Gwyneth Paltrow and Jada Pinkett Smith dissed porn last week when the two sat down for a discussion on Pinkett Click Tids Link Smith’s Red Table Talk, with the host saying it “has really messed us up” and that “the woman’s pleasure doesn’t matter, it’s not even thought about.” Paltrow, meanwhile, noted porn is “doing such a disservice” to women and young girls.
Now their opinions are prompting backlash from at least one camp – that of women who are makers of feminist, pro-sex adult content.
“I get very frustrated when people use the word ‘porn’ like it’s one big homogenous mass – that’s like using the word ‘literature’ to say it’s all the same,” says Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of Make Love Not Porn, a social platform that “is not a competitor to porn” but “an utterly unique and very badly needed counterpoint to porn.” The landscape of porn, she tells Yahoo Life, “is like the landscape of literature, with just as many genres and subgenres.”
Adds Erika Lust, Swedish indie adult-film director, “Porn is not a monolithic entity – it’s part of a discourse on sexuality, sex and gender and it mirrors our society.” Or at least it should, she notes.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Jada Pinkett Smith say porn is harmful to women. These female adult-content creators disagree
Courtney Trouble, the founder of NoFauxxx, “the indie porn revolution; subversive smut made by ladies, artists, and queers,” agrees, telling Yahoo Life, “This is the second time this year I’ve heard that porn is harmful to either women or men and frankly it’s gender essentialist and limited in scope. What is hurtful when celebrities talk about porn is that they’re doing it without any sense of porn literacy.”
That’s part of what Lilly Sparks – founder of afterglow, described as “high-quality erotic content curated for sexual wellness, focused on pleasure for everyone” – called out in her recent piece for TheDaily Beast, “Hey Gwyneth Paltrow and Jada Pinkett Smith: You Don’t Know Sh*t About Porn.” In it, she noted that the idea of porn being harmful is not “backed up by science or data,” and pointed out that one survey (albeit from 2015) found that 70 percent of women watch porn at least a few times a month.
Sparks continued, “When I entered this industry, I believed many of the things Jada and Gwyneth said. And wow, has my mind been blown. First off, there’s a whole landscape of cool women filmmakers out there – from Erika Lust to Shine Louise Houston at PinkLabel.TV to Kayden Kross at Deeper. All of us are trying to create a vision of the kind of porn we want to see in the world.”
Honestly pretty disturbed by the number of celebrities who think their opinions on sex work/porn are merited despite having no proximity to SWers
I am extremely disappointed in & ‘s sexist, misrepresentation of porn & sex work in this episode with These dated ideals show lack of research & journalistic integrity.
hey and — rather than bash all porn on , why not instead have a real conversation about the different kinds of content out there. I mean, you’re looking for porn made differently, right? maybe check out my stuff for ? ??
Not all adult films are created equal
Part of the problem, Gallop says, is when people use the term “porn” strictly in reference to the most mass-, male-gaze-based sites – Pornhub, Red Tube, YouPorn, XTube, Brazzers and more, which are all owned by the same Canadian monopoly, MindGeek.
“In any other industry, it would’ve been the target of antitrust legislation and broken up long ago,” she says. “MindGeek’s stranglehold on porn makes it extraordinarily difficult for the many indie, female, queer, really creative, innovative pornographers that would be a far better watch for many people,” including Make Love Not Porn videos, which offer “real world sex” as opposed to “performative, produced entertainment.”
