Meta forgot to keep its porn in a passworded folder, and now its kink for data collection is the subject of scrutiny. The social media giant turned metaverse company turned AI power is currently facing a lawsuit brought by adult film companies Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media, alleging that the Big Tech staple illegally torrented thousands of porn videos to be used for training AI models. Meta denies the claims, and recently filed a motion to dismiss the case because, in part, it’s more likely the videos were downloaded for “private personal use.”
To catch up on the details of the case, back in July, Strike 3 Holdings (the producers of Blacked, Blacked Raw, Tushy, Tushy Raw, Vixen, MILFY, and Slayed) and Counterlife Media accused Meta of having “willfully and intentionally” infringed “at least 2,396 movies” by downloading and seeding torrents of the content. The companies claim that Meta used that material to train AI models and allege the company may be planning a currently unannounced adult version of its AI video generator Movie Gen, and are suing for $359 million in damages.
For what it’s worth, Strike 3 has something of a reputation of being a very aggressive copyright litigant—so much so that if you search the company, you’re less likely to land on its homepage than you are to find a litany of law firms that offer legal representation to people who have received a subpoena from the company for torrenting their material.
There may be some evidence that those materials were swept up in Meta’s data vacuum. Per TorrentFreak, Strike 3 was able to show what appear to be 47 IP addresses linked to Meta participating in torrenting of the company’s material. But Meta doesn’t seem to think much of the accusation. In its motion to dismiss, the company calls Strike 3’s torrent tracking “guesswork and innuendo,” and basically argues that, among other reasons, there simply isn’t even enough data here to be worth using for AI model training. Instead, it’s more likely just some gooners in the ranks.
“The small number of downloads—roughly 22 per year on average across dozens of Meta IP addresses—is plainly indicative of private personal use, not a concerted effort to collect the massive datasets Plaintiffs allege are necessary for effective AI training,” the company argued. The company also denied building a porn generator model, basically stating that Strike 3 doesn’t have any evidence of this and Meta’s own terms of service prohibit its models from generating pornographic content.
“These claims are bogus: We don’t want this type of content, and we take deliberate steps to avoid training on this kind of material,” a spokesperson for Meta told Gizmodo.
As absurd as the case is, whether the accusations are right or wrong, there is one clear victim: the dad of a Meta contractor who is apparently simultaneously being accused by Strike 3 of being a conduit for copyright infringement and accused by Meta of being a degenerate: “[Strike 3] point to 97 additional downloads made using the home IP address of a Meta contractor’s father, but plead no facts plausibly tying Meta to those downloads, which are plainly indicative of personal consumption,” Meta’s motion said. God forbid this case move forward and this poor person has to answer for his proclivities reserved for incognito tabs.
Further, that alleged activity can’t even reliably be linked to any Meta employee, Meta claims.
Strike 3 “does not identify any of the individuals who supposedly used these Meta IP addresses, allege that any were employed by Meta or had any role in AI training at Meta, or specify whether (and which) content allegedly downloaded was used to train any particular Meta model,” Meta wrote.
Meanwhile, “tens of thousands of employees,” as well as “innumerable contractors, visitors, and third parties access the internet at Meta every day,” Meta argued. So while it’s “possible one or more Meta employees” downloaded Strike 3’s content over the past seven years, “it is just as possible” that a “guest, or freeloader,” or “contractor, or vendor, or repair person—or any combination of such persons—was responsible for that activity,” Meta claims.
Other alleged activity included a claim that a Meta contractor was directed to download adult content at his father’s house, but those downloads, too, “are plainly indicative of personal consumption,” Meta argued. That contractor worked as an “automation engineer,” Meta noted, with no apparent basis provided for why he would be expected to source AI training data in that role. “No facts plausibly” tie “Meta to those downloads,” Meta claims.
“The fact that the torrenting allegedly stopped when his contract with Meta ended says nothing about whether the alleged torrenting was performed with Meta’s knowledge or at its direction,” Meta wrote.
Meta Slams AI Training Theory as “Nonsensical”
Possibly most baffling to Meta in Strike 3’s complaint, however, is the claim about the “stealth network” of hidden IPs. This presents “yet another conundrum” that Strike 3 “fails to address,” Meta claims, writing, “why would Meta seek to ‘conceal’ certain alleged downloads of Plaintiffs’ and third-party content, but use easily traceable Meta corporate IP addresses for many hundreds of others?”
“The obvious answer is that it would not do so,” Meta claims, slamming Strike 3’s “entire AI training theory” as “nonsensical and unsupported.”
That’s my job, or part of it, as an assistant professor in the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program at Temple University. In January 2023, I launched a brand-new college-level course that focuses on the study of porn with a very specific goal: to help heal the painful social divisions in our country.
It’s no secret that waking up in America today often means waking up to deep, painful, social and political divisions, which seem to be intensifying with alarming speed. Each time I read a new headline stoking the flames of these divisions, I become more certain that thoughtful, less fraught conversations about porn and sexuality education are part of the solution to healing our wounds and bringing us back together.
My goal is to make the unspeakable, speakable. We need to make talking about sex and porn as normal as talking about the weather. The more normal we can make these conversations, the more likely we are to recognize our shared humanity, reconnect with our human-ness, and stop hurting each other.
Thinking this is one thing. Acting on it is another. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I needed to practice what I preach if I was going to make something I wholeheartedly believed into a reality. So in January 2023, I walked into my boss’s office and said the words that would get most employees sent to Human Resources: “Porn ― I want to teach a course about porn.”
Before I could even finish the sentence, I partly regretted it and wished I could stuff it back in my mouth.
To my surprise and delight, my program director barely batted an eye and enthusiastically agreed. The conversation was so normal ― not controversial, or sensational ― just normal. My proposed course met with a similar reaction from everyone else at Temple University, including administrators and students. I suspect everyone, not just my students, craves spaces to have these conversations without the real or manufactured outrage that often accompanies them.
A few months later, we launched Social Perspectives in Digital Pornography: The Other Sex Education to a record student enrollment.
Every Monday night for an entire 16-week semester, I met with 40 students and talked about digital porn. The course wasn’t nearly as sensational as what most people might think, mostly because we were not watching porn as part of the curriculum.
