Pornography is a criminal, profoundly misogynistic, racist and paedophile industry fueled by violence against women and girls. It is enormously powerful: according to some estimates, business moves EUR 87.5 billion. But it's no wonder that pornographic websites have more monthly visits than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. Take as an example Pornhub, the world's best-known pornographic website.
Pornhub is full of real sexual violence against women. I say real because it's not fiction. In the murders of films, the actors survive, while in porn the insults, the humiliations, the rapes, the blows… When they appear faint, they really remain unconscious. The efforts of women to flee and the shouting and tears of pain are true. The main characters are not fully empowered and free women. Descriptions of some of these films do not at least indicate that these girls are fulfilling their dream of being video protagonists: “a fiercely electrocuted, tortured and raped redhead,” “tears for the total torment of the anus,” or “a black slave, a white boss.” For example, a mother has found her 15-year-old daughter missing in Pornhube, through about sixty videos showing attacks on her.
Several women, in similar situations, are organized and confronted with hard legal clashes so that Pornhubek stops spreading the videos that appear in them. Some of these videos are related to the phenomenon of ‘vengeful porn’, others are crude attacks. There are also those who show torture against sexual slaves. You know, when there is a market that enriches men, the system will take care to impoverish women enough to meet the demand. Otherwise, they will succeed without permission and violently, especially if the business gives a boost to the gender hierarchy. Pornography is one of the clearest coalitions between capitalism and patriarchy.
The traffic in this kind of content seems unstoppable. In 2019 alone, Pornhube climbed 6.83 million new videos, most of his story, and had an average of 115 million daily visits. In addition, during the first coronavirus confinement, content traffic increased by 38.2% in France and 61.3% in Spain. The most striking trend is that the connection of porn with minors is ever closer, both as a product and as a consumer. In the last seven years, the word ‘teen’ has been one of the most sought after in Pornhub, and right now child porn is the fastest growing online business. Minutes after Times magazine started researching, Paypal stopped working with Pornhubm to find dozens of children's videos on the web. In the meantime, sexual abuse and assaults on children, as well as trafficking in children, have increased, as demand requires supply. For all these reasons, the network has organised a request for the closure of Pornhub, which has the support of over 300 organisations working in the fight against trafficking.
"Pornography is enriched by machista and paedophile violence and teaches teenagers how to recognize violence as sex. Meanwhile, neoliberal feminism stands for it enthusiastically, for capitalism and patriarchy."
On the other hand, pornography, as an apology for misogyny and pedagogy of sexual violence, boosts empathy towards women consumers and encourages the desire to imitate and repeat violence seen. Adolescents are increasingly beginning to consume porn – in Euskal Herria at the age of 12-13 – so from the beginning they build their sexuality by assuming violence as sexual practice. A couple of years ago we were warned that sexual intercourse made them feel “like shit”, as the boys ask them to do painful and humiliating sexual activities learned in the porn that the girls do not want to do. In Spain, the consumption of porn has been directly associated with the rise of sexist ideas of young people and sexual assaults of boys.
Let us be clear: those who masturbate with the suffering of women and children retain this torture. And they also have a decisive ally. For neoliberal feminists, the spread of pornorms shows that sex has been released from the taboo and is considered an untouchable weapon against religious censorship. In this way, they avoid the eroticization of violence and the feminist responsibility of stemming the construction of toxic masculinities. Foucault's postmodern flock relativizes the problem to the extreme, blurring criticism of the misogynistic political-sexual narrative, to whitewash the consumption of porn and protect capitalist interests. You have learned that in the name of feminism the most effective bombardments are made against the human rights of girls and women.