Gabbie Bam Bam returns with Sex Worker Saturday and reviews the 2023 documentary Money Shot: The Pornhub Story.
Whatever your views on sex work, this documentary by Netflix really brings to light how misrepresented and misunderstood sex work and sex worker’s lives are.
The opportunities the internet gave for sex workers to make a living, build a following, build community, and be able to screen clients better, was at first an amazing portal to financial autonomy. Working for studios after the rise of the internet in the late 90’s and early ‘00s seemed to be less appealing, less glamorous, and quite frankly a thing of the past. Opening with a brief inception of the tube hosting tech company MindGeek, the film explores the separation of interests when it comes to the legalities of their business management.
MindGeek established itself as the host for several adult entertainment websites including Pornhub as a data provider, making most of its money off of advertisements from uploaded sexxxy videos. The rise of piracy, nonconsensual content being uploaded by unverified users, you’d think the hosting site would be keen to create security and screening measures more effectively for sex workers who sell content on their site. A FUCKING NO BRAINER.
Mismanagement, greed and apathetic moderating practices put MindGeek and essentially the entire porn and sex work industry in a war. In a war with who exactly? Well, the misinformed SWERFS of the anti-porn and anti-sex-trafficking movements. It didn’t take much for an anti-porn enthusiast Laila Mickelwait, working closely with strong religious affiliation, to organize, set up a twitter account, and start accusing MindGeek for allowing child pornography and sex trafficking.
Unfortunately, people believed it and decided to take action. MindGeek finds itself in a lawsuit and this is where things really start to crumble. Once the lawsuit was in place it did not take long for SESTA/FOSTA to destroy the income, network, and community that was readily available to sex workers (and LGBTQ+ alike).
After the shutdown of many classified sites where sex workers could advertise (eg. Backpage.com), Pornhub introduced a verified user-friendly firewall that would eliminate porn piracy and child pornography. SESTA/FOSTA then passed which eliminated safe access to pornography and instead harmed sex workers’ financial independence, mental health, and physical safety.
I really enjoyed the director choosing to tell the complete story, giving voices to the sex workers that were involved and interviewed: Asa Akira, Gwen Adora, and many whistleblowers. It is very important to understand how crippling to society criminalization of sex workers is. It affects everyone around us and society as a whole.
I give this documentary a 4 out of 5 dildos.
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