Instead, students traced the history of porn and its evolution into the modern porn industry with the introduction of photography, watched TED Talks and documentaries, and talked about what digital porn teaches or doesn’t teach about sex, consent, violence, body image, pleasure, intimacy and communication across all identities. Throughout it all, we grappled with the influence and impact of a medium that is used by nearly three in four men and two in five women but rarely ever discussed.
In each class, I took an objective, evidence-based approach that demonstrates that porn isn’t all good or all bad, and that talking about porn in thoughtful, nuanced ways is very, very good. In creating a safe space to have these conversations, I gave my students permission to confront their often complicated, conflicted feelings and relationships to porn. They felt less ashamed, more connected, and more likely to empathize with one another, despite their own individual, personal beliefs and feelings.
“As much as I hoped my students would learn from me throughout the semester, I ended up learning even more from them.”
No matter what students asked or the conclusions they arrived at, we always came back to the same core questions: “Am I normal?”; “Am I lovable?”; “Am I worthy?” We were exploring the basic concepts of what it means to be human and to find belonging.
Their final journal reflections showed me just how much students benefited from asking these questions. They talked about how this class helped them to sit with the pit of shame that they associate with sex and porn and learn to become more comfortable in their own skin. Students talked about the difficulties in being vulnerable and how they were challenged to communicate through sensitive and complex topics.
My favorite reflections are the ones where students shared a sense of empowerment and a newfound confidence in themselves. Now that they’ve reconnected with their own human-ness and the human-ness of others, they feel like they are better prepared to navigate the world. That type of learning is more valuable than any grade they could achieve.
As much as I hoped my students would learn from me throughout the semester, I ended up learning even more from them. Through feedback from our last day of class and in their final reflection papers, they reassured me that I was not, in fact, bananas — that destigmatizing sex and porn not only addresses core questions about if they are normal, lovable, and worthy, but it also helps them understand what it means to be human and how to better empathize with the sheer human-ness of others.
This course is just one of many that I’m piloting at Temple University as we explore ways to make sex education more accessible to people who want and need it. As long as there is student interest and valuable learning outcomes, I plan to offer these courses because I believe that talking about sex and porn will help us bridge the divides that separate us.
This course and the interest that grew from it over the past semester reminded me of the isolating power of the way our traditional sex education internalizes stigmatizing and shameful messages about sex. It turns sexuality into a weapon and creates community based on an “us” versus “them” attitude, making us feel insecure and suspicious of each other. The more we can do to reduce shame and fear, the more likely we are to build communities rooted in compassion, understanding and a shared sense of belonging.
In a world where we increasingly feel more polarized and disconnected from our communities, perhaps it’s time we all sit with questions about what it means to be human.
This piece was originally published in August 2023 and is being rerun now as part of HuffPost Personal’s “Best Of” series.
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Jenn Pollitt, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and assistant director of the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program at Temple University. She received her Ph.D. in Human Sexuality from Widener University where she trained as a sexuality educator and researcher.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs’s lawyers doubled down on claims that his actions were protected by the First Amendment during a hearing this morning as part of their ongoing push for acquittal. (Yes, the same amendment that’s under attack from President Donald Trump.)
“He was a producer of amateur porn,” Alexandra Shapiro, one of Diddy’s many expensive lawyers, told Judge Arun Subramanian in court on September 25. Diddy’s team is hoping for an acquittal by trying to point out major legal problems in the case. “He’s a consumer of amateur porn,” Shapiro said. “It’s well settled that this type of amateur porn, whether it’s live or recorded, is protected by the First Amendment.” The protection also extended to times Diddy didn’t record encounters, she claimed. “It’s often simply only a livestream back and forth,” Shapiro said, who also mentioned OnlyFans. “Somebody’s watching someone on-camera. It’s not recorded. It’s just happening in real time.”
Diddy was found guilty on July 2 on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. This charge relates to Diddy’s shuttling of male escorts across state lines for the drug-fueled, dayslong sexual encounters known as Freak-Offs. These encounters were often recorded and were “highly choreographed.” Shapiro also mentioned the recordings had “mood lighting” and costumes to bolster the claim that this was performance, not prostitution.
Diddy, who wore khaki jail scrubs at this proceeding, seemed to be in good spirits. When he walked into Subramanian’s courtroom around 11 a.m., he hugged several of his lawyers.
Prosecutor Christy Slavik, who spoke on the First Amendment issue, insisted that Diddy’s hiring male escorts across state lines didn’t involve free speech. “There’s no symbolic speech,” she said, which would have First Amendment protections. “The act that violated the law was the transportation, which was not protected symbolic speech.”
Diddy’s Avenger-like legal counsel detailed their First Amendment claims in late July court filings. “The freak-offs and hotel nights were performances that he or his girlfriends typically videotaped so they could watch them later,” his lawyers wrote in court papers posttrial. “In other words, he was producing amateur pornography for later private viewing.”
Generally speaking, most pornography is protected so long as it doesn’t involve children or “obscenity.” Prosecutors have insisted, however, that Diddy wasn’t paying prostitutes just to make blue movies in their own court filings. “The record shows that the defendant was anything but a producer of adult films entitled to First Amendment protection — rather, he was a voracious consumer of commercial sex, paying male commercial sex workers on hundreds of occasions to have sex with his girlfriends for his own sexual arousal,” they argued in court papers. “Moreover, the conduct proscribed by the Mann Act — causing the interstate transportation of an individual for the purpose of prostitution — is not entitled to First Amendment protection.”
Subramanian will rule later on the defense’s push for acquittal. Diddy is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3.
In recent years, legislation aimed at restricting access to online porn sites has become more and more popular in conservative states, but in Michigan, lawmakers have just introduced a bill that would ban all online pornography, full stop.
The legislation, which offers a deeply draconian perspective on human sexuality, was introduced on Sept. 11th, and its primary sponsor is Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford). The “Anticorruption of Public Morals Act,” which sounds like a bill whose name (and contents) were sourced from the 1930s, would ban all “pornographic material.” What does that mean? According to the bill text, it means “content, digital, streamed, or otherwise distributed on the internet, the primary purpose of which is to sexually arouse or gratify, including videos, erotica, magazines, stories, manga, material generated by artificial intelligence, live feeds, or sound clips.”
