Trigger warning: This article contains mention of sexual assault and sex trafficking
The trailer for Netflix’s upcoming Pornhub documentary has just been released, and with interviews with porn performers, journalists, Pornhub corporate employees and industry veterans, it is a fascinating investigation into the site, the workings of which are usually kept under wraps.
The trailer starts out fun and sassy: the music is thumping, the interviewees are laughing. “I mean, anything can be porn,” says one pink haired woman with a smile on her face. “Some people don’t like that these things are not in the shadows,” a man says.
But then the tone changes, this isn’t the documentary that you thought it was going to be. “Knowingly profiting from sex trafficking is what we believe they are liable for,” another woman says. “I found too many cases of kids whose worst moments were preserved in amber,” adds a male interviewee.
The story is clearly a complicated one. The filmmakers talk to sex workers about the importance of the site: “72 per cent of us lost our income,” says one, presumably about Pornhub’s decision to remove all videos by unverified users in December 2020. “If it wasn’t for porn I probably wouldn’t be alive,” says another.
“It’s not just an attack on porn,” one commentator says. “It’s an attack on people being able to express themselves and the people who get left in the dust are porn performers.”
In Netflix’s description of the upcoming film it says: “In 2020, The New York Times published an opinion piece that included the stories of multiple women who, as minors, were exploited by having their sexual assaults posted to Pornhub, one of the most popular adult-content sites on the planet. The article went viral. Since then, the company has faced lawsuits from assault victims and from activists who allege the site engages in child sex trafficking.
“But for sex workers, Pornhub has provided a sustainable way to make a living — a livelihood that’s being threatened by what they contend is blanket censorship. Money Shot: The Pornhub Story, from Totally Under Control director Suzanne Hillinger, explores the history of the explicit-video platform and delves into the moral contradictions involved in user-uploaded pornography.”
The December 2020 New York Times article said that Pornhub, “attracts 3.5 billion visits a month, more than Netflix, Yahoo or Amazon. Pornhub rakes in money from almost three billion ad impressions a day. One ranking lists Pornhub as the 10th-most-visited website in the world.
“Yet there’s another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos.” The article became more graphic from there.
Now Hillinger, who worked on The New York Times video documentary series The Weekly, tackles the subject head on, with interviews with experts and insiders to discuss the site’s worldwide impact and weighty controversies.
Money Shot: The Pornhub Story airs on Netflix on March 15
