Money Shot: The Pornhub Story explores the dark side of the porn site

 “I think that the company has become a scapegoat for the whole industry,” says Noelle Purdue, a porn producer and historian who used to work for Pornhub’s parent company, Mind Geek and who also appears on the film. “Unfortunately, I think I think the company made a lot of decisions that opened up opportunity for it to become that scapegoat.” It’s a diplomatic way of explaining the site’s colossal mishandling of these issues, but her main argument – that anti trafficking somehow became anti porn – hits at the heart of this documentary.

Siri Dahl and her fellow performer, Gwen Adorra, (both of whom feature on the documentary) Zoom me on a Monday afternoon and are evidently exhausted by having to endlessly explain the obvious: that there is a difference between rape and porn. This is not a distinction made clear by many campaigners, whose work against the very real horrors creeping onto Pornhub became a crusade – consciously or otherwise – against porn itself. Meanwhile, their actions have perverse outcomes for those working in the industry.

Tougher restrictions on social media sites have meant it becomes increasingly impossible for Adorra and Dahl to advertise their work, or even, in some instances, to just wear a low-cut top in gym selfies. “Sex workers are typically the first people to experience any type of censorship or discrimination en masse,” says Adorra, defeatedly. “I guess we’re the canary in a coal mine, especially because so many of us are queer or trans or people of colour and so we experience the brunt force of things because we’re so silenced online.”

Both Dahl and Adorra, not only took a financial hit after the New York Times article was published, but suffered trolling because of it. Indeed, a disturbing amount of the online (and offline) response to this, were death threats against porn stars and executives, with comments such as “save your daughter from becoming a whore” and “abolish sex work and trans rights.” There were also concerning mentions of IRL vigilantism against anyone who looked as though they may work in the industry. The campaigns mounted against the trafficking seen on the site, were done by groups with questionable backgrounds (one, Exodus Cry is mired in its own homophobic controversy) and this includes NCOSE, once called Morality in Media, which refers to porn as a ‘public health harm.’

Even just a very cursory look at NCOSE and Exodus Cry’s websites show worryingly that the line between sexual content and sexual abuse is being treated as if it is very fine, when it is, in fact, miles wide. Yet Pinter assures me, authentically, that she is not anti-porn at all.  “I just want to see proper verification on these sites because I think the industry as a whole, and for those performers, would be improved by this being better regulated and safe,” she says. “It’s also improving the experience for the users- wouldn’t you want to know that what you are watching is not an actual scene of real abuse?”

The problem is, what underscores so much of this debate is that despite proclamations of sex positivity, our society is still underpinned by a puritanical view of sex. Because of this squeamishness about sex and porn, a truckload of nuance is lost. The inner workings of the industry are rarely explored and ‘porn’ is instead a byword for a seedy underbelly replete with abuse and illegal activity. A term which, quite literally, covers all manner of sins. This is largely because reportage about porn is all at a pearl-clutching distance, as though performers are exhibits at a zoo to be talked about but not to. Even documentaries (though interestingly not this one) treat porn stars as freakish, exotic creatures and their coverage feels as exploitative as many others claim porn itself is.