That, uh, sure sounds like a lot. Additionally, the bill would also define “any depiction or description of trans people as pornographic,” which means that such depictions would also be banned, 404 Media writes. Indeed, while the bill text does not include any specific mentions of trans people as a group, it does include a stipulation that would ban the following category of media: “a depiction, description, or simulation, whether real, animated, digitally generated, written, or auditory, that includes a disconnection between biology and gender by an individual of biological sex imitating, depicting, or representing himself or herself to be of the other biological sex by means of a combination of attire, cosmetology, or prosthetics, or as having a reproductive nature contrary to the individual’s biological sex.”
The bill’s top sponsor, Schriver, claims this is all about defending children. “These measures defend children, safeguard our communities, and put families first,” Schriver recently wrote on X. “Obscene and harmful content online threatens Michigan families, especially children.”
Pornography is obviously a complicated subject with a twisty, not altogether politically neat history, and there are plenty of nuanced conversations to be had about it. One thing’s for sure: an outright ban on it isn’t nuanced, nor does it allow for any conversation at all.
Gizmodo reached out to Schriver’s office for comment and will update this story if he responds.
While, in earlier times, third-wave feminists were the ones advocating for an abolition of the porn industry, in recent times, conservatives have led the charge, albeit for an entirely different set of reasons. Earlier this year, rightwing Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), which would have effectively criminalized all pornography nationwide. Not much has happened with the bill since it was introduced and referred to a Senate committee. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which many believe has acted as a kind of rightwing policy bible for the Trump administration, has also advocated for criminalizing all pornography.
Across a four-day span in late August, porn star Siri Dahl invites her followers to “cum on in” on OnlyFans, goes live on YouTube (“100% raw, organic, grass-fed” content, she advertises with a wink), hawks “Corn Star” T-shirts via her personal store, posts about appearing in a live podcast taping of Lovett or Leave It on X, where she has nearly half a million followers, and uploads eight videos to Pornhub, alternating between role-play (“Sexy Mean Starfish Babe Gives You Femdom Ass Worship”) and kink-friendly (“Cozy naked yoga by the fireplace”) content.
It’s a typical week for Dahl: demanding, a little all over the place, and very online, but one she’s totally in control of.
It’s also very different from the world of studio porn where she got her start. Dahl debuted in adult entertainment in 2012, with credits in projects by Vivid Entertainment, Naughty America, and Girlfriends Films. At the time, she says, the industry was still very much a boys club; she had no independence and even less say over the direction of her career. “It was like five CEOs who completely dictated what was attractive and what kind of person was allowed to become a porn star,” she says. “Performers were essentially at the bottom. I’d be on set for 12 hours all for one check, and there are no royalties in porn. The power dynamic was inverted compared to what it is now.”
Today, Dahl does a little bit of everything: girl on girl, solo and fetish content, naked workout videos, group scenes. She’s on “basically every fan platform”—Fansly, LoyalFans, and ManyVids, with OnlyFans being her “biggest income generator.” She also uploads free content to Pornhub, where she makes ad revenue based on views. Some of her most popular work is role-playing a badly-behaved stepmom: “MOMMY’S BOY – Naughty MILF Siri Dahl Caught Naked in the Kitchen!” is her most-watched video on Pornhub, with 29 millions views. She’s grateful for the autonomy the internet has given her over her career.
But that could come to a crashing end, with the widespread adoption of age-verification laws in the US and UK, which require visitors to upload an ID or other personal documentation to validate that they are not a minor before viewing sexually explicit material.
Already Dahl has seen “an absolutely massive drop in traffic,” she says from her home in Los Angeles. “I’ve made 30 percent less money this year than I did last year.” (She declined to say exactly how much.)
So far at least 24 US states have sanctioned some form of ID verification, each with unique stipulations. Legislators argue that these laws are intended to keep minors safe from content deemed harmful to them. Critics say that argument doesn’t hold any weight because there are “easy solutions” to the moral panic conservatives have created around the issue. They say the laws infringe on privacy rights and set an irreversibly dark precedent for the future of free speech.
Perhaps even more terrifying is what it all signals: the death of the free web and an ushering in of a more puritanical version of America.
That’s been a goal of Project 2025 all along. A line from the 900-page Heritage Foundation document, a right-wing blueprint of sorts for President Donald Trump’s second term, says “people who produce and distribute [porn] should be imprisoned.” In a video recording leaked last August by the Centre for Climate Reporting, Trump ally Russell Vought, who coauthored Project 2025, says the age verification laws are a “back door” route to a federal ban. “We’d have a national ban on pornography if we could,” says Vought, who is director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration, in the video. “We’ve got a number of states that are passing this, and you know what happens is, the porn company then says, ‘We’re not going to do business in your state,’ which is entirely what we were after,” he explains. In the same video, Vought says his wider goal is creating a “culture that values babies and the life that’s created and is focused on the birth rates and makes them a positive good as opposed to a burden.”
But where Guo, who is 35, sometimes falls short in imagination, he more than makes up for in vigilance. “Users expect and deserve products that meet stringent safety standards, and any deviation can damage a brand’s reputation irrevocably,” he posted in an XBIZ editorial in September. “Partner with trusted white-label manufacturers rather than gamble on the unknowns.”
When I ask Guo about the editorial, he stresses that the success of sex tech is determined as much by the innovation involved in the products as the quality. “We want to be more of a bridge from human to human,” Guo says, “not just from toy to human.”
Even with promising market projections—another estimate goes so far as to predict sales could surpass $121 billion by 2030—industry analysts are not convinced that the future of sex tech is in toys.
It’s a “very oversaturated market that is now avoided by many,” says Olena Petrosyuk, a partner at the consulting firm Waveup. This year, she adds, investors “are looking away from ‘commoditized’ trends”—sex toys, but also sex content and social platforms. “Many failed to prove the economics and scale. The category is still fairly stigmatized,” she says. “OnlyFans being a massive exception.”
So what do consumers want? Petrosyuk says wellness, AI, and immersive realities are hot right now. “Practically every new sex tech startup is thinking in terms of AI use cases,” she says. “If it’s AI toys—companies are looking into how they can anticipate and respond to the user’s needs. If it’s robotics—we see companies looking into sex bots. If it’s content—it’s hyperpersonalized sex personas.”
Guo tells me he is not phased by talk of AI sex robots—“a low-volume business,” in his estimation—because many people cannot afford the high price tag. Continued success, he believes, is will come by expanding on the company’s themed collections. OEJ works directly with US and Canadian distributors; it is not a direct-to-consumer business, though he says customers do occasionally order via the online store.
