A los miembros de
un grupo de LinkedIn nos pidieron responder a la pregunta ¿Es posible la
pornografía ética? ¿Representan los dos términos una contradicción intrínseca?
A continuación mi respuesta. Todas las
respuestas pueden verse en:
Ethical porn
Yes, ethical porn is a
contradiction in terms. Why? To answer this question it is important to
separate the product from its production. The product is obviously demanded by
some members of society so its supply appears to satisfy somebody’s needs. That these needs are legitimate can be a
subject of discussion. The user may
claim that it is for her/his private consumption and that it hurts nobody. But experience shows that it does have a
negative impact on society, form the exploitation of women (mostly) and in the
worst case of minors to the stimulation of sexual crimes against innocent
persons. In this first instance, it may
be possible (but not feasible) to regulate the product so that it does not
exploit women and children, but the second instance cannot be regulated, can be
punished ex post but not regulated ex ante, it is result of an individual’s
decision (can we regulate the sale of porn to persons that are not going to
hurt somebody, including wives?) The
selection of individuals is not possible.
As such, the product can be classified as dangerous to society. There cannot an ethical porn product.
A few months ago I ran
a survey among the readers of my blog about responsible products, including internet
porn, among others (alcohol, tobacco, guns, marihuana, etc.) as part of the
questions. In the case of porn about 10%
responded that it was a responsible product, but over 85% thought that it
required some form of regulation, including about 30% that thought the product
should be banned (with significant differences between men and women). In
comparison, over 50% thought that personal guns should be banned (respondents
were from Latin America and Spain).
Results from the survey can be found in http://bit.ly/1Ea7Gau
(in Spanish)
Regarding production
of porn, it is possible to produce it using “responsible practices”, i.e. using
condoms, providing social benefits to “workers”, limiting the greenhouse gas
emissions, donating part of the proceeds to charitable institutions, and so
on. But this will never make for “ethical
porn”, at best it will be a porn industry with a few responsible practices.
This is a very similar
case to tobacco production and sale, but this case is heavily regulated, even
though the damage is mostly self-inflicted, unlike porn where the damage is done
mostly to others. Consistent?
¿Y tú qué opinas?
