By David S. Prescott, Kieran McCartan, & Kasia Uzieblo
The first author was reminiscing about
experiences at Grateful Dead concerts way back in days gone by. While much of
their concert experiences are now legendary, there were two elements in
particular that completely changed the way people think about music and its
performance. The first were the spinners, who
sought out far-flung parts of the arena to dance, seemingly in their own world.
Even more thought-provoking were the deafheads, deaf people
attending concerts simply for the experience, sometimes holding balloons
through which they could feel the vibrations of the music. It all may seem
ridiculous from the outside looking in (why attend a concert if you can’t see
or hear the act?), but the band later created entire sections for them,
providing additional speakers for the spinners. And by doing so, the band
redefined its actions in response to what they were learning about their followers.
Although it may seem a strange analogy, clearly
the pornography industry is also evolving in response to trends in the pandemic
era. A recent in-depth examination by The
Economist is fascinating: During the
past month, pornography usage at Pornhub (the world’s largest site, that offers
user data as part of its marketing) has remained 22% higher than average, while
significant spikes were noted in various countries with the pandemic’s
onslaught in March. Spending on porn-related sites has nearly doubled. Traffic
on “premium” portions of otherwise free sites is higher than ever. Is this
really just about having more time to access porn during shelter-in-place
orders or a full lockdown? Additionally, Pornhub’s “giving back” (or increasing
traffic, depending on your perspective) gave free
access to its premium accounts to some of the most impacted countries
during lockdown (including, but not limited to, Italy, Spain, and France).
Therefore, not only were people more willing to access pornography during the
pandemic they were also more able to do so. All of this raises further
questions of where exploitation begins and ends in these circumstances.
At the same time, there are increasing
trends where porn performers are engaging in more direct marketing, eschewing
directors, and others viewed as middlemen. This involves filming themselves with
smartphones and the like and uploading the results to adult social media sites.
While economically this makes sense (why lose money to a middleman if you can
do without them), it also has the effect of bringing the audience closer to the
performer. It is also possible that it creates a kind of authenticity to the
experience (something we have blogged about previously).
In the current business model, viewers willing to spend extra can get
personalized performances for example, with the performer speaking to them by
name, etc.). These trends have led to
increased divergence in the market with more amateur
material being produced, innovations
in the production of material, but also an increase in revenge
porn and recorded
sexual abuse; therefore, as with other industries, a reshaping
of the pornography industry. At a time when so many people are rightly
concerned about abuse, it seems strange that the abuses of revenge porn and
related issues of consent have not become more prominent in public dialog.
As we have stated many times throughout the
history of this blog, there are many aspects to the debates about pornography
by people who have abused and by society beyond. Recalling the well-known
therapeutic axiom that one must always “meet the client where they’re at” in
treatment, however, it seems that these changes to how sexually explicit media
is delivered is worthwhile to understand. Clearly, the emerging structure of
sexually explicit adult social media sites demonstrate that there is more to
porn than sex acts, just as there can be more to a concert than the music and
the partying.
Furthermore, the sheer volume of sexually
explicit media being consumed and the money spent (especially when there is
already so much free porn) highlights that the desires of people consuming it
are more complex than many might have believed in the past. In the end, the theme of viewers wanting to experience some form of connection to the
performers, no matter how illusory it may be, is hard to miss. In the case of
men who sexually abuse others, it can be easy to miss just how important this theme of connection and relatedness to others can be, especially when their
histories of violating connections can be so florid.
We must ask ourselves, as we emerge from
lockdown towards whatever the new normal will be, what does all of this mean
for the production, use, and consumption of pornography? Will this period be
looked back on as a blip, a holding pattern, or a time of redefinition?
Thinking about the impact on sex, sexuality, relationships, and paraphilia.
Have people discovered, or confirmed, suspicious about their sex and asexuality
preferences? How will this impact themselves and others moving forward? We need
to try and rationalize the current surge in pornography use as we move towards
the new normal, therefore some key questions might be;
- What pornography was I looking
at during lockdown?
- How much pornography did I
consume at this time? Was it more than before?
- How did my interpersonal and
intimate relationships change over lockdown?
- Did the pornography that I
looked at change?
- Am I more interested in the new pornography that I am viewing?
- How do I feel about lockdown
ending and “normal” relationships resuming?
In the end, we are left with massive
societal questions. The same article also discusses how STRASS, the French
union for sex workers estimates that out of roughly 35,000 sex workers in
France, 1.3 have moved to online activities, and of that only 10 % are making
ends meet. While there have been historical assumptions about victimization
histories, trafficking, and other coercion into these activities by men, the current situation shows how exploitation of one sort or another appears present
at nearly every level of sexually explicit media production. It is impossible
to predict where this is all going, but the current trends can teach us
something about the people we see in treatment, including both those who have
abused and those who have been abused.
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