Although ecommerce is the industry standard in retail and electronics, taking more of an old-school approach works for Guo. Next year, OEJ plans to launch a Zodiac collection, crafting 12 unique toys for each astrological sign. It’s an appeal to the Co–Star fanatics of Gen Z. “Every generation is different,” he says.
The company’s mostly nonexistent social media presence only seems to add to their Wonka-like mystery. “We’re just bad at it,” Jerry Chen, an operations assistant, says. “We’re really focused on production.”
For now, that business model seems to be a hit. Our Erotic Journey recently won the “Best Pleasure Product Manufacturer—Small” prize at the 2023–2024 AVN Awards in Las Vegas, a litmus test for newbie brands in the adult content world. OEJ also received the O Award for Outstanding New Product for “Sexy Pot,” Guo’s marijuana-leaf-shaped vibrator, a customer favorite.
Clearly wanting to capitalize on its unexpected success, Guo says, “It’s time we gave it a sister or brother.”
As I leave my house on an overcast Tuesday morning to walk the dog, I’m accosted by a neighbor who cheerily calls down the street: “I hear you have an OnlyFans now!” I start to wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
OnlyFans has—how shall I put it—a reputation. Like many online platforms, it matches content creators with their audience. But OnlyFans is primarily known for one type of content: sex.
When friends and acquaintances hear I—a 43-year-old father of two—have set up an OnlyFans account, they are intrigued. When I explain I’m only posting content that’s nonsexual and very much safe for work, their next question is “Why?” In their minds, it’s clear that “having an OnlyFans” means doing sexy stuff on the internet, for money.
OnlyFans, a UK-based outfit that raked in $658 million in pretax profit last year, wants to shake this image. For every university student raising cash by sharing nudes, there’s a wholesome housewife uploading DIY tips or an up-and-coming musician posting his latest tracks, at least if you go by the accounts highlighted on the company’s blog.
“Everyone’s doing a dance on the rest of social media, where it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re not supposed to show people your penis here and you’re not supposed to say crazy, wild shit,’” John Hastings, a 39-year-old Canadian comic, tells me via phone from his home in Los Angeles. On OnlyFans however, he still has people who slide into his DMs just to say “I want to see your feet, I’m not here for jokes.”
Like all the safe-for-work creators I speak to, Hastings has a presence on many social networks, from Instagram to X to YouTube. The audience on OnlyFans will usually be smaller than on other sites, but followers are often more engaged and—importantly—must have a bank account linked to their profile, ready to be prized open.
“It is a different world, for sure, compared to the people who are on my other social media platforms,” says Dudley Alexander, an R&B artist who releases music under the moniker Nevrmind.
Alexander, 33, joined OnlyFans in 2019, before the site’s profile surged as the Covid-19 pandemic pushed many previously IRL activities online. As such, he’s a pioneer of the safe-for-work OnlyFans scene and has amassed more than 67,000 likes on his page. (OnlyFans only displays a user’s like count publicly; the follower count, which is usually higher, is hidden.)
This is turning into one of the most weird elections. Now will porn sway the election?
The presidential election has been filled with memes, hurricanes, hashtags, misinformation and more. Record voter turnout has already been seen in Georgia and anxiety is up in both parties. But will porn decide the next election? You have the right, the left, moderates, evangelicals, union members, and celebrities weighing in and trying to sway the vote. But two groups are getting involved via porn and it could actually make a difference.
As of August 2024, Pornhub is the 16th-most-visited website in the world and the most-visited adult website. Which makes it bigger than Amazon, Pinterest, and Walmart. Additionally there are 4 adult sites in the top 50. Which makes it a powerful voice in a moment when people could be open to information about their activity. Advertising on an adult site is inexpensive and has a huge reach. Plus, the performers have a huge reach…especially with the hard to reach demographic of men 25-44. So why wouldn’t it become a key focus.
FTW PAC, is a political action committee co-founded by friends Wally Nowinski and Matt Curry. Their plan to reach the hard to grab young men demographic to engage them when they consume online adult entertainment. It mixes up the ad content and their moment’s interest.
They are running ads which starts with a woman enjoying herself on a bed before Donald Trump appears over her, or else a warning that “Trump’s Project 2025 will ban this video.” The ads conclude by telling the viewer, “Enjoy while you can.” Powerful stuff when men are in a needy moment.
When Louisiana banned porn, which was support by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), demand for VPNs surged by 210%. When Pornhub blocked access to Texas, searches for VPNs by Texas users increased more than fourfold.
In addition to FTW PAC, 17 adult film stars has launched a $100,000 ad campaign warning viewers about the Project 2025. The ads run in front of videos on popular porn sites. This is to sway the election against the the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation blueprint for the next Republican administration. Their plan is to ban pornography and prosecute porn producers. Additionally, they want to stop legal marijuana.
If you’re familiar with Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, it’s probably for his hard-line stance on abortion and his outlandish claims on everything from Black Panther (made by “an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxists”) to the Holocaust (“hogwash”). But get ready for a new and slightly more fun reason: In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Evangelical Christian used to go to the pornography store a lot. Like, a lot.
That’s according to a former employee at 24-hour porn-video shops in Greensboro, who spoke with the North Carolina investigative website TheAssembly. He says Robinson was coming in to watch videos in a private booth as many as five nights a week. The man, Louis Money, said that at one of the stores he worked at, Gents, patrons could buy videos for $50 each or “preview” them in private booths for $8. “Every night that I worked, which would have been five nights a week, I saw Mark,” Money said. “He was spending a good amount of money.” Robinson previewed at least two tapes a night, per Money. Five other customers and employees confirmed Robinson’s frequent presence; one said Robinson would even bring in pizza for the fellas.
A campaign spokesperson described The Assembly’s report as “bullshit.”
In his memoir, Robinson wrote that he was “guilty of bad money management” and that “when I had money and should have been putting it in the bank or spending it on essential things … I was just throwing money away.” Between 1998 and 2003, Robinson’s family filed for bankruptcy three times.
While everyone interviewed by The Assemblysaid they liked Robinson, his porn era was dragged back to the surface after Money made a rap-rock music video in August called “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money.” According to Money, Robinson purchased “hundreds” of bootleg porn compilations that Money made — though he forgot to pay him the $25 for the last one.
Republicans have longbeenobsessed with pornography as part of their moral crusade in America. At least Robinson, according to his former friend, put his money where his mouth is. In this decade, this exposé will instead likely help the candidate with the Barstool bro-vote.
