Deindustrializing Sex

The reunification of sex and fertility, and why rejecting porn is not a prudish discomfort with sex

We need a term for the kind of sex that is removed from procreative potential while simultaneously being acted out for monetary benefit. I do not find “sex work” appropriate and “prostitution” feels narrow. This term should serve the umbrella function that “sex work” attempts to, but without framing the labor involved as a legitimate endeavor deserving of respected social status and legalization.

We need this term so that we may adequately discuss and consider the societal project which is the separation of sex from its purpose and natural consequence, reproduction. We need to have this discussion because the ability to acknowledge that sex being removed from its natural form, that of an act of potential creation, has created an attitude of flippancy and disregard toward the very thing which our survival as a species depends on.

Western modern culture misunderstands and mischaracterizes sex. Within it, sex is a mere tool, a means to an end, and that end is often very hollow. Pleasure isn’t hollow, pleasure without love and a sense of reverence towards the life the act may yield is. Selfish, transactional sexual decadence is hollow.

Obviously the consequence of reproduction applies only to those currently fertile persons engaging in heterosexual intercourse. Obviously again there are ways to create life without love and even without intercourse now as well. This is actually the other half of the problem, though. It could be argued that my above statement in regards to the survival of our species is moot thanks to assisted reproductive technologies.

In taking reproduction out of the bodies of a man and a woman and placing it in a lab and in the hands of people who will be total strangers to the children who are the result of their work, we are domesticating, corporatizing, commodifying and controlling the generation of life.

There is no wildness where there should be, and in the loss of this wildness, there is another loss. We are losing our reproductive heritage. We come from a long line of mothers, just mothers and their wombs. With this technology, generations will come not just from mothers, but from machines.

The worlds which exists within our bodies, the realm of our gametes, aren’t ones we are entirely privy to, even with all of the wonders of technology we have created to surveil the inner workings of them with. I would suggest perhaps we are not meant to. My understanding of the limits of my knowledge is a comfort in a way. I don’t need to know exactly how my eggs chose the sperm which merged with them and became my four children. My respect for the wilds of my inner landscape requires a tolerance for not knowing. It requires a trust of the functionality-a functionality which serves me in more ways than one.

The separation of sex and fertility is a separation resulting from a culture which seeks to compartmentalize function. Sex has a function of pleasure, fertility has a function of procreation, and in the Western modern world the rightful relationship between pleasure and procreation has been largely severed. Sex now exists separately from fertility in our culture, where once the two were intricately intertwined in the most impactful, universal, obvious way. The generative potential of sex is now managed away with pharmaceuticals and devices, scorned as a hindrance and inconvenience, and ignored in order to make things like one night stands and porn possible.

Au lit, Le baiser (In bed, the Kiss) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Sex, in its rightful form, is a fruitful endeavor, and pornography and prostitution bear no fruit. These things are not sex, they are systems. In these forms of sex-for-pay, we are domesticating, corporatizing, commodifying and controlling human sexuality and pleasure. We are losing basic understanding of our sexual relational imperatives through these mediums due to the fact that porn is not sex but masquerades as such and does so on a world wide stage for minors and adults alike, impacting expectations and practice.

All of this, and then we call it “work”. This idea of “sex work is work” ignores the fact that prostitution and porn are the sale of bodies, not just labor, and separating sex from fertility has created an environment where these facts can be forgotten. When there are easy technological fixes to the problems that fertility poses for a woman engaging in sex for money, then it becomes easier for both herself and her buyers to lie to themselves and say that the monetary transaction is simply for her time and for her labor, not her body parts.

Purchasing body parts sounds awful, doesn’t it? With no orifices to be rented however, there would be no money changing hands however, would there? Porn and prostitution are certainly physically and mentally laborious, but they are decidedly different than traditional work in that the labor is not the primary draw of the buyer-it is the body itself. This is the difference between a hooker and a handyman.

It can be argued that due to the dangerous nature of the work, that women engaging in paid sex can be compared to men engaging in other (more traditionally male) dangerous work and that this comparison can somehow be used to legitimize the work itself. Say roles along the lines of being a sniper or a miner—both these types of work and sex for pay are dangerous, yes, but that is where the comparison ends. Protection of your nation is honorable. Providence is honorable. There simply is no honor in giving blowjobs to strangers. I see the honor in the work men do to help provide and protect for us all despite the danger they face. I do not see honor in the work prostitutes and porn actresses and actors do, as what is being provided is a disservice to both themselves and their customers.

There is also no honor in being an active participant in an industry which has worked so hard to capture and meld the minds and bodies of countless people through its brain-shifting, addictive, disembodied nature. This insult to the human soul is evident in the way defenders of the industry and its products speak about it.

The “empowered sex worker” or the academia-coded sex worker type (yes, I’m looking at you,

Aella

) especially seem to like to consider themselves a revolutionaries of sorts, when in fact they are just a complicit beneficiary of and a collaborator with an immoral system.

