From the article :

“What are the ethics of watching porn? While we speak openly about whether certain clothing lines support slave labor, if we’re morally obligated to buy cage-free eggs, and whether pirating Taylor Swift’s latest album (hey, it’s no longer on Spotify) makes us bad people, we shy away from discussion of the ethical consumption of porn.

In part, that’s because a vocal contingent maintains that the most ethical consumption of porn is the consumption of no porn at all, while others believe it means no consumption of porn that hasn’t loudly been declared to be of the “feminist” variety. After all, that woman can’t actually want to be doing that sex act, can she? Those hapless 18-year-olds must have been lured into the business under false pretenses, right? Haven’t you seen Hot Girls Wanted?…

Porn performer Stoya, who along with with fellow performer Kayden Kross recently launched a paid platform for episodic porn called TrenchcoatX, echoes Lee’s frustration with tube sites’ shady business models. “There’s a very large company now called MindGeek — they own the bulk of the tube sites, where you’ll frequently find the pirated content of other companies,” she observes. “They also, though, have what Slate called a monopoly on the production studios now — so if you’re paying for

[porn] but you’re paying for it on Digital Playground, Brazzers, Mofos, Twistys, any property that MindGeek owns, then you’re just putting more money in the pockets of the guys that seem to have leveraged stolen content from other studios to then buy up a choke-hold on the adult film industry.”

In other words, not only has MindGeek undercut the revenue of studios by stealing their work; it’s bought up a number of large porn-content producers, effectively limiting performers’ ability to turn down offers from producers with whom they haven’t enjoyed working…

If porn, then, can be best understood as “fantasy created by professionals” — not as a form of sex trafficking, not as an educational resource, and not as some gratis favor to the internet — then those who watch it can best be understood as consumers.

It’s still taboo, though, to identify as such. People who pay for porn, who support the professionals behind it, are still stereotyped as People Who Need To Watch Porn — and even worse, people who aren’t savvy enough to get it for free.

But, as with anything else in a market, if we don’t support what we like, it’s going to disappear.”

Read more:

http://www.refinery29.com/2015/09/93441/ethical-porn-watching-consumer