Several of the most prominent alt-weekly newspapers in the United States are running search-engine-optimized listicles about porn performers, which appear to be AI-generated, alongside their editorial content.
If you pull up the homepage for the Village Voice on your phone, for example, you’ll see reporting from freelancers—longtime columnist Michael Musto still files occasionally—as well as archival work from big-name former writers such as Greg Tate, the Pulitzer Prize–winning music critic. You’ll also see a tab on its drop-down menu labeled “OnlyFans.” Clicking on it pulls up a catalog of listicles ranking different types of pornographic performers by demographic, from “Turkish” to “incest” to “granny.” These blog posts link out to hundreds of different OnlyFans accounts and are presented as editorial work, without labels indicating they are advertisements or sponsored.
Similar content appears on the websites of LA Weekly, which is owned by Street Media, the same parent company as the Village Voice, as well as the St. Louis–based alt-weekly the Riverfront Times. Although there is a chance some of these posts could be written by human freelancers, the writing bears markers of AI slop.
According to AI detection startup Reality Defender, which scanned a sampling of these posts, the content in the articles registers as having a “high probability” of containing AI-generated text. One scanned example, a Riverfront Times story titled “19 Best Free Asian OnlyFans Featuring OnlyFans Asian Free in 2024,” concludes with the following sentence, exemplary in its generic horny platitudes: “You explore, savor, and discover your next favorite addiction, and we’ll be back with more insane talent in the future!”
“We’re seeing an ever-increasing part of old media be reborn as AI-generated new media,” says Reality Defender cofounder and CTO Ali Shahriyari. “Unfortunately, this means way less informational and newsworthy content and more SEO-focused ‘slop’ that really just wastes people’s time and attention. Tracking these kinds of publications isn’t even part of our day to day, yet we’re seeing them pop up more and more.”
LA Weekly laid off or offered buyouts to the majority of its staff in March 2024, while the Riverfront Times laid off its entire staff in May 2024 after it was sold by parent company Big Lou Media to an unnamed buyer.
The Village Voice’s sole remaining editorial staffer, R.C. Baker, says he is not involved with the OnlyFans posts, although it appears on the site as editorial content. “I handle only news and cultural reporting out of New York City. I have nothing to do with OnlyFans. That content is handled by a separate team that is based, I believe, in LA,” he told WIRED.
Likewise, former LA Weekly editor in chief Darrick Rainey says he, too, had nothing to do with the OnlyFans listicles when he worked there. Neither did his colleagues in editorial. “We weren’t happy about it at all, and we were absolutely not involved in putting it up,” he says.
Former employees are disturbed to see their archival work comingling with SEO porn slop. “It’s wrenching in so many ways,” says former Riverfront Times writer Danny Wicentowski. “Like watching a loved home get devoured by vines, or left to rot.”
(FOX40.COM) — A tutor was recently arrested after hundreds of sexually graphic images of children were found in his possession, according to the Modesto Police Department.
On May 9, MPD detectives said they followed up on a cyber tip received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about an individual who uploaded and downloaded image files that contained child pornography.
The downloads were traced back to 57-year-old Ronald McMurtry of Modesto, who police said tutors children ages 6 and up at a private school. Subsequently, MPD executed a search warrant for all electronic devices possessed by McMurty in his residence. There, law enforcement said it found several electronic devices that included hundreds of child pornography images.
Police said no evidence suggests the students tutored by McMurty were victimized, however, they encouraged anyone with information related to the case to contact Detective Nancy Lopez at 209-342-6180.
McMurty was booked into the Stanislaus County Public Safety Center for alleged possession and distribution of child pornography.
OpenAI released draft documentation Wednesday laying out how it wants ChatGPT and its other AI technology to behave. Part of the lengthy Model Spec document discloses that the company is exploring a leap into porn and other explicit content.
OpenAI’s usage policies curently prohibit sexually explicit or even suggestive materials, but a “commentary” note on part of the Model Spec related to that rule says the company is considering how to permit such content.
“We’re exploring whether we can responsibly provide the ability to generate NSFW content in age-appropriate contexts through the API and ChatGPT,” the note says, using a colloquial term for content considered “not safe for work” contexts. “We look forward to better understanding user and societal expectations of model behavior in this area.”
The Model Spec document says NSFW content “may include erotica, extreme gore, slurs, and unsolicited profanity.” It is unclear if OpenAI’s explorations of how to responsibly make NSFW content envisage loosening its usage policy only slightly, for example to permit generation of erotic text, or more broadly to allow descriptions or depictions of violence.
In response to questions from WIRED, OpenAI spokesperson Grace McGuire said the Model Spec was an attempt to “bring more transparency about the development process and get a cross section of perspectives and feedback from the public, policymakers, and other stakeholders.” She declined to share details of what OpenAI’s exploration of explicit content generation involves or what feedback the company has received on the idea.
Earlier this year, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, told The Wall Street Journal that she was “not sure” if the company would in future allow depictions of nudity to be made with the company’s video generation tool Sora.
“Intimate privacy violations, including deepfake sex videos and other nonconsensual synthesized intimate images, are rampant and deeply damaging,” says Danielle Keats Citron, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who has studied the problem. “We now have clear empirical support showing that such abuse costs targeted individuals crucial opportunities, including to work, speak, and be physically safe.”
Citron calls OpenAI’s potential embrace of explicit AI content “alarming.”
As OpenAI’s usage policies prohibit impersonation without permission, explicit nonconsensual imagery would remain banned even if the company did allow creators to generate NSFW material. But it remains to be seen whether the company could effectively moderate explicit generation to prevent bad actors from using the tools. Microsoft made changes to one of its generative AI tools after 404 Media reported that it had been used to create explicit images of Taylor Swift that were distributed on the social platform X.
As you’ve probably heard, Pornhub, the nation’s largest purveyor of free online pornography, has pulled out of Texas. In fact, Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, has pulled all of its adult sites from the state because of a state law meant to add age verification processes to the platforms…
After a long and tiring day at work, Mark headed to an East Hollywood movie theater that he called “always a fun, chill” time — and bought an eight-hour ticket.
At this cinema house, there were no movie posters touting “Barbie,” no IMAX screens, no buckets of buttery popcorn. This month’s curated selections include “Tiny & Tight Size Queens 2” and “Stepmom Seductions.”
Mark had come to the Tiki Theater: the last porn theater in Los Angeles.