I’m not talking about the woman walking the streets to pay for crack or the single mom who strips to pay for her kid’s food. I’m talking about the women who have convinced themselves that they love and enjoy their work in various forms of (often less physically dangerous forms of) prostitution, speak on it as a matter of female empowerment, and call it feminism. The happy hooker legitimizes the abuse of the women in the same industry who work beneath them.

If porn is a result of sexual liberation, then casual sex and the loosening of sexual morals in general are too. When those morals are compromised and framed as "liberation" by these empowered intellectual-type sex workers, it becomes a lot easier for women of all social statuses to lie to themselves about what they are doing when they engage in sex for pay. It's an over-intellectualizing of sexual morality that actually just subverts it into something completely off and truly unnatural. “Sex work is work” is the ultimate luxury belief and those who defend it are doing so at the peril of all those beneath them on rungs of the social ladder.

I recently read a much-circulated article by

Freya India

entitled The Mass Trauma of Porn¹ and a comment I wrote led to an interaction with one such defender. In this piece, Freya touches on the phenomenon of growing up having been exposed to a lot of pornography and also dating men who have as well, and the issues this brings up for us all. I wrote a comment that was essentially touching on what could be called “the evolutionary mismatch of porn”, staying the following:

I cannot even begin to quantify the amount of times I have seen online conversations or had in-person conversations where something along these lines are uttered in response to a woman who is distraught about her partner’s use of porn, typically from another woman: “porn use is natural, what do you expect from men?!”

To which my response, whether I state it or just choose to keep it in my own head, is “no it isn’t”.

We seem to have confused the natural attraction to attractive people and sexually suggestive behaviors with 24/7 instant access to literally every possible variety of person doing literally every single possible variation of sex act—with no effort or investment required on the part of the viewer.

This isn’t normal, look into history—this is unprecedented. And please, do not be one of those people who compares erotic artwork from the 1700s or whatever to hardcore porn of today, it isn’t the same, everyone knows that, please save it.

Not only is it not normal to access such experiences without having to put some sort of effort into the matter, it isn’t normal to be stimulated in such a manner. This should be obvious, but somehow apparently isn’t to many. It’s the old “common doesn’t mean normal” thing.

When we add in the fact that this isn’t just an adult problem but is now a problem of childhood, the premise should be all the more obvious. The willful ignorance and purposeful disregard of this problem by adults who defend the industry because of their own attachment to it speaks to both the worst parts of human nature and the power of the product. The industry is to blame, but so are individual adults who defend it.

Take two seconds to think critically about history, human nature and the world we live in and realize that just because we grew up with it doesn’t mean this is healthy and fine.

A woman, presumably a escort of some sort (and honestly, potentially even a bot or someone heavily using AI in their writing), responded with the following:

You’re not critiquing systems. You’re condemning a medium because it doesn’t match your comfort threshold. And that’s not moral clarity. That’s personal discomfort masquerading as truth.

What you call “not normal” is actually just accessible. The scale has changed. Human desire hasn’t. We’ve always created erotic content. We’ve always explored fantasy. What’s new is that women now produce and profit from it. That’s the part that feels “unprecedented”—not because it’s unnatural, but because it’s uncontrolled.

If you’re angry about algorithmic targeting, lack of age gates, or exploitative platforms, I’m with you. But blaming the existence of sex work for your discomfort with porn’s visibility? That’s stigma. Not analysis.

Also, the people you’re calling defenders of a toxic product? Many of us are the product. Workers. Survivors. Humans. You want to criticise the system? Great. But don’t erase us to do it.

My response:

A medium is “the intervening substance through which impressions are conveyed to the senses”. In being critical of the substance the system produces and sells in order to convey a twisted, artificial, industrialized version of human sexuality to the senses of the people, is one not also being critical of the system itself?

Personal discomfort is the result of accessing the truth about the substance.

The scale is not the only thing that has changed, the medium itself has changed. An erotic Venus figure has morphed into videos of barely legal (or hell, not legal at all) teenagers getting deep throated by strangers until they vomit, and the form and structure of the continued subjugation of human sexuality continues to morph via technology—into such atrocities like deepfakes and AI child sex abuse materials.

Human desire actually is changing as a result of pornography. It encourages objectification and as such, sexual violence, particularly against women and children. Consider the fact that we have record numbers of children offending against other children. Problematic sexual behavior amongst the pediatric population is highly associated with exposure to both non-violent and violent porn. Pornography is a very active participant in the evolution of the human brain and considering the massive scale you speak of here (apparently as a positive thing), the damage is being done on the same massive scale and it starts in childhood.

