploitation easier to live with, than a sexual one?

Imagine the porn industry tidying it’s act up and actors being treated as human beings rather than fodder for humiliation. Imagine there being ‘ethical’ pornography where all of the elements were right. Would it be ok for pornography to be made?

I should clarify that I don’t have a problem with the post but with the comment implying that the pornography industry is just another business.

Respectfully, I don’t see any cloaking going on. The values reflected in the post are all rooted in some kind of moral argument as are objections to child labor, underpayment and long hours, and verbal humiliation in the workplace. The real problem is comparing legitimate businesses that involve exploitative practices that should be changed with the sex industry, an inherently exploitative business that will not become less so no matter the working conditions.

But these arguments can also apply to many other industries. In different parts of the world there is child labour in the recyclables industry (rubbish dump fossicking), underpayment and long hours in electronic factories, verbal humiliation in the Australian building industry, physical and mental hurt at FIFO mine site areas

But we would not necessarily call for these industries to close for these reasons. Rather, we would ask for reform.

But not for the porn industry.

Your arguments are questioning how sex, and the right use and care of our sexual and sexualised bodies, whether on a film set, watching in front of a screen, or in the privacy of the bedroom (so to speak), should be conducted.

This is a moral argument being cloaked in issues to do with labour and psychology. Maybe they are linked, maybe not, but either way, it’s morality that’s underlying the arguments here and the writer should say so, I think. Otherwise, it borders on sleight of hand.

PS. I love Tampa Underground!

I was aware of the link with human trafficking, but decided to limit my comments to what I said, given that I try to keep posts to around 1000 words. But thank you for raising that other, insidious dimension to the pornography industry. And thank you for the work you’re doing in that area, and your challenge for the church to stand against injustice.