It is a place that has outlasted more vaunted film houses such as the ArcLight Hollywood and its historic Cinerama Dome, which shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A cyclist rides past the entrance to the Tiki Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“I just want to feel free here, watching something very primal,” said Mark, 34, during a recent screening at the Tiki.
“I think sex is beautiful, and I like sharing it with others — whether the energy is weird or not,” said Mark, who described himself as “gay with a side of bi” and declined to share his last name because, well, he had come to watch porn.
The Tiki, a red-tiled storefront theater next to a snack bar selling “natural juices,” is a Santa Monica Boulevard institution — an X-rated bulwark against online porn, videos that can be watched privately at home, and other factors that have all but rendered adult film theaters obsolete.
Three miles west on Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood’s Studs Theater — a straight and LGBTQ+ porn house in a 1940 building that once housed one of the legendary Pussycat theaters — shut down last year.
Now, Tiki is the last adult film theater in a city that once had scores of them, according to L.A. Department of Building and Safety permit records reviewed by The Times.
Open 24 hours a day, the Tiki beckons customers with signs in both English and Spanish: CINE XXX PARA ADULTOS and XXX ADULT THEATER.
Passersby in front of the Tiki Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Curious passersby sometimes peek inside. On a typical day, most shuffle away, a few linger, and only a handful stand at the ticket counter — right there on a bustling sidewalk — and pay for a ticket: $20 for four hours, $25 for eight hours and $30 for 12 hours.
No refunds.
Inside, patrons are welcomed by a darkness penetrated only by the light of the theater’s sole silver screen.
At the Tiki, the ringmaster of porn is Juan Martinez, the theater’s longtime manager.
Most days, the 59-year-old immigrant from El Salvador works 12-hour shifts in a tiny box office with a mini fridge and stacks of neatly organized porn DVDs. He has been working there for more than 15 years.
“Honestly, I don’t even need to work that much anymore,” Martinez said in Spanish. “I just need enough for my food. But I appreciate this place because it was one of the places where I started out when I came to the United States.”
Signs inform patrons on the front doors to the Tiki Theater.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The hardcore sex and nudity on screen do not faze him, he said. Martinez described himself as a romantic — even though he recently had to break up with a girlfriend because her mom did not like his job.
Martinez is Tiki’s projectionist, maintenance worker — and bouncer, if need be. He also programs Tiki’s 24/7 screenings, which, as advertised by the black signs taped on the outside hallway, feature “3 new movies, very recent” every day.
“I have a lot of appreciation for this place,” Martinez said. “I go about maintaining it, fixing everything, whether it’s the plumbing, electricity. I adjust the cameras, I take care of everything. I do it like it’s something personal. I do it with lots of care.”
Juan Martinez, the manager of the Tiki Theater, has worked at the establishment for more than 15 years.
(Juan Martinez)
Martinez’s early life hardly would have suggested a future at the Tiki. In his homeland, Martinez studied health and medicine.
The Salvadoran military drafted him at 17, enlisting him as a battlefield nurse during the country’s grueling civil war.
Martinez said he retrieved drowned bodies from rivers and corpses booby-trapped with bombs. He said guerrillas hid explosives within tree branches, waiting for the moment soldiers would touch them.
“Boom! Boom! Boom! And people would die,” Martinez recalled. “Sometimes, I saw people without eyes, without hands.”
At 19, Martinez left the military. He immigrated to the United States with his two sisters and younger brother.
Before he found work at the Tiki, he was a busboy at a Thai barbecue restaurant, a maintenance worker at the Hollywood Cabaret, another now-defunct porn theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Now, he uses his Tiki earnings to help build a home for a granddaughter in Santa Clarita.
As he told his life story from the box office, the groans and awkward dialogue of a porno could be heard coming from the theater. Martinez paused his story as a man approached the ticket stand.
Tiki Theater manager Juan Martinez is pictured at age 20, one year after he immigrated to Los Angeles from El Salvador.
(Juan Martinez)
Martinez talks to customers through an opaque window. Theatergoers can’t see him, nor can he really see them.
The man slid a crisp $25 into the window’s deal tray.
“Hello,” the customer said. “How are you?”
“Good, how many hours?” Martinez replied.
“Eight.”
The customer grabbed the ticket from Martinez’s tan hands.
From his side of the window, Martinez removed the rod that serves as the outdoor turnstile, allowing the man to step inside, into the darkness.
The Tiki’s single viewing room, about the size of four parking spaces put together, has black-painted walls and six rows of cushioned leather seats. It can seat about 30 people.
An adult film on the screen inside the Tiki Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Men tend to sit toward the back, watching the main screen while a smaller television propped in the room’s upper right corner consecutively plays a second porn film.
Among the patrons on a recent weekday was Mario Lopez, visiting for the first time after a friend recommended it. Lopez, 37, was unimpressed. He bought a four-hour ticket but said he probably wouldn’t return.
“It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” Lopez said in Spanish with a laugh. He expected “más ambiente” — more ambiance. Nevertheless, he stayed for over an hour because he struck up a conversation with Luis Arjeta, another customer.
Arjeta, 51, has been frequenting the Tiki for five years. He used to come up to five times a week, but this was his first visit in about three months.
“I like the type of movies they show here,” said Arjeta, who bought a 12-hour ticket. He likes the longer tickets — eight and 12 hours — because they allow reentry and he can enter and leave at his own discretion during the allotted time period.
Arjeta, who is, like Martinez, a Salvadoran immigrant, described Tiki as “a refuge.”
“What happens when police shut down places like these?” Arjeta said in Spanish. “These are places that grant us the opportunity to be more comfortable.”
Back in the 1970s and ’80s, there were a lot more places like the Tiki in Los Angeles.
With names like Copenhagen Adult Cinema, The Cave, Sin-O-Rama (which, in a 1977 advertisement in The Times, said customers could “Get your sex education here”), and more, these adult theaters were a common sight in Hollywood and East Hollywood.
“There used to be a lot more of them,” said Kim Cooper of Esotouric, a tour company that advocates for historic preservation and public policy. “And clearly with the spread of porn onto people’s phones, it really changed the way that people perceive that sort of material.”
An employee mans the ticket booth at the Tiki Theater.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Before video cassette recorders became common in American households in the latter half of the 20th century, making pornography viewable in the privacy of one’s home, those who wanted to see sexual content had to go into public spaces to view it.
