Ddocumentaries about pornography usually come to one of two decisive conclusions: that pornography is actually a hateful catalyst for rape, or that pornography is actually a sex-positive celebration of sensual pleasure. Seems to me Suzanne Hillinger’s Doubtful Documentary on Pornhub isn’t quite sure what her money shot should be.
Pornhub is the hugely successful porn site owned by a Canadian company with the flippant name of MindGeek; for years it provided a lucrative and arguably enlightened outlet for adult content creators and models who provided consensual and legal service to paying customers, and thus were able to steer clear of the more sordid and exploiter of porn and studio sex work. But one 2020 expose by New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof revealed that alongside this perfectly respectable material, people were uploading rape videos and child abuse videos and the outrage meant that Pornhub’s business was severely curtailed.
Moreover, the Fosta Sesta laws introduced in the United States against online sex trafficking in 2018 potentially criminalized all employees. Many user-generating artists have migrated to OnlyFans, where videos are more closely monitored. The film shows that the so-called Pornhub moderators had to watch nearly 1,000 videos a day and could not regulate the content in any meaningful way. But it also shows that some of the activists against Pornhub are far-right Christian evangelists who simply want to eradicate pornography and all sex outside of marriage.
The film interviews – and stars alongside – models and performers as creative entrepreneurs and heroes of consenting sensuality. GOOD. But then what? The film does not interview the major actors (including Anti-Pornhub activist Laila Mickelwait), while for me we never tackle the real problem for Pornhub, OnlyFans or even Facebook: are these sites publishers or platforms? If they profit from the content they host, should they be responsible or not?