How good porn can save the planet
[Music]
120
million people
visited this porn site pornhub today
11 000 hours
of porn are being watched there in this
very minute
approximately up to 30 percent of the
internet content
is porn related
and the most popular day to watch porn
is a sunday
so
good lord thank you that we are here
together now on a saturday
i care about the future of your sex
i really do
we are all human
we are sexual technological narrative
and political beings
we have our kings and preferences
all the actions we take have a direct
impact on our environment
and consumption is our daily bread
think about how
technology and consumer culture have
shaped aspects of your sex life
think about
contraceptives think about sex toys
and
pornography of course
folks usually don’t talk so much about
their sex life or about watching porn
except me
i do this all that time why
i am the creative director of the porn
film festival here in vienna
just left
and i just can tell you that i watch
quite a lot of
smarties stuff
hey i love my job
and you know
from doing so and from having this job i
really learned quite a lot
it even changed my view on bodies
especially my own body and sexualities
our choices
have consequences
we need to deal with porn the same way
we deal with let’s say recycling or how
we address
water shortages
we need to change the way we consume
porn
well
we need to do that
because abandoning is not really an
option as some people might say
pornography is an age-old way to portray
sex to get aroused
to deal with taboos and shame
i
love porn
i really do
i would not want to miss it
i firmly believe
that social and economic context
influences how when and in what way we
consume
so we should really openly ask
whether good porn can make the world a
better place
so today we are going to talk about what
good porn actually is
about the environmental costs of
internet pornography
and finally about how good porn
influences the world
so
we all watch porn
at least we all have seen one that’s not
and for many of us this means
out of ignorance or not knowing where to
consume
of course we open up the internet the
browser tabs we go to the classical
mainstream porn sites
and there we end up going to see
the classical
boring heteronormative
porn
said smiley
don’t know what i mean by that
well that’s totally okay
because you might not even hear about
good porn or ethical porn let alone
consume it
so
i have to come back to the mainstream
porn sites most of the content that you
can find there
is actually quite sexist discriminating
misogynist
and violent
so
is there good porn
and enthusiastically yes there is
but we need so much more of it we need
ethical porn production or so-called
fair trade porn
and what this
yeah and but this
i mean
good working conditions are created for
those people who are working on sets
there is really a fair payment for all
the people involved in such a production
there are precise agreements about what
is short and how and when
and attention is paid to hygiene
health safer sex of course
and transparency
about what happens to the material
afterwards
where is it published who has access to
it
all these
things mean ethical porn of hatred porn
and
all this
already exists
porn can be about real lust and sexual
well-being
it can be
feminine and queer positive it can be
you know gender aware and at the same
time male friendly
porn to put it differently
is part of society
porn
is
political
so now it’s let’s have a look at
sustainability
first of all i want to introduce you to
sex ecology
sex ecology or ecosexuality
is a trending sexual identity that
describes everything from literally
having sex literally again with the
earth
to getting it on the most eco-friendly
ways possible
and that’s quite a range actually
the founders of these movement are any
sprinkle and beth stevens
annie sprinkle was a porn actress
herself she was a sex worker and she has
been an activist since the late 1970s
and for them
especially sex ecology means
that they are married
yes you heard right they are married
to earth sky sea soil and the multitude
of natural beings
and as it is in every good marriage they
even have sex with those forces of
nature can you believe that
well
if this now for some of you sound a
little bit too new-agey you know
well
other forms of sustainable sex activism
exist
so secondly let me introduce you to the
one with the most obvious title
[ __ ] for forest
you know
two norwegians johansson and ellingson
founded a website based on the concept
that they use porn in order to raise
money for an ecological project
to protect the rainforest
so
sex sells
does it even sell better for a good
cause
well
the project itself how it was executed
and the
philosophy behind it had to face quite a
lot of criticism
but still i think it is worthwhile to
discuss
because
pornography has a
footprint because we always consume it
on some form of hardware
magazines books celloids dvds super
eight films
you name it
and most of the time
on the internet
so let’s look now deeper into the
environmental costs of internet
pornography
most people think that carbon footprints
of online porn
is much smaller than it was in the hay
days of physical media
in principle the materialization is a
very effective approach
but we can’t forget the combined
carbon emissions of server farms
and still physical media
although of course silver farms are a
little bit greener i have to admit that
precise numbers are very hard to come by
if they exist at all
but i have an interesting example for
all of you here
if pornhub
streams as efficiently as netflix does
the company would use around
6 million kilowatt hours per year
let that sink
so pornhub only uses the energy of 11
000 light bulbs turned on a year
that’s pretty low impact actually
especially if you compare it to the
energy that is needed to the oil that is
needed
if you want to make and distribute let’s
say thousands of dvds or maybe millions
of it
the advent of broadband and the
so-called pawn tube sites in the early
2000s
allowed it for users like us to view
clips for free
and suddenly this meant that pawn was
accessible
from anywhere
at any time
in high quality
this led actually to a big porn
explosion you know
like the big bang
of porn
and of course the covet pandemic
drastically increase increased online
porn usage how should it be different
but companies like pornhub also want to
be part of a green movement
so in 2014
pornhub actually launched a campaign
that was called
pornhub gives america woods
a promise to plant one tree
for every 100 views in a category called
big dig
the campaign went viral of course
and certainly we can ask if this is real
social responsibility
or just a marketing tactic
but at least they do something
so
by show of hands now who here in the
audience
did not know about pornhub before my
talk now
raise your hands don’t be shy
okay
okay well
some more things than for you
pornhub
belongs to a vast porn empire quietly
run by a canadian company called
mindgeek
and actually mindgeek is the largest
adult entertainment operator globally
and one of the top five bandwidth
consumption operators also globally
so
and
of course mind geek not only represents
pornhub
but in total they own and represent 165
pornographic membership sites
that’s actually a very monopolistic
dominance
and still again at this point i have to
say
that the mainstream industry
and all all the mainstream porn we can
watch on this 164 porn sites
that some of you surely know
this still is full of exploitative
tactics and the material the clips
uploaded there
are mostly illegally obtained
please always remind that
well
so
the solution cannot be that you stop
watching porn no
absolutely no
[Applause]
but it ultimately must be a reflective
approach
yes
this is what it’s about
and this must not only refer to porn
this should extend to our bodies our
sexuality
because
we all consume
we all have to reflect
so use alternatives
like uh ethical porn productions
feminist porn sites use fair trade sex
toys use fair trade hygiene products
uh you know even a solar powered
vibrator
exists already so
it’s up to you
the question about fair and equitable
bandwidth on the internet still
is extremely relevant
and we really need to care about our
mental
and our natural environment
so
let’s start to imagine a world together
where we all watch good porn
imagine it
what would be the effects of that
actually very much is already known
about this
first of all porn increases satisfaction
and we all want to feel good
masturbation would increase
self-care
and this means and studies show this
that this makes us happier
porn helps to normalize
desires
do you like to get off while dressing up
like a werewolf maybe
[Music]
do you like to have sex with a lamp
or with a train you up there maybe
um and did you all hear the story about
this woman
who married the eiffel tower because she
totally got turned on by it
well
the more we have to fill up our desires
and kings the better all will be
and of course the worst porn can lead to
more acceptance within a society
if we have tons of sex positive feminist
queer hairy non-binary
body positive and ethical pawn to choose
from
as we are all different
porn can help you figure out what turns
you on
the wiser the choice
the better porn can be
lustful
honest
and self-empowering
and this choice
is up to you
yeah
thank you
you