“That has now become part of American history and going there is an act of nostalgia,” Cooper said, “but it’s also showing that there’s always been a need for this type of content.”
Construction of the Metro Red Line and large-scale redevelopment in the 1990s helped transform seedy Hollywood streets that had become known for their drugs, prostitution and porn purveyors into round-the-clock tourist destinations.
Richard Schave, who co-runs Esotouric with Cooper, his wife, said the sex shops near Hollywood and Western “are all really important spaces that are all gone.”
All but Tiki.
“Tiki is the real deal,” Cooper said. “You walk in there, you’re part of something that’s very old. I think it’s kind of magical.”
Though Tiki is the last porn theater standing, that doesn’t mean it’s a stranger to change.
Originally known as the Mini Theater in the early 1970s, it welcomed nude performers to its stage. Now, that stage is occupied by cleaning supplies.
Tiki once had an iconic sign: a bright-red marquee with a palm tree, a totem pole, and the words: “Tiki Theater Xymposium / ADULT XXX LIVE NAKED GIRLS.”
It’s unclear, Cooper said, when it was torn down.
“One day, we go by, and we were like, ‘What just happened?’” Cooper said. “This beautiful thing, this jewel of the city.”
The Tiki Theater is believed to be the last porn theater in Los Angeles.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“It had such a Polynesian exotic look to it,” Willard said. “I say, ‘Maybe there’s hula dancers in here. Maybe there’s mai tais.’ I went in and I realized I was the only one awake and sober and conscious.”
He also tweeted: “lousy film, but theater would make a terrific racquetball court.”
Nowadays, a sign outside the theater warns: “Movie theater viewed by LAPD.”
The Los Angeles Police Department “doesn’t have any cameras in that area and did not post that sign,” said Capt. Kelly Muniz, an LAPD spokeswoman. “That sign was likely posted by management or the property owner.”
And in somewhat fractured Spanish, the theater also used to have handwritten signs saying smoking and drinking were prohibited and warned patrons: “No habran el pantalon or el zipper.” Don’t open your pants or the zipper.
Willard said at the time that he thought porn theaters no longer existed.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Mark, the recent customer, more than a decade later.
“I always wonder how these places survive,” he said.
As he pondered the Tiki’s future, Mark’s eyes kept drifting to the screen, to a tight shot of actors’ private parts.
“I’m too distracted by what’s happening on the screen,” he said, “to share any last words.”
If you were to time-travel back to the ’90s and tell marketing executives that sex no longer sells, you would be laughed out of the building. But in the year 2023? It’s common knowledge that sex is not as profitable as it used to be. If you’re wondering why you might be seeing a lot less sex scenes in film and TV in the coming years, you might have Gen Z to thank for that. But will a shortage of sex in cinema liberate us from the shackles of exploitation? Or will it simply send us back to the dark ages of conservative censorship and religious repression—a development that would ultimately cheapen the depiction of sex and turn it into something forbidden?
According to the 2023 Teens and Screens report, which was conducted by the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, around 51.5% of adolescents would prefer to see less sex and see more content depicting platonic friendships and relationships. Despite this damning news, it barely scratches the surface of a largely sex-negative culture that has rapidly developed online amongst our youth. This wave has even led to the coining of the term “puriteen”.
A puriteen is a teenager or young adult who finds an emphasis on sexuality to be intrusive, wails against age gaps in relationships, and finds the presence of kink at Pride a tad excessive. Statistics suggest that Gen Z is also less sexually active than previous generations in general, and I blame that on our relationships primarily taking place on screens and a general fear for the future. But the most prevalent form of puriteenism is a general repulsion toward and distaste for the presence of sex scenes in movies and TV. This has been seen through Gen Z’s criticism of racy shows such as Euphoria, The Idol, and even that one sex scene Christopher Nolan’s latest filmOppenheimer.
An 18 year old just told me the sex scene in Oppenheimer made them uncomfortable so they had to stop watching it, and proceeded to tell me it was a bad movie because of the sex scene?
What does a world without sex scenes actually look like? You don’t need to go back too far in time in order to find out. From 1934 to 1968, major motion picture studios in the United States abided by a set of rules and guidelines known as the Hays Code. This code dictated what was considered acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures made for a public audience. Film curator Chelsea O’Brien tells the ACMI that the code “prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, graphic, or realistic violence, sexual persuasions and rape. It had rules around the use of crime, costume, dance, religion, national sentiment, and morality.”
CBS
If you’re a puriteen, you might find yourself nodding in agreement. Who wants to see gratuitous rape scenes or an excessive use of nudity that has nothing to do with the plot? However, the Hays Code manifested in ways you wouldn’t necessarily expect. It forced motion pictures to present couples as sleeping in separate beds, as seen in the hit show I Love Lucy. It restricted the depiction of pregnancy and childbirth in cinema. Mocking or criticizing the Christian faith was strictly prohibited. The word “virgin” was also banned from scripts. In short—the Hays Code led to a snowball effect of unbidden restrictions on artistic expression. It was also implemented after the spicy and provocative landscape of 1920s cinema, which often depicted women in positions of power, autonomy, and domination. For the next 30 years, the Hays Code put a stop to that, bringing women right back into the kitchen and stripping them of the freedom to authentically express their womanhood.
Rolling Stone
While Gen Z is certainly not advocating for an outward ban on sex in cinema, it’s important to remember how fast one thing leads to another and how far filmmakers had to come to even be able to depict sexual themes at all. In the years that followed the downfall of the Hays Code, cinema experienced a sexual reawakening. If you think racy sex scenes quickly became excessive—as seen in shows like Sex and the City, Game of Thrones, or True Blood—it probably has to do with the fact that we, as artists and consumers, had been deprived of sex for so long. Maybe filmmakers had to go buck wild in the ’90s and 2000s just to bring us back to a healthier and more balanced barometer.
New Line Cinema
However, Gen Z did not grow up during a period of sexual repression in cinema; they grew up during an era that was trying to make up for lost time. They may not have experienced this “sexual revolution” firsthand, because for previous generations, seeing Allie and Noah finally hook up in The Notebook (2004) or Jack and Rose have sex in a steamy parked car in The Titanic (1997) reminded many of us that sex could be passionate, wild, amorous, and downright spiritual. Seeing cowboys Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger bang in a tent and fall in love in Brokeback Mountain (2005) showed the heteronormative world that gay sex was real, romantic, and that it mattered.
