Porn sites, which have been a free-for-all of sexploitation for years, are under fire for a range of abusive practices involving underage or unwilling girls.
Pornhub, owned by Canadian company MindGeek, is the largest, but a raft of other sites, such as YouPorn, RedTube, Reality Kings, XVideos and Brazzers follow a similar model.
Visa, Mastercard and Discover are leading the charge after an explosive expose in The New York Times. It revealed videos of underage girls, child abuse and nonconsensual sexual behavior are posted on popular site Porn Hub.
The credit card companies blocked customers from making purchases on PornHub following allegations it was profiting from videos of child sexual exploitation, rape and revenge porn, among other practices.
Donald Trump Golden Showers Trends After Michael Cohen Claims
Simon Corneau, a professor in the sexology department of the University of Quebec in Montreal, said Visa and Mastercard were a ‘major’ blow to Pornhub’s bottom line.
Google has also been a major player, at least indirectly, by listing sites like PornHub in its search results and being a big driver of PornHub’s visitors.
“If you search for a porn star’s name, it’s more likely you’ll get results from PornHub and other tube sites than their private sites,” sex worker Bardot Smith told NBC.
‘Illegal Bikini’ Lands South Carolina Woman in Cuffs: What is Nudity? (Video)
“It creates a monopoly on search traffic to adult content. So people are left with no choice but to interact with them.”
The war on porn hasn’t been one sided.
Adult movie actors, like Smith, who can make a substantial living off sexually explicit videos, have rushed to the defense of the porn site.
In the days since the Times piece was published, Dec. 4, PornHub has been forced to remove 80 percent of its videos over claims the subjects are underage, abused or posted on the site without permission, according to reports.
Bella Thorne Says ‘It’s Hot Out,’ Strips to Bikini, Flashes Flesh in Hot Dance (See!)
PornHub has tried mightily over the past several years to go mainstream, as attitudes about sexuality and sex workers have become more accepting.
It publishes occasional surveys identifying cities the generate the most traffic. The porn site attracts 120 million visitors daily.
The website also advertises on Times Square billboards and provides snow plows to clear Boston streets and donates to organizations fighting for racial equality, according to The Times.
Dershowiz Hit by New Underage Sex Claims While Defending Trump at Impeachment Trial
Millions of its videos, however, have been posted by so-called “unverified users,” who have proved to be responsible for the most abusive clips. They can upload videos freely.
Pornhub users can also download videos from the site, leading to widespread sharing of images and videos. Even if PornHub takes down a video, it can reappear elsewhere online.
That’s a starkly different market segment from professional film actors who make a living off porn scenes. They claim the backlash against PornHub has decimated their industry.
Alana Evans, 44, a veteran porn star and President of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, said the “war on porn” in the middle of the pandemic has been devastating.
‘Thousands of people have turned to this type of online sex work to feed their families, and this move is affecting those moms who just want to buy diapers and milk,’ she told NBC.
“This is a crusade against the sex industry and the workers who comprise it,” said Allie Awesome, a 30-year-old porn star.
She told NBC she makes a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars a month from Pornhub’s paid section.
Mary Moody, 29, one of the website’s top-ranking actresses, said she made up to $2,000 per month for sex videos.
Moody performs a lot of lesbian scenes, including mother-daughter clips, that involve anal licking, oral sex, fingering and other acts.
‘Suspending Visa and Mastercard payments only prevents consensual adult sex workers from earning money on the site,’ she told the network.
In an incendiary claim, Moody assetts The Times worked with a “dishonest, anti-LGBTQ extremist hate group” to produce the piece.
The article reported that the site is ” infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags.”
It cited the case of a mother of a missing teen who found her 15-year-old daughter on PornHub. She’d filmed 58 explicit sex videos.
The sex assault of a 14-year-old California girl was posted on Pornhub and reported to authorities by a classmate who saw the videos.
But Moody, who has 240,000 followers on Instagram, defends the site. She says it aggressively polices child sex abuse images.
“Porn sites do more to combat non-consensual sexual content & CSAM (child sexual abuse material) and have far less of it than major social media sites like Facebook,” she claimed.
Carrie A. Goldberg, an attorney who specializes in sexual privacy, has also come to PornHub’s defense. She claims Facebook and Instagram publish 50 times as much rape and abuse videos as PornHub.
Internet Watch Foundation, which tracks such cases, reported 118 such incidents of abuse on PornHub in the last three years, compared to 84 million on Facebook.