The fact that women produce and profit from their own exploitation and the inevitable harm of the children exposed to their “work” isn’t the boon to feminism you clearly think it is. Through legitimizing the commodification of both one’s body and sexuality, those who consciously and actively participate in various forms of prostitution and call it empowerment are in fact glorifying the abuse and harm of both the women and children who engage in the system not as a matter of choice but of force or desperation. The “happy hooker” is the more tasteful, easily digestible facade of an industry that is based in exploitation. Exploitation is inherent in the premise of the work and the individual is an agent of the system that work exists within.

I am angry about algorithmic targeting, lack of age gates and exploitative platforms. I also am angry that the people who produce and profit off of all of these things, including women, choose to continue to do so despite knowing of the existence of all of these things—things their work is tied to, whether they like it or not. Again, willful ignorance and purposeful disregard—except this time with a fat paycheck attached to it. Pornography isn’t formed by human desire, it is forming human desire and is itself formed by human greed. That’s analysis, not stigma.

Workers, survivors, humans, yes. Products, no. People are not products. Stating this isn’t erasing you, it truthfully perceiving you as a person with a natural born right to human dignity.

I share this because the arguments of this suspiciously human-adjacent character are a good summary of the depth of the delusion in those who practice the religion of choice-as-highest-good (whether this was written by a real human or AI doesn’t really matter as AI is clearly being trained on the expressed thoughts of people who practice these beliefs). It’s all about women making money! It just makes you uncomfortable because women are getting compensated! Porn is just fantasy! Don’t stigmatize sex workers! People can be products if they like being products! In her reply, which I shall not include in full due to the fact that this is already quite long-winded (no one ever accused me of being short-winded!), there was a lot of this:

“Sex just makes you nervous, so you turn it into a moral outlier.”

“You are not seeing products, you are seeing your own fears reflected back. You want someone to blame for a world you cannot control. The truth is that porn and sex work are not the source of your discomfort. Panic and the urge to police desire are.”

“Sex is just your easy villain.”

This is a theme commonly encountered by any woman who dare utter her opposition to prostitution and porn. Men and women alike very much enjoy crying “insecure!”, “puritanical” and perhaps that good old standby “ugly” at women such as myself who believe coercive, transactional sex for money is maybe not that great for society. What they miss is the fact that perhaps it isn’t prudish to spurn porn. Maybe it is actually born of an affinity for the fervent and fruitful parts of ourselves where vitality lives, maybe it is an appreciation of sex within right relationship, maybe it is out of a reverence for life itself, especially so for those who have made life with our bodies. Maybe rejecting the sex industry is actually sort of, dare I say it…sexy. Also, I’m not ugly.

Sex is undeniably connected to life and vitality, and I believe that prostitution is not just a commodification of one’s beauty and physicality, but of one’s reproductive capacity, even when reproduction is being prevented. The sexual impulse cannot be separated from the reality of its generative origin, and choosing to capitalize on these most innate and special parts of ourselves is a degradation of self and of the act. Porn and prostitution are an affront to the wondrous and miraculous nature of sex.

People like myself don’t disagree with and dislike porn because women are making money, we disagree with it and dislike it because it is a reduction. Porn subtracts what is good and beautiful about human sexuality from the act. It takes it away from the performers, it takes it away from the consumers, it takes it away from relationships. The same goes for other forms of sex for pay.

Further, people like myself are not interested in policing desire, but also do not think it is healthy for society for the sex industry to pander to the worst of human desires, thereby feeding them and fueling their growth and depravity.

Desire should inspire excellence in the individual. Maintaining sexual access to the opposite sex requires a willingness to be vulnerable and may require individuals to do whatever work is needed to make themselves desirable. Enduring rejection is inherent to this process, and it is a fundamental part of being human. It is also something that porn and prostitution allow people to skip. Instant gratification goes hand in hand with mediocrity.

The sex industry is flourishing thanks to capitalism, tech, and social isolation—and it is a symptom of a sick society just as much as it is a cause of it. Industrialized sex is the reflection of the capture of the collective sexual mind. Porn and prostitution are forms of relational severance, as they are the result of the individual turning away from relationship, from love, from true desire and from the acknowledgement of how interdependent sex and fertility are. Just as a mother and her child are indisputably interdependent, so too are the elements which create both mothers and babies. We cannot escape the fact that our physiological utility is enmeshed with our relational and emotional needs and imperatives, nor should we desire to.

Reunifying sex and fertility requires a willingness to accept what is difficult, messy, sad, and painful about both of these things. It also requires a re-enchantment, one which helps us to remember how enduring the mutuality between sex and fertility is, how reciprocal the relationship between love and life is, and how these things are actually protective of the human soul. Both the souls of those engaging in these acts and the souls which will be born from those acts thrive where they are cherished, and the reunification of sex and fertility allows for this via its protective nature. It is protective because in its practice, the wildness of sex is apparent, and therefore so too is the reason to honor and account for fertility.

Let us choose to be cherished, and choose to cherish. Let us deindustrialize sex.

1. The Mass Trauma of Porn