Paramount Pictures
These too-hot-to-handle sex scenes arrived at a time when porn was becoming widely available on the internet, making it easier than ever for adults—and even minors—to access violent, graphic, and sometimes even grotesque depictions of sex with the click of a button. And while I’m not one to kink shame, it’s usually women and queer folks who suffer from these depictions the most in their personal sex lives. It’s thanks to the more artistic expressions of sex that appear in film and TV that many of us even understand that sex can actually be sweet, respectful, emotional, funny, relatable, and romantic. Without these cinematic sex scenes, many of us would only get our sexual education from pornography. And that would mean most of us might think a normal session of sex involves ejaculating on a woman’s face when really it doesn’t have to.
Paramount Pictures
Point blank: Sex is an integral part of our stories and identities and it will never not be—so why shouldn’t we be able to express ourselves about it? Sex can influence your self-esteem, bringing rise to feelings of power, passion, ambition, and the most exalting form of contentment when done right. It can also be associated with pain, embarrassment, and trauma, making it all the more important to be able to talk about it and heal through honest expression.
If sex was exclusively reserved for porn and shunned in other forms of media, would cinema be able to accurately capture the way sex elevates our consciousness and impacts our overall lives? Or would it take the magic away from sex and turn it into something rote and purely exploitative? Let’s not forget the very real possibility that we backslide into the same outdated and horrific perceptions of sex expression and femininity that used to run rampant when the Hays Code was still in effect.
During a time when it’s never been easier to hire an intimacy coordinator to facilitate the production of sex scenes with ease, consent, and respect—and the fall of Roe v. Wade is rapidly harming our hard-fought understanding of sex and bodily autonomy—I personally don’t want to see the sex scene go. I want to see the sex scene become something better than it has ever been; something more creative, liberating, and authentic than we’ve ever known.
That’s my job, or part of it, as an assistant professor in the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program at Temple University. In January 2023, I launched a brand-new college-level course that focuses on the study of porn with a very specific goal: to help heal the painful social divisions in our country.
It’s no secret that waking up in America today often means waking up to deep, painful, social and political divisions, which seem to be intensifying with alarming speed. Each time I read a new headline stoking the flames of these divisions, I become more certain that thoughtful, less fraught conversations about porn and sexuality education are part of the solution to healing our wounds and bringing us back together.
My goal is to make the unspeakable, speakable. We need to make talking about sex and porn as normal as talking about the weather. The more normal we can make these conversations, the more likely we are to recognize our shared humanity, reconnect with our human-ness, and stop hurting each other.
Thinking this is one thing. Acting on it is another. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I needed to practice what I preach if I was going to make something I wholeheartedly believed into a reality. So in January 2023, I walked into my boss’s office and said the words that would get most employees sent to Human Resources: “Porn ― I want to teach a course about porn.”
Before I could even finish the sentence, I partly regretted it and wished I could stuff it back in my mouth.
To my surprise and delight, my program director barely batted an eye and enthusiastically agreed. The conversation was so normal ― not controversial, or sensational ― just normal. My proposed course met with a similar reaction from everyone else at Temple University, including administrators and students. I suspect everyone, not just my students, craves spaces to have these conversations without the real or manufactured outrage that often accompanies them.
A few months later, we launched Social Perspectives in Digital Pornography: The Other Sex Education to a record student enrollment.
Every Monday night for an entire 16-week semester, I met with 40 students and talked about digital porn. The course wasn’t nearly as sensational as what most people might think, mostly because we were not watching porn as part of the curriculum.
Instead, students traced the history of porn and its evolution into the modern porn industry with the introduction of photography, watched TED Talks and documentaries, and talked about what digital porn teaches or doesn’t teach about sex, consent, violence, body image, pleasure, intimacy and communication across all identities. Throughout it all, we grappled with the influence and impact of a medium that is used by nearly three in four men and two in five women but rarely ever discussed.
In each class, I took an objective, evidence-based approach that demonstrates that porn isn’t all good or all bad, and that talking about porn in thoughtful, nuanced ways is very, very good. In creating a safe space to have these conversations, I gave my students permission to confront their often complicated, conflicted feelings and relationships to porn. They felt less ashamed, more connected, and more likely to empathize with one another, despite their own individual, personal beliefs and feelings.
“As much as I hoped my students would learn from me throughout the semester, I ended up learning even more from them.”
No matter what students asked or the conclusions they arrived at, we always came back to the same core questions: “Am I normal?”; “Am I lovable?”; “Am I worthy?” We were exploring the basic concepts of what it means to be human and to find belonging.
Their final journal reflections showed me just how much students benefited from asking these questions. They talked about how this class helped them to sit with the pit of shame that they associate with sex and porn and learn to become more comfortable in their own skin. Students talked about the difficulties in being vulnerable and how they were challenged to communicate through sensitive and complex topics.
My favorite reflections are the ones where students shared a sense of empowerment and a newfound confidence in themselves. Now that they’ve reconnected with their own human-ness and the human-ness of others, they feel like they are better prepared to navigate the world. That type of learning is more valuable than any grade they could achieve.
As much as I hoped my students would learn from me throughout the semester, I ended up learning even more from them. Through feedback from our last day of class and in their final reflection papers, they reassured me that I was not, in fact, bananas — that destigmatizing sex and porn not only addresses core questions about if they are normal, lovable, and worthy, but it also helps them understand what it means to be human and how to better empathize with the sheer human-ness of others.
This course is just one of many that I’m piloting at Temple University as we explore ways to make sex education more accessible to people who want and need it. As long as there is student interest and valuable learning outcomes, I plan to offer these courses because I believe that talking about sex and porn will help us bridge the divides that separate us.
This course and the interest that grew from it over the past semester reminded me of the isolating power of the way our traditional sex education internalizes stigmatizing and shameful messages about sex. It turns sexuality into a weapon and creates community based on an “us” versus “them” attitude, making us feel insecure and suspicious of each other. The more we can do to reduce shame and fear, the more likely we are to build communities rooted in compassion, understanding and a shared sense of belonging.
In a world where we increasingly feel more polarized and disconnected from our communities, perhaps it’s time we all sit with questions about what it means to be human.
Jenn Pollitt, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and assistant director of the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program at Temple University. She received her Ph.D. in Human Sexuality from Widener University where she trained as a sexuality educator and researcher.
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